Shirky:

Shirky talks in this article about P2P. Although he is trying very hard to explain what P2P exactly is, I still don’t get it. So, my question is: is there a simple definition of P2P? And yes, I found it in the Rutherford article: P2P applications […] allow users to communicate synchronously, doing things such as instant messaging, working on shared documents and searching each other’s computers for files.[1]

            I know it’s a rather brief question and answer, but I really can’t come up with another question.

Rutherford:

In this article, Rutherford talks about peer-to-peer (P2P). On page 3, he says: Some industry watchers predict that some commercial e-commerce ventures will start using P2P technology. This article is four years old, so, were those industry watchers right?

            I think P2P applications became much more common than four years ago. Nowadays, you almost can’t imagine what the Internet is without the P2P applications. Well, at least, I can’t imagine that, addicted to KaZaA and msnJ. But what strikes me is that there that much advertising on these P2P applications. At msn, you have some advertising for Messenger-tools, but the advertising isn’t aggressive. When you want to see it, you can click it away. At KaZaA, I see now advertising at all. None. KaZaA and msn are two well known P2P applications; the first one doesn’t contain advertising at all and the second one only a bit. So, I think you can say that the industry watchers in the Rutherford article were wrong.

Boase and Wellman:

What’s my opinion on Boase and Wellman?

Boase and Wellman divide social networks in two groups to explain how viruses (biological viruses, computer viruses and viral marketing) work. There are densely knit groups and there are ramified networks. In a densely knit group, most members know each other, are in frequent contact with each other, and have little contact with outsiders. In a ramified network, few members are in contact with each other, and a large portion of interactions are with outsiders. Boase and Wellman say that those two groups are idealistic, there not realistic. The common social networks is glocalization: rather densely clusters of relationships (usually at home, at work, and with kin) that also have many ramified ties to other people and groups (Wellman, 1999; Hampton 2001).

            Why would Boase and Wellman explain the viruses on non-realistic social networks? I think it would be a lot more effective if they explain it on glocalization, because that’s more representative in society, that’s the way society looks like. We don’t live in densely knit groups, you always have connections outside your group. And we neither live in ramified networks, because there’s always a core, for example family, or friends, or colleagues. So, it’s useless to only look at those two groups.