Metcalf's Law

We continue to discuss McLuhan and his theories of communication. It's been interesting to say the least, but we've also gotten to write about things like shared drives, a major interest of mine professionally.

Here's the URL for an article John Gallagher wrote on networks and shared drives in media production:

http://www.avid.com/education/NewModelsforMediaProduction.pdf

Jiri Auric Goldfinger likes John Gallagher. You might say we have much in common.

Metcalf's Law is something I hope we can discuss further. It is the primary theory behind telecommunications networks. It says:

"A network increases in value in proportion to the square of the number of nodes on the network."

In simple terms, the more telephones there are the more valuable each telephone is, but once you put a computer on a network it applies as well. And peripherals too. A networked printer is much more valuable than one that isn't. Servers with shared drives are also nodes, and information on a shared drive increases in value as well.