Out of the three network laws, I agree most with Sarnoff’s
law. Probably because it is the simplest of the three laws and it’s really the
only one that I truly understand. This
law doesn’t require any math to prove its value just some common sense is all that
you need. The law states that the value of a network increases linearly with
the number of individuals who are using the network.. I don’t think this law
strictly applies to radio and television but the World Wide Web as well. When referring to the value of networks I
assume that they are talking about financial value and information value as
well. When it comes to financial value, a website/network is going to be worth
more money to advertisers if they have a large user base. The more people that
visit a website the more chances advertisers have to expose there products to
individuals. This is a clear example of a network’s financial value increasing
or decreasing as it’s user base either grows or shrinks. This can also apply to information value as well.
The more that people can connect with one another equals more information being
exchanged over the Internet. This doesn’t have to be a person to person
exchange. An individual just needs to post information on a site or a blog and
then it can easily be accessed by the world. People need to be careful because
not everything you read on the web is true but the Internet does make it way
easier to search and find information that you can use and apply to life giving
it great value.
In five years I think people will be finding information in
a similar fashion as they do today. Our digital devices are probably going to
change drastically but I have a feeling our methods won’t change much. Instead
of typing a question in the Google search bar, we’ll probably just verbally ask
search engines to find things for us. I have a feeling Siri is going to be
helping people out for years to come.
-Nick Neary
