The Future of Facebook and the Emergence of Quantum Communities

By Gerald Harris

Consultant and Authorwww.artofquantumplanning.com

July, 2010

Introduction

This presentation is part of the Ideas for the Future series on my website related to my book, The Art of Quantum Planning. These ideas are meant to foster the kind of learning-oriented planning that I advocate.

This presentation is inspired by the ideas and information provided in the book, The Quantum Society, by Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall*. I am very appreciative of their work (published in 1994, 15 years before mine) and feel my book is an extension of the desire expressed in their book that ideas and metaphors from quantum mechanics be the basis for creating better organizations and a better world.

I am returning to Facebook, which I mentioned on page 137 of my book as showing an example of quantum strategy in the decision to add a newsfeed capability for users. This presentation will greatly extend my focus on Facebook as an emergent quantum relational community (QRC). Facebook the company is not an emergent quantum relational community, but Facebook the company has created an emergent quantum relational community through its products and services. This presentation will explain what this means, suggests some key factors around the economics of such a community and suggest possible scenarios for how such communities will evolve.

*See chapter 5 of the book in particular.

What is a quantum relational community?

The more [rigidly] connected the elements of a system, the less influence they will have on the system as a whole…The more [rigid] the connections, the more each element of the system will exhibit a greater degree of “alienation” from the whole.

Von Foerster’s Theorem

The Quantum particle/wave duality:

Light has the properties of both a particle and a wave and it is either based on how one is looking at it (or measuring it).

A quantum relational community is one composed of elements that are quantum in nature and which relate to one another in a dance (in both their particle and wave forms) to create a community (or system) that has emergent qualities derived from those relationships. The emergent qualities are based on the rigidity of the elements and the rigidity of their connections.

Facebook as a Quantum Relational Community

People have a quantum aspects as they are both individuals with specific characteristics and they are also evolving and growing members of institutions which extend beyond themselves (families, clubs, schools, nations, etc.) People have both particle and wave aspects and can be identified as either depending on who they are interacting with. Facebook allows both these aspects of participants to be active.

Communications technology (specifically the internet) has made it possible to build quantum relational communities on a global scale because it has put in place the infrastructure through which the interconnections can be made.

Facebook and other networking sites are taking advantage of this and creating quantum relational communities for ostensibly business purposes.

Other Quantum Relational Communities

Quantum relational community aspects exist throughout the web. Wikipedia and its contributors are such a community. However to make a contribution to a Wiki entry has some barriers of approval and review so it does not have a completely free flow nature for the community of participants creating the content.

People who regularly follow blogs are a community as well, though not very much information is available on individual followers and their interactions are generally limited to blog entries. Linkedin groups are communities as well with focused content related interactions.

I do not consider MySpace or YouTube as QRCs. They are individual media broadcast outlets and the interconnection aspects of QRCs are missing or minimal.

A Dichotomy of Quantum Relational Communities

Key Characteristic Description of Key Characteristic

Examples

Rigidity of the Border/Entry Restrictions

How are hard or easy it is to become a participating member?

Facebook and Linkedin are easy

Wikipedia-hard

Rigidity of Individual Participation

What are the nature, usefulness and openness of services to the individual?

Facebook has high usability

Blog followers have limited usability/services

Rigidity of Extended Participation and Connections

What are the nature, usefulness and openness of services relating to others

Facebook rates high Linkedin groups and blogs in the middle

Rigidity of Free Flow Interaction

How easy is it to communicate with other members?

High in almost all cases due to the capabilities of the internet

The Economics of Quantum Relational Communities

QRCs cost money to create and maintain. The costs are spread among the creators and participants. The creators have cost related to system design, evolution and maintenance among others. Participants have cost related to paying for use of the communications infrastructure used to participate (devices, communications services, time, etc.).

For the purpose of this discussion I will assume the cost of participation is minor and of little importance, but if these cost rise substantially in the long term (unlikely due to the innovation in the communications technology) this might be revisited.

Cost recovery and long term profitability for the creators of QRCs is an important issue because if these costs are not covered the QRCs cannot survive, or must change form in order to.

One key feature of the economics of QRCs (that exist with all networked type organizations) is that system wide and system emergent benefits are difficult to monetize and are shared among the participants. The interaction of participants create these benefits and they occur in too dispersed a manner to capture.

Using the four characteristics of QRCs, I will suggest overleaf some core ideas about the economics of QRCs from the creators standpoint.

The Economics of Quantum Relational Communities

Key Characteristic Revenue Opportunity Experience to date

Border/Entry Restrictions Charge a fee to be a member

Not done in order to build the community. Some membership blogs can charge indirectly bundled into other services.

Individual Participation Charge fees for special services accessed by individual members

Must have a high value added nature and tendency to give it away for free as a way to build community.

Extended Participation and Connections

Advertising and sharing information with and among members

The primary revenue generator where the size of community counts. The cost to members is just time.

Free Flow Interaction Priority access to certain kinds of interactions

Not sure where this has been tried and it must pass the value added test.

Future Scenarios on the Evolution of Quantum Relational Communities

Provided for Discussion and Further Thinking and Learning

Key Drivers of Change for QRCs

Evolution and Use of Communication Technology: How will the hardware and software infrastructure base upon which QRCs reside change (i.e., the impact of Moore’s Law?) How quickly will it be used to evolve QRC features?

Evolution of the Personal Politics of Trust: How will people feel about and be willing to risk sharing their information in QRCs. How will they want this information to be used by others and why?

Government Policy Toward QRCs: How will governments react to the growing power of QRCs to impact human activity and behavior?

Competitive Industry Conditions for QRCs; How will new entrants into the QRC market place change the nature of the industry?

Emergence of Global Properties of QRCs: What system wide features and capabilities may emerge from QRCs and their interactions with other QRCs?

This list above is not intended to be exhaustive, but a starting point. Users may think of others and create their own scenarios as I do below. Of course they can use their scenarios to assess implications and potential strategies as well.

Derivation of QRC Future Scenario Structure

Evolution of and Use of Communications Technology

Highly innovative Fast Uptake

Moderate innovation Moderate Uptake

Government Policy Toward QRCs

Accommodating Adaptive

Impeding Restrictive

I selected these two drivers as most important and uncertain (no magic, just decided, you might differ). I selected them by taking the view of a creator of a QRC and asking what I would be most concerned about in growing my community and what could impact my operations and profitability.

Future of QRC Scenario Matrix

Government Policy Toward QRCS

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AccommodatingRestrictive

High Fast

Moderate Moderate

World of Super QRC Democracy

Market World for QRCs

Toxic World of QRCs

Fragmented World of QRCs

QRC Scenario Summaries*

Government Policy Toward QRCS

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AccommodatingRestrictive

High Fast

Moderate Moderate

Fragmented World: This is a world in which different policies by different nation-states fragment the use of and expansion of QRCs. There are uneven results around the world and widely different emergent qualities to QRCs. The economics of QRCs are negatively impacted by this fragmentation.

Super QRC Democracy: This is a world in which the emergent qualities of QRCs begin to change what a democratic society is, and more bottom-up policies emerge. The net impact is to move societies ahead but in the chaotic fashion of democracy. QRCs perform well, but some become like regulated utilities.

Market World: The boom and bust cycles of markets impact the growth of QRCs leaving wasted investments and losses. This slows the growth of QRCs for some periods and accelerates it in others as new entrants innovate. An uneven industry develops with ranges of high-end and low-end options.

Toxic QRC World: Both governments and users find reasons not to trust QRCs as emergent qualities and human behaviors lead to unanticipated problems. QRCs become regulated and restricted. Participation in QRCs peak and more traditional forms of communication re-emerge based on trust.

*These can be more fully developed with a diverse group.

The Future of Facebook: Scenario Implications

Scenario Implications for Facebook and QRCs

Fragmented QRC World

Global expansion peaks by 2015 and national laws lead to a fragmented Facebook with widely varying structures and costs in different nations and regions of the world. The fragmented nature reduces the benefits of QRCs for users. The emergent characteristics of national and regional Facebooks make management decisions difficult.. Investors see higher risks to investment.

Super QRC Democracy

Global expansion continues beyond 2020 but the rate of growth slows over time. Facebook and other QRCs take on characteristics of fundamental sources of information for citizenship and consumerism. As lives become more mediated government and community connectedness adapt as modern society evolves.

QRC Market World

Market competition in the QRC space reduces growth for Facebook and a boom and bust cycle emerges. New technology increases options for service, but competition lowers returns and this slows technology adoption. Business models with global applicability expand with lots of mergers.

Toxic QRC World

A combination of poor attempts to monetize information in QRCs and abuses by rogue participants lowers the level of trust vital to QRC participation. Industry-wide growth slows, varied national regulations emerge, and profits decline. Facebook and other QRCs peak by 2015 and begin to fade as other communication options emerge building on traditional human scales.

The Evolution of QRCs

The evolution of QRCs will be primarily determined by two factors. First, the participation and innovations of individual members and how those innovations spread throughout and cause emergent qualities in the communities. These emergent qualities are entirely unpredictable and might only be limited by what human beings find useful and interesting. To the extent the emergent qualities contribute positively to the advancement of a community they will likely be more long lasting.

Secondly, the economic performance of QRCs will shape them. The business models which provide returns to investors will expand. This raises the question of how the advertising-based business model will evolve and what, if any, other significant revenues can be generated by value-added premium services. Technology advances may be the only way this question gets answered in the future.

Private and proprietary QRCs may be able to indirectly charge entry fees.

Special purpose and time-limited QRCs may emerge as a tool for business, however their value may be limited due to the fact that system-wide benefits in networked organization are hard to capture and easy to subsidize.

If you have reactions or comments about this presentation, please send them to me at gerald@artofquantumplanning.com.