LATEST ENTRY

LINKS | Noah Brier

the gentrification of geek news communities

July 8, 2008 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 2 COMMENTS

One of the questions I have about the world is whether it's possible to ascend without an eventual descent. I expect Newton answered that question a long time ago,, but in terms of companies or communities it's fascinating to me. 15 years ago it would have seemed impossible that Microsoft would have been knocked off its perch and today it seems equally impossible that Google will descend. However, if history (or gravity) is any lesson, we know that it will eventually fall. The same seems to be true with communities: Hippies eventually became yuppies after all. (Kind of relates to Metcalfe's Plateau.)

Anyway, I really liked this analogy from a post about how geek news sites get quickly overrun: "The shift of online communities resembles urban development and the gentrification of many hip neighborhoods. The artists and hackers move in first, they are in development parlance, risk tolerant. For urban neighborhoods that means they’ll deal with crime if they can get cool warehouses to take over. Then slowly the neighborhood transforms, and gets some nice cafes and clubs, gets known as the place where the hip kids play, and more people come. Rent gets driven up, the crowds come, it becomes to crowded, and the hipsters have to move on. Just replace hipsters with alpha geeks and you get the same process."

via waxy.org // Tags: community, networks


PREVIOUS ENTRY | NEXT ENTRY

LEAVE A COMMENT

First name, first and last, whatever you feel like.

Required, but not displayed (so don't worry about spam).

If you've got one, flaunt it.

You can use some HTML (a's, br's, p's, oh my!) if you'd like, if you don't know what that means, don't worry about it.
REMEMBER ME?

COMMENTS

1evan

never thought of it this way. have to say i agree. 2 years ago, digg was a great place for news, tech and otherwise. now it's overrun with lolcats and rickrolls -- the internet equivalent to a starbucks on every corner, i suppose.

July 8, 2008

2Alan Wolk

I've seen a similar analogy made about social media sites and hip nightclubs:

1. First all the cool kids go there and no one knows about it.
2. Then the media catches on and writes about how all the cool kids go there.
3. Then the bridge and tunnel crowd (or its online equivalent) shows up.
4. Eventually the B&T crowd takes over and the cool kids move on.


July 22, 2008