Two Laws and a Coefficient

T = G * H * S * B

where...

T :: Time to becoming Myspace
G :: Growth rate in hundreds of people per month
H :: Henderson's Constant, an as yet unknown number (likely an expression of months squared)
S :: whether or not high schoolers are allowed, 1/4 if they are not, 2 if they are
B :: whether or not there is a blog function, 1/4 if there is not, 2 if there is

I said that earlier. Now I've actually done Research though!

I estimate that Facebook became Myspace when applications were first added, making it more about duping your friends into littering their profile page with crap than other stuff. This was May 24, 2007, a mere 38 months after facebooks inception and only 7 months after it allowed high-schoolers to join. Given this information, and some critical thinking about the above formula, I need to fix it a bit.

For one thing, I was wildly wrong about the growth rate. It appears that facebook now gains about 1 million new users per month, at least according to this chart:


That number off to the left is users IN MILLIONS. As of March '07 (one month before I estimate they went Myspace) they were at 15 million users, and you can clearly see the upwards jolt once they allowed the high schoolers in. I'm not sure blogging has anything to do with it now, I think it may just be about how many users, because the more people you have using an online service or utility, the more idiotic something tends to become (Henderson's First Law of The Internet). Of course, everything will eventually become idiotic (Henderson's Second Law of The Internet).

Regarding the chart, we clearly see users per month approximately double immediately after they're allowed in, from about 250,000 - 500,000 per month to better than 1 million per month (it took four months to climb from 10 million to 15 million). So high schoolers are clearly part of the equation, but really only insomuch as they influence the growth rate. At this point, It's about the growth rate simply multiplied by my constant, which is obviously no longer a constant.

In aerodynamics, every three-dimensional object moving through the air has what is called a coefficient of lift and a coefficient of drag. They are multipliers thrown into the lift and drag equations (respectively) that shape the equation for that particular object. Other factors apply, such as speed and air density, but these ones particularize it and can only be found in a wind tunnel through trial and error by actually charting the lift and reducing all the variables. In other words, it's EXTREMELY difficult to know the coefficient of lift of a wing you've only drawn or build small models of.

I postulate that it is not Henderson's Constant, but in fact Henderson's Coefficient, or the Coefficient of Myspace, which would innately factor in high schoolers, applications, music sharing, and all the quirks that social networking sites offer. This number, only calculable after the fact, indicates time to becoming Myspace. Notably, Myspace themselves hit 15 million users approximately one year after it's inception, growing intermittently up to 1 million new users per month up to and persistently at that rate after 18 months.

This is what I have so far.

T = (G * CM)

T :: Time to becoming Myspace
G :: Average growth rate of the past six months, expressing hundreds of thousands (ie: 100,000 per month is 1/1 month)
CM :: Coefficient of Myspace, an as yet unknown number, likely an expression of months squared thus matching out all the units.

Given that myspace rose up that quickly, I'll estimate that CM is somewhere around .1 for most sites, so that when growth rate consistently achieves 1 million per month time to becoming myspace is extremely short.

I have not yet studied growth rates for many other social networking sites or growth rates after idiocy is established.

TRH