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Contents 1 'Pentagram?' 1.1 Etc 1.2 Pyramid schemes 1.3 Biased Viewpoint? 1.4 Negative and Positive Network Effects

[edit] 'Pentagram?'

What is going on with the pentagram of telephones?

Clearly telephones (and all technology for that matter) is Satanic.

[edit] Etc

This is a very business approach article, the illustrations are great, though Network effects did not appear with Internet. Any english-speaking economist around ? Network effects not always play first positively, than negatively.

The "roughtly proportional to the square" argument in the introduction is only true if the externality for every user is positively proportional to the number of users, which is rarely the case. It give a good insight to the influence of the thing, but Network effects should not be associated with "square" in the mind of entreprenuers if we want o avoid another Internet bubble.

There is no theory on negative network effects, thought it is as interesting as the first one, and given the business examples should be usefull.

• Similarly, the article seems focused on actual networks, while the term is frequently applied to all externalities where the number of prior adopters is a term in the value available to the next adopter. I could see renaming it network externalities and being more explicit in the positive / negative sides. Chrisvls 20:00, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• • I removed Metcalfe's Law from the opening paragraph. It does not help with the explanation of the term and is only a minor finding in the context of network externalities/effects. On externalities vs. effects, the term was first introduced by Michael Katz and Carl Shapiro in 1985 as network externalities. The problem with externalities is that it ignores the possibility that the owner of the network can "internalize" the costs and benefits, so that an externality in the economic sense does not occur for the normal user. The term effects is more general and includes the special case of a network externality. Checking googlefight it seems this usage has caught on, and even the original authors use effects today. trialsanderrors 10:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pyramid schemes

I wonder if pyramid schemes should be referred to as well, as a case of "when networks go bad". Anyone agree? If so, anyone want to write it up?--A bit iffy 00:01, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think they should be mentioned here. I kind of see the link, but Network Effects are talking about quite a different thing to pyramid schemes (positive externalities vs. exponential/viral growth). Psychobabble 04:57, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Psychobabble. Both topics deserve their own articles. However a paragraph could be added in the network effect article explaining how the effect operates in pyramid schemes. mydogategodshat 17:08, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I think pyramid schemes do deserve a brief discussion here. The logic is: Not all network effects are pyramid schemes, but all pyramid schemes are network effects.--Chesapean 14:11, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biased Viewpoint?

The sentence "This may go a long way to explaining the underlying source of consistent bad usability in Windows products." seems rather biased, has no references or backup - surely not NPOV?

I agree that this statement is not NPOV, and have removed it from the article. Gutzalpus 08:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Negative and Positive Network Effects

The section about the automobile example is extremely vague, and I'm not really sure what it has to do with the network effect. Perhaps this could be elaborated on some more. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.9.213.10 (talk) 08:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC).