How is it that some members of online social networks have so many connections? Connections that number in the high hundreds, and sometimes even thousands? Do these users really know that many people?

A couple of years ago I was working on a presentation about inspiring technologies and their ability to influence future product development across a number of markets. One aspect of my presentation touched on social networks and their ability to bring people together that otherwise may not have the opportunity to interact with like minded people in the physical world. While preparing for this part of my presentation, I wondered “How is it that some people have so many social network connections?” While it’s not necessarily the norm, I noticed a small minority of users from services like LinkedIn and Facebook had hundreds, if not thousands, of connections. These people couldn’t be that gregarious, could they?

In my search for an answer, I stumbled upon a theory called Dunbar’s Number. Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, explored and published his thoughts on social groups, largely as a result of studying primate societies in the wild. Through his observations with primates, he developed a theory related to “social grooming”. Social grooming could be considered the meaningful, if not necessary, connections that exist between members of the chimpanzee tribes he was studying. Dunbar’s theory attempts to determine a primate’s maximum social size based on the dimensions of the animal’s neocortex (the size of its brain). Once he defined this theory, he applied it to a number of different animal species and other forms of evolved species, including people. The result? 148.

This number, 148 (or really 147.8) is the number Dunbar determined to be the maximum number of meaningful connections any person could have in their own personal social group. In social theory circles, this number is rounded up to be 150 meaningful connections.

(Before moving forward with my post, I’d like to point out that while Dunbar suggest that social group sizes of people could be correlated to a person’s brain size, many other researchers who study social group theories of humans do not. My article is simply an exploration of the concept, not an endorsement. Also, due to the logarithmic nature of this theory, coupled with a 95% accuracy calculation, this maximum number could be as low as 110 or as high as 210, depending on the fudge factor you’re willing to allow Dunbar’s formula.)

Can this number somehow help explain why some people have so many connections through social networking tools online? Well, not entirely, but I do see many individuals interested in online social networking who become familiar with this theory, reference it often.

Let me share with you my experience growing my own social network. My social networking product of choice for business is LinkedIn. I became a member over four years ago, not entirely understanding what social networking was all about or how it could possibly mean anything to me. Once I started dabbling with the service, reaching out to others and asking them to join my “network”, the number of users connected to me slowly started to grow. I distinctly remember how hard it was to grow a network in the early days of using the service. After a year of dabbling I reached about 50 connections. It was around that time that I slowly started to see things differently. I was just beginning to understand how to harness the power of social networks and its benefits, to understand the math involved in networked connections for finding other people who may have similar personal or business interests to my own. For each connection I added, I was able to reach exponentially more people beyond that single connection, all through the miracle of technology.

After some time and effort of regular use the big day came. I reached 150 connections. “Wow!” I said to myself, thinking I had finally reaching the upper number of my own personal village as defined by Dunbar. I sat back, and felt some kind of anthropological bliss having reached the outer limits of my social group size. But then, a strange thing started to happen. My network continued to grow, not entirely through own my efforts. I soon reached 160 connections, 170, 180, 190, 200. Fast forward many months and my network is just about to break 300 connections, twice the size of what Dunbar’s theory hypothesized. (Even with the math fluctuation, I still exceeded 210 connections.) What happened?? Was something wrong with the size of my neocortex? What would Dunbar say about the number of my connections?

I started to see social groups on a number of different levels. Could it be that Dunbar’s number is really a general formula to apply to a single social plane that, while developed based on one species, does not carry to another? Could it also be that Dunbar’s theory was all about self preservation, whereas the way most people engage in social circles is all about self selection? Anyone who has many different interests may very well engage in a variety of self-selected social planes.

While I don’t have a definitive answer to share here regarding multi-plane social spheres, this exploration started me on a path to question the strength of any connection between two individuals. When reviewing the strength of a connection between myself and any any other person in my network, I becomes clear immediately that the connection strength between myself and any other person I connect to varies greatly. I wondered if this connection strength could be charted out in some way, and if doing so would tell me something about Dunbar’s Number. I wondered if I could find an answer by crossing Dunbar’s theory with that of the Bell Curve. Having remembered that my grades in college were sometimes charted out on a Bell Curve, could the same be done with all of my self selected connections?

I began by looking up the definition of a Bell Curve, and among the answers I found one stated: “Many biological, psychological and social phenomena occur in the population in the distribution we call the bell curve.” Hmmm, those “social phenomena” words sure jumped out at me.

To get started with my experiment, I theorized and then defined different levels of “connected strength” any person could have with another. I defined these varying connections in the following way:

Group I – Family members and/or very close friends

Group II – Good friends

Group III – People you knew or are acquainted with

Group IV – People you knew but not that well

Group V – People you did not know at all

If I applied this labeling to the fictitious virtual village I lived in within LinkedIn at Dunbar’s social group size of 150, the numbers for each category above would be 3, 21, 102, 21, 3 according to the Bell Curve spread. This village in the real world would loosely translate into the following:

• I had a mother, father and one very close friend or sibling in this village.
• I had 21 friends, possibly relatives, that I knew well.
• There were 102 additional people in my village, performing various necessary roles and services (teacher, baker, doctor, farmer, etc.)
• I knew 21 people that were part of my village but I didn’t really know them very well because I didn’t interact with them as often
• There were 3 complete strangers I didn’t recognize or know at all.

But in my LinkedIn world I didn’t have 150 connections; I have about 300. Would the connections in my own online network break out as nicely into these same mathematical groupings, at least in terms of a percentage? I downloaded a list of everyone I was connected with through LinkedIn. I then rated the strength of my connection based on the above categories, and lo and behold, the groupings and percentages were pretty close, not exact, but close!

I’m thinking that Dunbar’s upper limit of 150 meaningful connections does not hold true with how individuals engage online (or for that matter even offline) with self-selected social groups. But maybe there’s something here about the varying strength of connections within one’s own social community, at least in terms of these connective strength percentages.

I have many more thoughts on this and other related social group observations, including what it means if your percentages don’t nicely fit within the above described number. I’ve also been thinking about how this information could be used to explain children building their own social groups, but that will have to wait for another day. Thanks for reading.

[The following is an article I wrote for the May 2008 issue of Children’s Technology Review. For those unfamiliar with this monthly magazine, it’s a great information resource to all the latest software, gaming, and technology products being released for children.]

Last month, I was presenting at a conference for education publishers when someone raised his hand and asked “What’s a Webkinz?” Hmmmm, I thought. Doesn’t everyone know about Webkinz World? Shouldn’t everyone know about this site and others like it without the excuse “I don’t have kids.” The next day, somebody asked me, “What’s an avatar?” I was starting to understand that there were still plenty of publishers firmly stuck in yesterday’s Web 1.0 world. But don’t worry. We’ll fix the problem the way we developers always do – with a Patch.

The Web 2.0.1 Patch is designed to help you become more thoughtful when creating interactive experiences for children (and it works well for school or library websites, as well). Installing this Patch in your brain is a quick and painless process as long as you have a USB 2.01 port just behind your left ear. Or, you can follow these three steps.

STEP 1 – Create an account for yourself in a virtual world like Club Penguin, Pirate’s Online, Nicktropolis, Second Life or any of the many virtual worlds that are popping up all over.
Once you have an account, test it out and play with it. Keep in mind – like many other Web 2.0 products available you may not see the benefits immediately, but you will see incremental improvements every time you come back to visit one of these virtual worlds.

STEP 2 – Upload digital photos to Flickr or a video to YouTube.
Don’t forget to include some tags that describe what you’re uploading so for others can easily find it. Once you have posted something, control your excitement, pat yourself on the back, and email friends and family with a link to your newly posted UGC (User Generated Content)!

STEP 3 – Create a personal profile on Facebook, LinkedIn, or any another similar social networking site.
If you don’t know one that’s right for you, ask a smart computer friend what she uses (chances are she will have already installed the 2.0.1 Patch and will be familiar with the requirements). If your techy friend is not available, casually ask someone under the age of 20 what sites they use. Don’t tell them that you are setting up a new account. If you do, he or she might give you that “Web 1.0 look” and then slowly back away.

Here are just a few of the benefits you’ll be able to enjoy from downloading and installing this Patch:

• You will start from, and work from, a central plan.
  If you’re designing a site or service with social features, there will be no more “winging it” or making it up as you go along. Thinking through the design of your new web idea, writing it down, and sharing it with all of your team members are more important now than ever before.
  

• You’ll test your work with your target audience.
  The Patch works best when testing is considered at the very beginning of your product’s definition on paper and throughout the development process. Some of you might explain “We never had to test our products during the Web 1.0 days!” Yes, in many ways the Web 1.0 days were a simpler time, and a time we will all look back on with nostalgia. However, the hustle and bustle of today’s fast-paced Web 2.0 world demands ongoing testing.
  

• After you install the 2.0.1 Patch, you’ll have zero tolerance for UI (user interface) mistakes.
  If buttons or other interactive controls don’t function as they are supposed to, your product will be in violation of the User’s Agreement. It is important to think through the entire user experience fully before launching an interactive product. This requirement can’t be overstated. You can’t blame it on Flash, Microsoft or some browser error. That’s the 1.0 baby talk of the past.
  

• If you are a Web 2.0 savvy developer, keep in mind that it is possible your audience is not acknowledging that he or she is a Web 1.0 user.
  Education outreach and friendly intervention is an important component of the Web 2.0 vision. Take the time to gently explain how their actions are hurting others around them. Also explain the benefits of the Web 2.0 universe. (Note: This should be apparent in the development documentation you will have recently created for your plan). To keep your Web 2.0 chops fresh, try out the latest ground breaking technologies, like the iPod Touch interface, for example. You may not know how to find it at first, but be diligent.

These steps can avoid wasting countless hours and dollars, and they can prevent you from having to install the 2.1.1 Patch and a 2.1 Update. In the end, keeping your Patches up-to-date can result in better products and happier users.

On May 9th, the first ever Joan Ganz Cooney Center Symposium was kicked off at the McGraw-Hill offices located in New York City. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is the newest addition to the Sesame Workshop enterprise. Its mission is to offer guidance, research and insight into how children can learn through emerging media. The symposium itself was an amazing event. A stellar list of speakers and influential attendees from diverse areas of education, broadcast, gaming and the toy world came together to discuss the future of learning and technology for children in the 21st century. This jam-packed event included presentations from over 34 different industry insiders. Over 150 invited guests filled the room. Included on the guest list was Congressman George Miller (D-CA) who is the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

All of the presentations offered many important perspectives and voices that are shaping the learning and technology conversation today. A number of speakers served up new research and valuable insights to chew on long after the event concluded. While there was significant take-away from all of the speakers, I would like to call out two specific presentations. These include the presentations of Connie Yowell of the MacArthur Foundation and Jennifer Kotler of Sesame Workshop.

First and foremost, Connie Yowell‘s presentation on new learning paradigms was simply amazing, passionately delivered, and has given many folks the most food for thought about the future of new media and learning. Connie expressed the importance of seeking out the right questions to ask at the beginning of our journey, stating that in order for us to realize the opportunity in front of us, we must be ready for a significant paradigm shift in the existing learning conversation. I heard many attendees echo the importance of Connie’s words at the conclusion of the event. In the matrix below, I have included an audio recording of Connie’s presentation. A transcription of her comments can also be found in my next blog article.

During this part of the symposium, both Ellen Wartella (of UC Riverside) and Connie Yowell’s words were offered in succession and both speakers expressed a great need for more research and a significant rethinking of our current approach to education and learning. Their comments were vital ones to be heard by policy makers, and while Representative George Miller attended the event for most of the day, sadly he left just before Ellen and Connie took the stage.

The next presentation I’d like to call attention to was that delivered by Jennifer Kotler. Jennifer presented two reports, but one in particular has an important story to be told. This report gathered information from interviews conducted with children ages 6 to 9. It asked them about their favorite games and websites. Included within this report was a very clever validity check that, when its findings were presented, calls into question any other self-reported findings from other organizations asking similar questions about kids and online preferences.

In the study, kids were asked about their technology preferences. Included within the interview question sets were six non-existent website and game names. That’s right, online products that were completely fictitious and do not exist. What this report revealed was that 56% of those surveyed claimed to have played these non-existent games and websites. How could this be?

What the research suggests is that kids may be more likely to exaggerate their actual use of technology because of the apparent “cool factor” and/or the aspirational aspect of these technologies. How does this cool/aspirational factor play out within the data? Here are just a couple of examples: When kids were asked if they have ever visited a MySpace page, the “clean” data suggests that only 19% of those surveyed have visited the popular online destination whereas the non-valid data states the number is 54%. When asked about posting video on YouTube, the numbers are 7% (valid data) vs 42% (non-valid data).

These findings suggest that similar studies conducted by other organizations would benefit greatly by the inclusion of a validity test in their research. If not, the numbers reported could be significantly skewed from what they should be. Now that we’re all armed with this information, go back and look at all the claims regarding other popular children’s destinations, like Club Penguin, Webkinz, and the like. Hmmmmm.

I would also like to call out presentations made by Bernie Trilling of Oracle Education Foundation about 21st Century Learning Skills, Allison Druin for her work with the International Children’s Digital Library project, Krista Marks of Kerpoof, James Paul Gee and his report on Getting Over the Slump, and Jim Styer of Common Sense Media for his report on how parents and educators view the educational potential of new media.

The matrix below offers audio recordings, papers, and related websites collected from the event. Friends and colleagues who know me well will tell you that I’m rarely without a camera or recording device at such events. I believe it’s important to capture and share such information with everyone so that industries can move forward together. The list below includes audio recordings from most of the speakers. However, my apologies go out to the last 8 or so speakers, mostly from Warren Buckleitner’s Dust or Magic panel, for by the end of the day my recording device lost power.

All of the audio clips can be downloaded as a single zipped file here.

Irwin Toy creates the ME2, a handheld product that collects “motion points” in the real world and converts those points into online currency.

Every year when I attend the New York Toy Fair I may see a few thousand toys in the course of four days. I was recently speaking with another toy reviewer who said, “Did you ever notice that even though you see thousands of new toys, you will only remember maybe five of the best products?” This observation has served me well. What stands out in a Toy Fair attendee’s memory after seeing so many products will usually go on to be the breakthrough later in the year. I believe the ME2 by Irwin Toy will be one of those breakthrough products, not just in the toy space, but also in the virtual worlds and social networking space as well.

Let me start with some background information. The ME2 is a handheld device that has a small 8-bit color screen that measures about 2 by 1.5 inches. Each ME2 comes with one onboard game. The ME2 can also be docked to your computer via a USB port. When the ME2 is connected to your computer, access to an online 3D virtual world is granted. The website which is being developed will be www.me2universe.com, but currently this part of the product offering is not available to the public. (More information about the ME2 will become available at this link within the next few weeks.) Additional games can be loaded onto the ME2 after connecting to and exploring the online ME2 world.

Once you create and customize your own avatar, you can begin to explore this fully immersive 3D world. Within this world there are many different “islands” to explore, but you can’t visit another island until you successfully complete challenges that are on each island. To complete a challenge, you may need to purchase “in world” items to help solve puzzles. And here’s the amazing part of this entire product offering; To purchase items in this virtual word, you don’t use a credit card or real dollars. Your own activity level in the physical world earns points and therefore purchasing power online.

While the ME2 is a handheld gaming device, it also acts as a pedometer, a tool used to measure the distance or energy people exerted when they go for a walk or a jog. When the ME2 is attached to a child’s belt or is in his pocket, the device collects “action points”. When the ME2 is later connected to a computer, these points are then uploaded to an online account, and then become the currency used to purchase items in the online world. Do you need to buy a boat to cross a virtual river in the online world to solve a challenge but don’t have enough points to buy it? Well, go outside and walk around the block to gain more points. Do you need to purchase a virtual flashlight to see inside a cave but don’t have the currency? Take a ride on your bike across town in the real world, collect points on your ME2, and you’ll have enough credits online to purchase that item! The ME2 is a brilliant solution for online engagement as well as promoting physical activity in the offline world.

In addition to the release of the product, there will be a social networking component. Members will be able to communicate with other avatars in an open chat manner. Communication will be filtered as well as monitored in real time by people looking to ensure that text exchanges between members are appropriate and safe.

The target audience of this product is primarily 8 – 12 year olds, but looks like it could extend nicely out to 6 – 14. The ME2 should be available for purchase in August 2008 and is anticipated to cost between $34.99 and $39.99. This is a one-time purchase and there is no monthly subscription fee to gain access to the online world. This online access model makes it easy to give the ME2 as a gift when compared to sites that require a monthly subscription fee. I also noticed that this product may have a very strong boy appeal, which is something not commonly found in online destinations for children in the 8 – 12 age range.

The ME2 stands above the many other virtual world and social networking “me too” offerings available to kids. Irwin Toy has carefully picked the right combination of online and offline components to make this the innovative product to watch in the months ahead. What a great job for all involved at Irwin Toy. Thank you for sharing your announcement with me!

To see a videotaped demo of ME2 from Toy Fair, click the window below.

I’ve just made it back from the 2008 New York Toy Fair. In the last five years I’ve been attending the show, this was definitely one of the best. One of the big reasons I attend is to see how technology is being applied to toys, both for fun and for learning. Year after year the Youth Electronics supercategory, a description within the toy industry to measure tech toy sales, grows by leaps and bounds. This year’s use of technology in toys was, for the most part, outstanding. Every year a number of themes present themselves at the show. Here’s are the themes I’ve seen at this years event:

• Social Networking, Virtual Worlds, and Web Connected Devices – I counted at least twelve new or relaunched social networking / virtual world destinations for children. Some had an offline product like a stuffed toy complete with a code to unlock an online destination. Others had a device that would connect to your computer via the USB port.
  
  
• Robots and Animatronic Devices – Many more robots this year. Mattel/Fisher-Price and Hasbro had some of the biggest announcements with robotic life-like dolls and animals. Also many more robot making kits were on display.
  
  
• Motion-based Products – The Nintendo Wii has definitely had its influence on the toy industry. New motion-based devices for children were on display. However, a number of these tech toy products can only detect motion on an XY plane.
  
  
• Green Products – A surprising number of companies were eager to tell you just how environmentally friendly their products were. From the materials used in their toys to the clever solutions discovered to power toys without batteries to the biodegradable packaging the product ships in. I was overwhelmed by the number of companies that were trying to do the right thing for the environment.
  
  
• High School Musical – The licensing groups at Disney must be working overtime. Many booths had products using the High School Musical brand to promote their new crop of toys.
  
  
• Dinosaurs – Last year I blogged that it would be the year of the guitar. This year it was noted that many dinosaur products will be coming out later this year. Some simply model kits, some stuffed toys, many robotic.

In the coming days I’ll be posting more information on a few of the products I think will become tech toy sensations later this year. Stay tuned!