Why Use Twitter? It Comes Down To "Preferential Attachment"...

Everybody is talking about Twitter lately. It seems the phenomenon has well surpassed its “tipping point”.

But why bother using Twitter? At first glance it just appears to be another time-suck. But when you look a little deeper it has some very interesting upsides.

Some argue that 140 character “tweets” don’t allow for much “real” interaction. Some say that Twitter is just a format for narcissism.

I’m into it though, and here’s why:

At the very least, Twitter is an amazing place to observe how networks form and grow. In a network, each individual is called a “node’. The connection between individuals is called a “link” and a bunch of individuals linked together is called a “cluster.” A huge cluster is called a “Hub”.

Although there are 14,782 airports in the United States, if you could have a dollar for every person who goes
through 20% of those airports picked at random in a day…or you could have a dollar for every person that
travels through the top 15 hubs like JFK, O’Hare, Dallas, SFO etc, which would you choose?

If you chose the top 15 hubs, you’d receive over 3,000% more return!

Hubs form through what is called “preferential attachment”. As more people come into a network, they’re most likely to link up with people who already have a lot of links because the degrees of separation are less; Your friend is connected to me and the next thing you know, so are you!

That’s why the big hubs just keep growing bigger and faster, bigger and faster! As people are joining the network, they’rejust a link or two away from the biggest hubs at all times.

To see a really cool animated example of how this works go to: http://tiny.cc/0FrKO and follow these instructions:

First press the "Setup" button.

Then press the “go once” button.

Then press the “go” button.

Let the model run for a while and watch the network
developing.

Finally, press the “resize nodes” button.

The hubs will expand so you can see them more easily.

So, what’s the point?

The point is, that Twitter is a great way to become a “cluster”and possibly even a hub in a network of over 8 million (and rapidly growing). Tony Robbins is a hub on Twitter. His following grew from just over 100,000 to 207,000 in the 16 days I've been on Twitter!

My experiment is beginning and why not experiment yourself?

By linking into networks of people who share similar interests,joining clusters that are growing into a hub (like Intent.com for example) and then linking to other hubs by constantly adding value to the network, maybe you’ll become a hub yourself?

I’m just one little node on an adventure, but I’m only 5.763 degrees of separation away from any person on the planet, providing cool insights and inspiration about wellness every day!

Want to play?

Follow me at www.twitter.com/johnamaral?