Comments on: Can the iPhone hit crucial network density for noticable cluster effects?

By: Ronan

Ronan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:13:57 +0000

It’s interesting that you write of the taxi driver seeing where all his taxi driver friends are on his iPhone.

The iPhone is the one platform that can’t deliver on this properly, because it does not support background apps (minimized apps). So for your taxi driver friend to see where all his taxi driver friends are *right now* they would have to be actively running the app on the iPhone.

iPhone users don’t tend to leave apps open to enable that real time context reporting.

All the other smartphones do allow background apps (Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, UIQ, Palm Pre). It’s just a pity their user experiences pale in comparison to the iPhone.

By: Scott Crawford

Scott Crawford — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:17:42 +0000

Yep. I’ve thought for along while now that ClusterFx will be the joy experience that propels mobile webbing/creative roaming from niche to mainstream.

Like-minded nomads roaming and clustering easily, on the fly, around shared interests, with the opportunity made evident and real by location-based social networking, etc.

Say, for instance, you’ve got a serious physical malady, and you’d like to get some therapeutic discussion (and maybe even a little massage) going with fellow sufferers in your area, especially those who enjoy a little Miles Cowperthwaite with their Miles Davis, and you happen to be cruising past a boarded up Starbux, and your iPhone/Touch suddenly buzzes in your pocket…

By: ray

ray — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:03:42 +0000

very interesting – thanks i enjoyed reading your piece. a few more things to consider re. strategy for the iphone. in the new economy business models have clustering on two sides. i think u sum up the dynamics from the consumer side well. other points to perhaps mention re. clustering:

industry clustering and strategic interdependence wrt control points (i.e barriers around your bizmodel):
what’s happening to the value network? how will apple shape the industry value network and re-shape the industry cluster? is it who takes what – ultimately means who gets what.

the important point here is that apple is creating a industry cluster and strategic control point around its app store. such cluster effects can be a great barrier of entry – esp for a business model. this particular control point is what will ultimately determine the success of the iphone. on the other side of the business model – an ecosystem of value add apps fueled by the cluster effects of an online market (which is what you described very eloquently.

oh. but wait. Google…hot on apple’s heels – they’re launching their own app store – probably for android (when its launched ) **apple shakes fist in air…why i outta…”

my $0.02

ray33

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:15:12 +0000

I wonder to what extent cluster effects are permanent versus transitory. In the seventies CB radios were a big deal, and a “cluster efect” was created amoung professional truckers which was extensively celebrated in song and cinema. As far as I know, CB technology still exists. I suspect that most drivers even still use it. But nobody seems to make a big deal about it. It’s kind of off the radar. (“Tired” not “Wired”.)

Will all the hype around mobile fade when a new generation of adults, now with emerging family responsibilities, realizes that there are only a few basic things that are actually worth doing with a mobile comm/data device?

(I emphasize the transition to parenthood because that seems to be a point where one’s relationship with one’s peers becomes less of a motivation factor for life activities compared to the parenting/family dynamic).

Just a thought,
-Steve

By: zephoria

zephoria — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:22:03 +0000

Quinn: I see cluster effects and network effects as slightly different, albeit complimentary. Network effects describe how an individual’s adoption is influenced by and influences those around that person such that an individual benefits from all of their friends adopting the same platform. Network effects are core to reaching critical mass and tipping points. In my head, cluster effects are what happens once critical density is achieved. They are the practices and dynamics that take place once a cluster is entirely engaged. Rather than being the effects that solidify the network, they are the effects that are caused by the network having formed. I don’t think that I’m being entirely clear so I’ll have to think of a better way to describe this.

Kevin: a good browser + universal data plans would equal a mobile web. Yes, that could work, but I don’t even see basic browser compatibility across phones (let alone data plans).

Christina: When Android is adopted en masse, we can talk. Best it looks now, it’s just another platform competitor in an already diverse market that is going to be adopted by some phones and some carriers. What I’ve seen so far suggests that it will be adopted by quite a few, but not in meaningful clusters.

By: Christina Pikas

Christina Pikas — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:30:21 +0000

What about Android? Maybe that will have some of these effects?

By: Kevin Marks

Kevin Marks — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:56:10 +0000

Could ‘a good browser on a phone’ be enough to drive this? Does it have to be a monolithic uniform platform to cause cluster effects?
I’ve definitely seen cluster effects around Twitter…

By: Quinn DuPont

Quinn DuPont — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:47:17 +0000

How are cluster effects different from “network effects”, or in a more economic sense, the “Mathew effect”? As I see it, clusters tend to get analysed as conceptual categories (as in the data mining notion of “cluster analysis”) or sometimes as physical effects. The network effect is more aggregative and can swing wildly out of control (which is why they are often studied analytically as log normal). I think the political and social effects are likely distinct too, although I am unsure what exactly they would be.