What is SWOP?
Small World Phenomenon.
The intuitive notion that every person has some indirect connection to every other person through a small set of intermediaries is referred to as the small-world phenomenon.
SWOP is powerful as Information, trends, and ideas can spread rapidly through a population due to the short path lengths in social networks.
The phenomenon fosters a sense of global community and interconnectedness, encouraging collaboration and networking across different fields and geographies.
In fields like computational biology, physics, and sociology, understanding the small world phenomenon helps in modeling complex systems and solving problems related to network connectivity.
That's a quick info about SWOP. Every good pattern has an anti-pattern. SWOP has +ve and -ve side.
<aside> ✅ Open Source movements like Linux, Crowdfunding like Kickstarter, Social/Professional networks like LinkedIn/Facebook, platforms like YouTube, and many social experiments around music and travel were all born out of the side of SWOP (Small World Phenomenon).
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SWOP also has huge downsides (-ve side), such as how the interconnectedness of social networks can lead to homogenization of ideas, reduced diversity of thought, and groupthink/closed groups.
For example, remember the ClubHouse product? ClubHouse went crazy viral, but it got stuck with a set of users, and content became homogenized with similar types of discussions and voices dominating the platform. Many users joined Clubhouse seeking short-term gains in social clout or network building.
Many products like Google Wave, Groupon, Foursquare, etc, failed due to -ve SWOP.