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3. Reverse Network Effects! A lot of the internet economy has been constructed around the network effect. As with everything network effects have a limit, and in some cases reverse network effects can occur. New people join participatory sites such as facebook and linkedin everyday, and for what ever reason more people also choose to leave, this envitablly will lead to it reaching its peak in popularity with the number of new members, and having more people leave or stop using their accounts. An obvious reverse network effect is, having too many people in your social network, thus not being able to keep in contact with them.

5. An example of the direct network effect is the extensive use of Microsoft. It built up popularity, and because of the popularity, software companies began to make their software so that it is compatible with Microsoft, because this was most widely used. Therefore, this helps Microsoft, as it means that if people want to use certain software they must have that operating system, and collaborates to increase users.

8. DISADVANTAGES The disadvantages of the network effects are the following: 1. Web companies have a field day catering our need to share and discuss what we are doing.2. Quality over quantity3. Instead of searching ourselves we let others deal with that. 4. We end up listening and engaging with a much smaller fraction of the group of followers.

9. More Disadvantages... An example of the disadvantages that can arise from the network effect is the growing use of Facebook, and the amount of friends each user has. The original idea of Facebook was that it was a place where all of a person’s friends were gathered in one place, and the fact that it made it easy to contact them. It was also meant so that as people perhaps lose everyday contact, they will still be able to keep in touch. However, with the rapid growth of friends on Facebook, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people, and it can be hard to continue with close relationships. Therefore it can have a reverse effect to that which it was originally meant for. The growing network effect can mean that new sites or services (which may indeed be better/more improved than the leading site of that kind) do not have a chance to grow. The site or service provider can tend to focus more upon gaining more users than keeping the users they already have happy.