Influence Ripples 2.0

Yet another stab at the blog levels of influence idea.  There are multiple ripples overlapping, happening in a three dimensional space—in real time.  If this were animated, the ripples would not dissapear, but radiate. 
However more recent ripples would come into focus as new thoughts, conversations, and interactions happen over time.

Influenced by:

"it's a model - but one that should recognize a lot of other overlapping ponds. {worm holes might be another analogy)."
Craig Lefebvre

"One thing that I did wonder in your diagram was whether it was true that there was only one pool of influence… "
leisa.reichelt

"The sphere (blog) has a pulse from the inside, various sizes, various intensities and frequencies... making ripples, or making waves."
mindblob

"My guess is that it's more 3D than that (with time as another axis?) but this is a really good start"
Seth Godin.

"One conceptual problem I have with the ripple concept is ripples disappear, where as the ripples in the blogosphere form permanent records of memes and ideas."
karl long

"The influence sphere is constantly changing."
Toby

"It strikes me that topics simultaneously appear across the blogosphere ... in a zeitgeist kind of way -- resulting in the emergence of conversational topics that begin, leap and skip from one blog to another.
Gavin Heaton"

Comments

[Paul McEnany]

This really is great work, David. I wonder how this would look for word-of-mouth in the physical space, as well. Or when MSM is involved. Something to think about...

[Daniel R]

Darmano,

Nice graphic. So what do you use to make those spiffy graphics?

- Daniel

[Gavin Heaton]

DA ... do you ever sleep? Looks like your personal ripple is growing exponentially! Great stuff!

[DA]

Gavin, I've slept in previous phases of my career. Time to be awake now. :)

Daniel, Adobe Illustrator mostly. Sometimes Photoshop.

Paul, It's never enough for you is it? ;)

[BobG]

this idea grows and grows, David - radiating is a good word for it. There is NOT enough time in a day :)

[Sander Duivestein]

Maybe it's more like the concept of stars, planets and asteroids.

Stars attract planets and asteroids and thereby influencing them in the way they tend to move around each other.

Stars can be blogs, planets can be forums and asteroids can be wiki's.

Stars expand and collapse. Pulses. They go out with a big bang. And thereby enlighten other objects in their nearby space.

The Social Solarsystem or something like that.

I also would not only focus on blogs. Take a look at other social tools as well. Flickr, Digg, MySpace, YouTube etc. It's happening everywhere.

[mark]

David

Nice ideas (and of course, graphics). One "add" or observation I have is that the smaller blogs (4's and maybe 3's) tend to be grouped around spheres of interest or geography, whereas larger blogs go across several spheres. Graphically, that might mean clisters of 4's and 3's being blanketed by the larger spheres of 1's. Hope that is comprehensible :)

[Jim Benson]

David,

Great conversation starter. Really starts to tease the brain.

Sander,

I like where you are going with this. I find that threads often have individual importance beyond the blog. The blog is not a static or stationary entity.

Each conversation has its own orbit. Almost like the blog was an atom, with its own mass - but it also has lots of particles (conversations) orbiting it.

Also an imperfect analogy, I know. But I agree there is gravity, inertia and maybe beyond 3D here. There is some relativity theory of influence.