The Hive is the New Network

The function of the social network is to connect people and to grow the size of the network. What originally came about through increasing connections is now focused on delivering a better, more immediate experience.

Facebook in 2012:

The hive is a smarter, evolved network that is bigger than the sum of its parts. The hive:

Like honeybee scouts, messaging apps decrease the friction of centralized nodes in the 1:1 communication between individual nodes and allow for emergent behaviors.

Today it’s no longer enough to “connect the world.”

If you apply pressure to a ball of ants, the ants nearest to the top will begin to act as though they are dead, increasing the fluidity of the writhing mass of ants. The harder the ants are pressed, the more fluid they become to absorb the pressure. The more ants there are linked together, the more pressure they can collectively withstand.

Even though some social networks have grown to include billions of people, the ramp up in communication hasn’t increased proportionally. Even as you add friends or follow users, you can only talk to so many. Facebook users with over 500 friends only actively communicate with between 10 to 20 people. Similarly, Twitter users who have follower counts... See more

Decreases friction between nodes and creates a higher level of synchronicity between members of the hive. This produces stronger ties between individual members and allows the hive to act collectively.

If you want to survive, don’t just build a network. You have to build a hive, and eventually a hivemind.