This is really interesting.
Shirkey’s Law has been a big deal with those who think through the social networking of blogs.

Shirkey’s Law is here.

In the Kitchen: How to Cook a Weblog says it time for Shirkey to re-think his law and provides a more realistic alternative.

It’s not just in numbers that the Curve breaks down—after all, adding more bloggers should just add to the height of the spike and the length of the tail if Clay’s assertion holds. No, Clay originally assumed that the Power Laws would prevail in the weblogging community because newcomers would only form small, unimportant circles; or would add to the power of the top bloggers. What we’re seeing, though, is something that contradicts this—instead of a static list of familiar faces, new personalities are appearing in the Tech 100 who I’ve never heard of; who many of us have never heard of. And old friends are falling off the bottom, fading into the obscurity of the Technorati Top One Thousand. Poor dears.

When I linked up to Jeff Ooi, a prominent Maylasian political blogger, (who blogs in english) I had no idea the hit back would out rival Instapundit. But it did, and that happened for a lot of the reasons The Kitchen lays out. And my blog neighbourhood has completely changed at least twice since I signed up at Blogstreet. I’ve often wondered how that happened.
The Weblog Speck Law is well worth the read for those of us who look at networking or who sometimes feel like the tail.

Thanks to UnSpace for this link!