Sheer Size Of Social Networks

Jack Dikian

January 2011

I fired up the laptop wanting to write a book review of Ben Mezrich’s "The Accidental Billionaires," The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, and Betrayal”, the story that inspired The Social Network Movie - and slowly started wondering about the sheer enormity of these networks. Many with millions and millions of users – all connected by friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, likes, dislikes, and on and on.

I thought instead of the book review, I’d have a quick look at the size of the more popular social network sites by the approximate number of registered users. I crunched these numbers so to compare the size of the ten most popular networks with the remaining 120 networks by size of registered users.

As we can see below the top ten sites account for some 60% (approx 1.7 Billion) of [all] registered users across 130 sites totaling almost 3 Billion users. Facebook alone has almost 0,5 Billion users.

Interestingly, The population of the world is currently about 6,896,900,000 and it is estimated that the percentage of the population in the age group of 16-64 is roughly about 64% or 4.4Billion. So almost 70% of people who [could] be using a social network are – of course this isn’t quite right as many people subscribe to a number of social network sites.

Top 10 social networks by number of registered users	Approximate Number of Registered Users
Facebook	500,000,001
Qzone	200,000,000
Twitter	175,000,000
Habbo	162,000,000
Windows Live Spaces	120,000,000
Bebo	117,000,000
Vkontakte	110,578,500
Myspace	100,000,000
Orkut	100,000,000
Tagged	100,000,000
Top ten social network sites by number of registered users	1,684,578,501
Other 120 social network sites by number of registered users	1,300,370,463
Total of top 130 social network sites by registered users		2,984,948,964

Is This IPOCALYPSE?

Jack Dikian

January 2011

It seems that the world will soon run out of a man-made resource called an “IP Address” the unique stuff that makes the Internet work. No doubt the press will declare the end of the Internet, and that all communications will soon cease – a true IPOCALYPSE.

Every device on the Internet has a unique identifying number, called an IP Address. A typical IP address looks like this looks something like this: 216.27.61.137

And the same in binary (machine representation) is: 11011000 00011011 00111101 10001001

As we can see there are thirty two (32) zeros and ones that make up the IP address, a 32-bit number, a standard called IPv4 – and that’s the rub. The total possible address combinations this system provides is 4,294,967,296 unique values – or almost 4.3 Billion addresses, a number, back in 1977 when the Internet “experiment” was conceived was regarded to be adequate.

The problem

Because each computer or device on earth needs an IP address to help it connect to the internet and the existing standard (IPv4), only allows for about 4.3 billion unique addresses – there isn’t enough to give one to each person alive on earth today. Strictly speaking, this isn’t quiet true as ISPs can also deploy Network Address Translation, or NAT allowing them to share IP addresses, avoiding providing a new address to each customer – although this has its own limitations and disadvantages.

Dr Vint Cerf, considered one of the "fathers" of the Internet, told a Linux conference in Brisbane this week he was embarrassed about the situation. "I was the guy who decided 32 bits was enough for the Internet experiment," he said.

"My only defence is that choice was made in 1977. I thought it was an experiment. The problem is the experiment didn't end, and so here we are."

The solution

Dr Cerf says the Internet industry must start working hard to get IPv6 up and running. "The time for just talking about it is over, we just have to get busy and implement it and demonstrate it," he said.

A new numbering model, IPv6, has existed since the mid-1990s, but not all ISPs have begun experimenting with the hardware and software needed to use it. The new schema will be capable of providing approximately four billion times more addresses than the entire IPv4 Internet – however for this to work, communication devices will need to be upgraded.

As an aside, the Federal Government rolls out the NBN, one of the necessary side-effects of that is that the new hardware (routers) will already be compatible with IPv6 standard.

So, onwards and upwards towards a new world...

The Need For A Natural Disaster Levy

Jack Dikian

January 2011

Today, speaking at the National Press Club, Ms Gillard said the total cost of the recent floods disaster to the federal budget would be $5.6 billion and that the cost would be met by the levy and by cuts to government spending….The actual announcement, the inevitable analysis and political commentary is already in train and (rightly) no doubt will continue for some time further.

For me, the big surprise is not so much that a levy is necessary, but more so, how many other natural disasters is needed before a more comprehensive specific-disaster-independent levy is conceived and from time to time “topped up” as monies are released in support of almost certain to occur disasters in the future. The table below (sourced and adapted from Wikipedia) provides only a sample of disasters we have endured over the years.

Disaster	Location	Deaths	Date
Epidemic	Australia-wide	12,000+	1918–1919
Epidemic	Australia-wide	1,013	1946–1955
Epidemic	Australia-wide	550	1900–1910
Heat wave	Victoria	438	Dec 1938-Feb 1939
Heat wave	South-eastern Australia	437	1895–1896
Cyclone	Bathurst Bay, Queensland	410	4 March 1899
Heat wave	South-eastern Australia	374	25 January to 9 February 2009
Heat wave	Southern states	246	December 1907-January 1908
Bushfires	Victoria	173	February 2009
Heat waves	Australia-wide	147	1920–1921
Heat waves	Australia-wide	143+	1911–1912
Cyclone	Broome, Western Australia	141	March 1935
Cyclone	Eighty Mile Beach, Western Australia	140	1884
Heat wave	Southern states	130	1926–1927
Heat wave	Australia-wide	122+	1913–1914
Heat wave	Australia-wide	112	1939–1940
Heat wave	Australia-wide	109	1909–1910
Heat wave	Southern regions, Australia	105+	1959

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disasters_in_Australia_by_death_toll

History of levies

There is also a long history of levies being either touted and/or imposed for by both sides of government. It wasn't all that long ago, for example, during the federal election of 2010 that Tony Abbott argued for a special tax on big business to pay for generous parental leave provisions. Examples go back many many years. Consider:

Oct 1, 2001 - A $10 Levy is to apply to all tickets for scheduled passenger flights originating in Australia from 1 October 2001. Funds collected from the Levy would be used by the Commonwealth to guarantee payment of certain Ansett employee entitlements pending

May 17, 1976 - The proposed 2%, levy on personal income to help finance Medibank would not meet half the costs of the scheme, the president of the Voluntary Health Insurance Association of Australia, Mr. Keith Moon, said yesterday. He said the Federal Government would have to continue.

Sep 2, 1890 - The Dockers' Union has decided to take a levy on its members of one shilling per week in aid of the Australian strikers. ... The Bcene alongside the Australia last night was a very animated one. Lawyers, merchants, soft-goods men and storemen worked four-hour shifts at both hatches.

The King’s Speech

Jack Dikian

January 2011

I’m not a huge moviegoer, I’ve never seen myself a move critic, and even if I wanted to describe a movie, I don’t think I have the required language to do even the best made films the justice they deserves. Sure, I’ve read plenty of movie reviews and know that phrases like “it’s a period drama”, “it’s led by a cast of Academy award winners…”, “the genre…”, are the word tools of many a critics. I, on the other hand, want to share with you that above all, the simple joy that I experienced while watching The King's Speech.

Without overstating the sheer pleasure of seeing this movie for the first time, I couldn’t but help letting the words of Disney’s “A whole new world” run through my mind. “I can show the world,..I can open your eyes, take you wonder by wonder over sideways and under on a magic carpet ride…a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view…”. In the same way, this beautiful film transports us, as on a magic carpet, completely sideways, under and over and unfolds the meaning of friendship, loyalty, courage, and yes, even tells a compelling story of personal triumph in a way that makes us lose all sense of time and savior every moment of this experience.

Tom Hooper’s new film, details the relationship between King George VI (Colin Firth) and his impertinent speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) against a visually stunning and historically fascinating backdrop. The King’s Speech works not because we watch a historical royal overcome a debilitating verbal ailment, but because we watch a human being do so. This is the film’s greatest strength – two men, from vastly different worlds, class, and privilege form a bond that transients all that is expected of each, the British Empire and the new king, the credential-less [speech therapist], who uses a sign on his office door that says only “Speech Defects” and his loving family.

While this film is set in the tumultuous era of 1930s Britain, it tells the intriguing story of how King George VI rose to the throne while battling a debilitating speech impediment. However, the dialogue between the two men (during the speech lessons) breaks from historical account as there probably isn’t official record of what was said between George VI and Logue, and the scenes therefore become are infinitely better for it.