Group Theory

Soon after I joined facebook back in August, I tried an experiment.

I had discovered "groups" on facebook, and joined a few myself. These were either poker-related groups like "gutshot" or ones to do with Bear Stearns like "Equity Division alumni."

It got me thinking that it would be interesting to form a group for those who had played in one or more of the 8 BSPT (Bear Stearns Poker Tour) events.

I could see that quite a few of my friends would qualify for the group, and that probably a good proportion of the "qualifiers" were facebook members.

One approach would have been to invite all those people into the group. This would probably have resulted in quite a strong take-up, and then the long tentacles of facebook could get to work.

I opted for a minimalist approach. I didn't announce the group at all and relied on the idea that someone would notice (from my profile, or those facebook alerts) that the group had been created and that once a couple of people had signed up, it could start the ball rolling.

I was pleased to see that one person did do this - within about 48 hours - but the next step never happened.

It was tempting to now kick off the invites, but I decided to be really patient. I think about 3 months must have passed now with the membership stuck at 2 !

So, I think I will now deem that the experiment in mode1 was a relative failure. It is still possible that it might spark off at any time but I will probably go to mode2 where I invite people to the group and see how quickly and how far that takes things.