People in a connected group start out mostly homogenous. Tribes are homogenous. Close-knit societies like Amish communities are homogenous. A room full of two year olds are homogenous. Jean Piaget painted a theory that says individuals construct and reconstruct their knowledge of the world as a result of interactions with the environment. We all have different experiences, so the tendency within a group is that while we are drawn together by our common views and experiences, we’re pushed apart by our unique views and experiences.

I’ve used this model to think about how online communities are formed. I formed theories about where they come from, how they evolve, and what leads to disease and sometimes the death of the community. Now I’m trying to reshape those theories to account for the rapid population explosion that communities like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter go through. The fundamental ideas haven’t changed, but my new concern is how does one navigate toward a long sustaining and healthy community when growth is so dramatic?

Twitter is an exceptional example. It has a ridiculously low barrier to entry. Anybody can broadcast to anybody else, and brevity is king. Right now, just about anybody can follow and interact with just about anybody else. I believe that as Twitter continues to grow, the Twitterers will react to the differences between themselves and the people they connect with more than they will recognize the common ideas they share with so many others. Many of those differences won’t fit into their world view. They will adapt by filtering what they are exposed to, making the environment useful again. Exposure will be narrowed to the people who are most like them, recreating homogeny. For Twitter to survive, it will transform into many micro-communities where people will raise barriers to joining those communities. They will become more tribal and develop a strict code of conduct.

It will be interesting to see how Twitter adapts to its continued growth. I’ll be watching and sharing my views.

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