One difference I came up with after stewing a bit is that SN feels more like information trading than information broadcasting ... it's more personal and the payment aspect has the potential to enhance rapport.
I like that metaphor: it's the difference between being at a lecture (on the good end) or a wedding and there's some dude sitting across from you droning on and on (on the bad end); and being in an actual conversation. There's value in getting broadcast at, but it's a very different kind of value.
Thought experiment of two alternate-reality SN variants:
  • a SN that is a really kick-ass place to go to download info about events, like a really good information depot.
  • a SN as a place where really good / rich / interesting conversations happen about those events.
It seems like if you were hell-bent on one of these cases, you'd do different things. I don't know what the differences would be, but the two realities seem distinct enough to warrant different approaches, though I couldn't back up that intuition right now.
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There's also the bystander effect acting in the case of a broadcast. "I don't need to pay because someone else will." ... This effect may grow as SN does and it just isn't that significant yet.
It seems like if you were hell-bent on one of these cases, you'd do different things.
Off the top of my recently caffeinated head ...
download info about events
I think this looks more like a video game.
interesting conversations happen about those events
And this looks more like an online community.
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