Two Billionth Flickr Photo

  Picture 098 
  Originally uploaded by yukesmooks

I got Twittered by Dek about the 2 billionth Flickr photo this morning and I find out it was taken in Sydney. Cool.

This feeds nicely into a talk I gave recently on aggregating trillions of transactions to make web applications. I think the numbers, if not the talk, went over most peoples heads. But then when you see things like Flickr's 2 Billionth Photo, it makes a trillion look small.

Here is a quick run down of my maths;

Put a 1,000 tiny functions together

x

Create 10 bits of joy for a user

x

Get them to come back 100 times

x

Do it for a 1,000,000 users

=

1,000,000,000,000 things to manage.

Get me?

The Flickr maths goes way past a trillion when you add in the 2 billion photos.

Here is my presentation:
Download trillion_transactions_mick_liubinskas.ppt

The point of it is that web applications are a complex interaction of features, value, people and time. It's hard work to get it right and it's a constant battle, which makes cloning something that seems easy to be crazy hard.

So here is some food for thought:

1. What's the maths on your product now?
2. What's the maths going to be when it gets big?
3. Which parts of your equation drive your success? Is it features or is it people coming back?
4. Which parts of your equation can be automated and which parts need personalisation and customisation?
5. How does your equation change over time?

Thank to you Mrs Smith in Year 8 for helping me love maths.