
The Network Effect and Web Topology ◾ 89
mean distance 16.
*
It is important to be clear that the fact that the Web is a small world
network does not necessarily make it easy to nd what one is looking for (Barabási 2002).
e fact that any desired webpage is, on average, only between 16 and 19 clicks away does
not make the process of selecting the correct order of clicks easy. Bear in mind that each of
those clicks takes you to a webpage full of more links. us, we have to make choices and
judgements based on information contained within the page, the names of the links etc.
By interpreting the links, we avoid having to check all the ...