Geek In Disguise

Honestly Steve, I think it would reach 500, easily. My Facebook and Twitter connections aren't reflective of real life for me. Quite a lot of people I know don't yet use those tools. In fact, I was responsible for introducing many of my Facebook connections to that medium.

I'd imagine yours and JP's is high too.

150 in my opinion is for loners ;)

http://www.mulley.net/2008/01/03/dunbar-revisited-1478/

Wrote about this recently as it happens, I think we can boost that number thanks to tech

Steve,

I think that these numbers are pretty relevant, but also that they depend on the social position of someone within a network. And that they are most likely applied to a person who is not engaged in global social networking, nor active in a public position.

Look at it from -let's say- an evangelist's point of view. The longer you are in the running, the more people you meet and the larger your user group audience becomes. You interact with a lot of people. I'm not saying you take home 50 new connections every time you present, but at least 1 or 2 are remaining connections.

That said, looking at someone in your position, it's normal to cross that 150 border.

Look at people like Scoble, Raftery, Kawasaki, Calacanis, MacLeod, Rubel... they most score waaaay over 500.

Just my two cents, but as Damien says, technology boosts that number exponentially. Not to mention being in a somewhat more public position.

Steve I agree. It's one thing to know a lot of people, it's another thing to be known by a lot of people. But it's an entirely different matter to sit in both camps and understand what each has in common. Then the icing on the cake is the ability to connect those people before they know themselves, what they have in common.

Make sense? Probably not :)