Here are a few facts about 150. It’s 10 times 15, the square root of 225,000 and according to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar the maximum number of human relationships we can maintain.

Christopher Allen, during a speech he gave at this years MeshForum, discussed the Dunbar number and what it means to the way we deal with modern society. I’m more interested in what it means to the blogosphere.

Blogs are the modern equivalent of the village, and we are digital hermits wandering from village to village in search of truth, glory and the occasional blathering political diatribe. In our journey we peruse masses of content, but like our ancient ancestors it seems impossible to be truly engaged by more than a tiny subset of this information at a time. We tend to ignore everything outside of our Monkeysphere.

More than offering a solution, Dunbar offers a compelling explanation for why all groups, from ancient armys to MMORPG guilds organize themselves in small clusters, only growing larger when absolutely necessary to maintain security, increase their chances of survival, or finish off a newbie.

Listen to Chris Allen’s speech, presented by IT Conversations.

[the article on the MonkeySphere is interesting but a little racy. Viewer discretion is advised.]

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