Networked Lab Rats

New Zealanders have become the Internet’s most beloved lab rats, according to Bloomberg Businessweek writer Ashlee Vance. New Zealand has a large enough population to adequately test products, and the population is self-contained. Last year, for example, LinkedIn wanted to test its Endorsements product, which lets users check a box to recommend each other, on a small audience before rolling it out as a full-fledged service to all of its users. “So we decided to trial it in New Zealand,” senior vice president in charge of engineering at LinkedIn Kevin Scott says. As Scott puts it: “You need a population where connections are geographically resident.”