While Clay and Ross battle it out over the likelihood that LinkedIn will demonstrate classic power law distributions three months from now, I'd like to propose a little side bet.

I contend that when their bet concludes, three months from now, less than 10% of the participants in the top 500 hits of Clay's "Internet" search will be women. Why do I think that? Several reasons.

First, purely anecdotal evidence. None of the women I've shown the site to have had any interest in using it. Almost no women have commented on it in their blogs, and the few who have weighed in with comments on other blogs (my own included) have expressed puzzlement over its appeal.

Second, I did a quick run through the first 200 of the 1500+ people in my network (Joi and Ross are both my contacts...'nuff said), and exactly 20 of them were women (based on name analysis only, of course, so my numbers may be slightly off). And at least five of those names I immediately recognized as women who'd told me they weren't that interested in continuing use of the system.

And third, LinkedIn looks to me like a software-based replica of the existing boys' club that characterizes most of the emerging technology world these days. (Browsed through the photos from ETCon? It's easier to find Waldo than it is to find a woman in most of those shots.) And while that may be an accurate reflection of the field right now, I'm still hoping for a social networking system that helps us effect positive change rather than simply reifying the existing structures.

So, who wants to bet against me on this one? Anyone?

p.s. For the record, I'm with Clay all but his first point. I think it will take more than ten slots to drop to 15% of the peak.