Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute.
A few people sent me this article from Jakob Nielson regarding Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute.
“In most online systems, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.”
Not sure of the validity of Jacob’s research, I’ve seen stats that suggest that 44% of internet users are contributors to websites (from rating content, leaving comments, or other interactions).
Also the book “Cultivating Communities of Practice” suggests that 5% of any community are active, and 10% sometimes are active, and the rest all participants.
Either way, I agree that a small core group of individuals do the most participation, that’s both a good thing and a bad thing depending on how you look at it
Over time, the Social Networking generation (kids younger than me) will dominate the media landscape and will participate and share online. There is no arguement that this trend will continue to increase in percentage of participants.
What’s really important? Marketers must engage those small group of participants, they’re influencing the great majority that reads and makes decisions.
