

Participation on Web 2.0 sites remains weak - dean
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1743638820070418?sp=true

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josefresco
Even large producers of content consume more content than they produce. For
every blog post I usually view 10-12 sites/articles/posts myself from external
sources.

This is news?

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pg
Weak in comparison to what standard? So .2% of Flickr visits are to upload
photos. What percentage of visits would represent "strong" participation?

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dean
My sense is that people just assumed Pareto Principle numbers (80/20 rule) and
are making an implicit comparison to that. And they assume participation =
content-creation = uploading photos.

But I agree with you. Uploading photos is only one way to participate on
Flickr, it's not the only way.

I go to Flickr to upload my photos, but I also go just to look at my photos
(which counts as a visit), and I encourage my friends to do so as well. That's
what photos are for after all. I also comment on the photos of others and
sometimes "favorite" them.

I think the implicit definition of participation in the article is too
narrowly defined, at least in the case of Flickr.

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jsmcgd
Provided these sites have sufficient content, these 'low participation'
figures actually suggest that user content is being widely viewed.

Also I think a high submission to viewing ratio would correspond with a deluge
of low quality content.

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ivankirigin
I think this makes sense. I certainly look at far more pictures and videos on
Flickr and YouTube than I upload myself. But I do upload to both.

But I think the title is wrong. These ratios seem normal to me, not weak.

An interesting number would be word count of read vs. written in blogs and
comments. My guess is that bloggers have an easier time having a conversation
than videos or photos allow, making it more participatory.

And on that same note, do you include comments as participation? I think you
should, but it doesn't look like they did.

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joshwa
I'd be more interested in % of participating _visitors_ than _visits_. Also,
commenters count, too!

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staunch
Exactly. Visits is not a useful measurement at all. It's the percentage of
users that contribute something that's interesting and there are a lot of ways
to contribute.

Hitwise is also a third party without full access to the actual data for these
sites. Their reports are definitely inaccurate, the question is just how
inaccurate. Someone already pointed out they upload data with a downloadable
client that would likely not be counted.

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nick_357
It is too bad this article does not mention what the upload/read only ratio is
for MySpace and Facebook since I would imagine that these sites probably have
higher ratios that would dispute their claim.

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udfalkso
Basically, this article stinks and just uses a sensationalist headline for the
sake of it.

