1. Reuters missing the point on web 2.0 participation rates

    Sunday, 29 Apr 2007 View Comments Posted by: Sean O'Driscoll

    Recently Reuters wrote about a study that claimed, among other things, that:

    Web 2.0, a catchphrase for the latest generation of Web sites where users contribute their own text, pictures and video content, is far less participatory than commonly assumed, a study showed on Tuesday.

    According the the article, this position was defending based on the following:

    • .16% of Youtube visitors upload videos
    • .20% of Flickr visitors upload photos
    • 4.6% of Wikipedia visitors edit content

    This is just another weak article looking to gather eyeballs about the latest trend: social networking (I guess it worked, I looked at it).  Now, I am in the camp of believing there is a big social networking bubble building (maybe more on this later), but I hardly go along with the point of this article and associated study. 

    In my view it misses the point of what user participation is all about.  There is a continuum of contribution types from thick to thin that all bring value to the participative web.  So, what is User Generated  / participation?

    • Video uploads? and or the ratings they receive?
    • Photo uploads? and or the ratings they receive?
    • Q/A pairs in forums and newsgroups?
    • Digg votes?
    • User reviews in Amazon?
    • Votes in Dell ideastorm?
    • Blog posts?  Blog comments?
    • Bookmarking in delicious?
    • etc…

    I’m in the “it is all of these things camp”…and more.  This article essentially looks only at what I would call “thick” or heavy content contributors.  I believe the value of the “thin” contributor to community is dramatically under-appreciated by community developers/hosters/strategists – and now by researchers.  More people (maybe me included) authoring and talking about the same topics…or more users asking and answering the same questions in communities brings rapidly diminishing value to the overall community.  Over time, the fairly easy contribution of tagging and rating arguably brings the greatest value (think Tag Drafting).  It seems that today the thick community contributors get all the props!  Well, it’s high time props go to the thin contributors!!! 

    Keep of the great work tagger’s, rankers, raters, voters, etc….

    Sean

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      • Photosynth on Live Labs…pretty friggin’ cool

        Saturday, 28 Apr 2007 View Comments Posted by: Sean O'Driscoll

        A friend showed me this today.  Now, normally I stick to community and web 2.0 here, but let’s face it, cool is cool.  More than that, I think this is a sign of more to come in the way of user contributed content and could be used to build amazingly immersive virtual communities.

        While this is a tech preview, I still think the potential for aggregating user contributed memories into a really compelling new way to view and navigate is pretty amazing…I love Flickr, but it is hardly state of the art in terms of potential.  I’m going to be taking A LOT more photos in the future.

        Sean

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      • Social networking to pass adult sites on the net!!

        Saturday, 28 Apr 2007 View Comments Posted by: Sean O'Driscoll

        Well, I was going to blog on this a bit more thoroughly this weekend, but turns out someone has been tag drafting some of my delicious tags:)  Awesome!!  Props to Sue at Mobile Technologies in TAFE for a nice write up on the article that caught my eye this week in the Economist:  "Devices and Desires: Is lascivious online content, traditionally on top, losing its lustre?"

        I recommend reading Sue’s post, I thought it was interesting and enjoyed the added references she supplies.

        On the whole, it’s a moderately interesting analysis by the Economist, though they stop short of looking at how much of this trend may simply be a diversion from dedicated adult sites to "adult" sub-sites within many social networking properties (yes, ok, they address this a little regarding Second Life, but overall the article is a little thin)…

        That said, I’m sure there is a line of reporters at the Economist hoping for the opportunity to further investigate these trends – brings a whole new perspective to "embedded journalism."

        Sean

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