[Web4lib] Interesting Web/Library 2.0 data (was particpationSkills for Library 2.0 Leaders)

[Mark Costa]

Interesting. So these sites become sustainable because of the sheer volume
of traffic? Does the 90:9:1 rule hold true for sites that cater to a smaller
community? Right now I'm thinking of bulletin boards/wikis for games or
other hobbies. Obviously they don't draw the traffic that Wikipedia does,
yet they still survive, and do quite well.

What if librarians stopped focusing on developing their own site, but
instead found ways to contribute content to other people's sites in their
respective communities? We could develop a modular site, say using xml, and
then work with others to incorporate what we have into their sites. Course
sites come to mind. Instead of trying to get people to constantly link to
our site, focus more on to getting in to theirs. I know some libraries do
this to some extent, but it never seems to be the main push. Am I correct in
this assumption?


On 5/3/07, Walt Crawford <waltcrawford at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Really commenting on an earlier post: From what I've read and observed,
> the Pareto Principle is the wrong one to use for contribution ratios in
> social/web services. The applicable ratio is the 90:9:1 ratio--that is, of
> every 100 users, roughly 9 will be occasional contributors or commenters and
> roughly one will be a "real" contributor.
>
> I think that's true for Wikipedia, although there it may be more like the
> alternate 990:9:1 ratio since there are so many "driveby users." It seems to
> be true for a range of other "social" sites, including blogs and blog
> reading. (Are 10% of blogs actively maintained, i.e., with posts at least
> once a month?) I'd guess the 90:9:1 ratio is even true of a fair number of
> lists...
>
> One consequence of this is that the audience is still, *mostly*, the
> audience--but "mostly" isn't as overwhelming now as it used to be.
>
> Walt Crawford
>
>  On 5/3/07, Mark Costa <markrcosta at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Ok, so now we know why Google bought Youtube, because there are many
> > ways to
> > drive traffic to the site.
> >
> > I think of it this way, just because I drive through a rich
> > neighborhood, it
> > doesn't make me a member of the community. I'm just another guy passing
> > through admiring the houses. It's the same thing with Youtube, there are
> > just a bunch of people passing through; very few of them are community
> > members. Youtube gives people a good reason to drive through, and Google
> >
> > knows how to sell to the gawkers.
> >
> > Wikipedia throws me off a bit. You can't imbed the site's content, so
> > its
> > not as easy to drive traffic to the site. But, they have to get a large
> > number of drive throughs because you can pick up one of its entries for
> > almost any Google search on a topic or famous person. Do more people
> > contribute because it is easier to add a line or two of text, rather
> > than
> > contribute a video? Or is it because a larger percentage of the
> > population
> > has an idea that they want to share, while only a small percentage of
> > the
> > population has a video they want to share. Everyone's an amateur
> > philosopher
> > and historian, very few of us are amateur directors.
> >
> >
> > On 5/3/07, K.G. Schneider <kgs at bluehighways.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I would have to say that for Youtube and Flickr, they generate a
> > > > tremendous
> > > > number of visits because people can imbed the image/video on another
> > > site.
> > > > That's a good way to drive non-contributory traffic to a site and
> > skew
> > > the
> > > > ratio.
> > >
> > > This isn't "non-contributory traffic" that "skew[s] the ratio," since
> > a
> > > major component of Web 2.0 theory/practice is the idea that content is
> > > portable/remixable. If I post a YouTube video to my site and people
> > watch
> > > it, they are participating in YouTube (and likely to visit the site
> > > themselves).
> > >
> > > The idea that the site is the destination is very 1.0.
> > >
> > > K.G. Schneider
> > > kgs at bluehighways.com
> > > http://freerangelibrarian.com
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Web4lib mailing list
> > > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Mark R. Costa, MLS
> >
> > "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
> > persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
> > depends on the unreasonable man."
> > --- George Bernard Shaw
> > _______________________________________________
> > Web4lib mailing list
> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> >
>
>


-- 
Mark R. Costa, MLS

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man."
--- George Bernard Shaw