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

[Walt Crawford]

I'm not qualified to comment on the second paragraph--or at least I choose
not to.

As for the first: Sites become sustainable for a variety of reasons, and
traffic can either sustain or overwhelm a site. The 90:9:1 (and 990:9:1)
observations are, of course, no more universal than the Pareto Principle or
any other ratio. There are certainly smaller communities with a much higher
active-participation ratio, and sometimes those communities thrive because
they are smaller.

And, of course, there are probably complete exceptions to that
observation...but it's a good one to consider when you observe a relatively
low rate of active participation on a site given its overall numbers. (The
Pareto Principle could also come into play: 80% of the *use* of a site might
come from 20% of its users--but that's different than contribution/active
participation ratios.)

walt crawford

On 5/3/07, Mark Costa <markrcosta at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>