90-9-1

90-9-1 – Brilliant idea for a web site for a concept that I often try to explain. 90% of users are the “audience”, or lurkers. The people tend to read or observe, but don’t actively contribute.
9% of users are “editors”, sometimes modifying content or adding to an existing thread, but rarely create content from scratch.
1% of users are “creators”, driving large amounts of the social group’s activity. More often than not, these people are driving a vast percentage of the site’s new content, threads, and activity.

3 Comments

Interesting article Ted – I would like to share my thoughts.

I did some consulting with a social network vendor (crowdvine.com) in the past two years. I think it is safe to say a ratio exists!, but that mostly depends on how someone defines a "social community".

In general, I do not like the word "lurkers" either.. I think its negative. I understand the word to mean that these individuals contribute nothing to an online community other than their viewing items in the community..

This precept makes sense in the world of "social network walled gardens". The internet or concept of community cannot be defined by just one social space (despite Facebook or AOL or Google's best intentions). Conversations exist across an array of communication mediums – most of a which are not easily tracked well, including personal email and Acutal Convesations between real people.

It may not be wise to define "social community" by only the behavior that can be tracked in the context of one social space. I understand the need of individual site owners to make these behavior distinctions, but I do not think today’s tools are sophisticated enough to truly study communities online.

Hi Chris,

Point well taken and thanks for commenting. I remember using the Crowdvine product for my first Health 2.0 , I really liked the experience.

I agree with you that just as happens online, a lot of people may be in the room and not commenting, this doesn't mean they aren't listening or aren't acting. I use this data more to help people understand that if they don't get 100 comments for every post, it doesn't mean no one is listening. It seems to me that people who blog in the future will be the 1%, i.e. weblogs aren't going to turn people into extroverts…

Ted

Ted Eytan, MD