So apparently the 80:20 rule is dead (20% of your customers provide 80% of your business of some version of that). The new ruler is the 1:9:90 rule that is specifically applicable to the new web 2.0 sites.
1% of users are actual producers (like uploading pictures to YouTube/FlickR)
9% of users are highly involved participators (tagging, commenting, creating favorites)
90% are just your good old-fashioned voyeurs who just review the content but don’t add any of their own or participate in the tagging.
I think this rule has serious implications for businesses who decide they will start a new social network system or user-created content area for their customers. If they expect a majority of their customers to hop onboard and start adding content they will be very disappointed.
So the real question here is what motivates those 10% who are heavy contributers? How can we get more people on board? Is it a lack of time? Is it the technological hurdle of using the system? Fear or being exposed? Lack of confidence?
What are you thoughts?
September 19th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
the 1:9:90 rule applies to everything not just web 2.0. The only reason why it would be a bit different online is because some people aren’t as savvy online, feel the web is “unsafe”, etc.
Whats interesting is the 9% online aren’t the same 9% you’d see offline.