A circuitous route (Neill Roan’s blog to Kevin Daoust to Steve Rubel to Forrester Research’s weblog) led me to Forrester’s recent report on ”Social Technographics.” The report explores and categorizes the behavior of individuals on-line, focusing on how they use social technologies (such as weblogs, feeds, tags, social network sites, etc.). The report, itself, comes at a cost ($275). But the public elements of the findings are useful on their own (for more details, see Steve Rubel’s entry).
The research authors offer a segmentation model, based on on-line consumer behavior, that cuts to the question I was asking earlier this week: How participatory is the web, really? And how true is the assumption that web technologies create a world of content-creators rather than a world of content-watchers.
According to Forrester’s research, a full 52 percent of on-line consumers are ”inactives,” engaging in none of the identified social networking activities. Some 33 percent prefer to watch, read, or listen, without contributing to content. While those higher up the ”participation ladder” are more active collectors of content, critics or commenters, or creators of their own pages, blogs or videos.
You can see the participation ladder in their graphic on-line.
It’s a handy reminder that in our enthusiasm and panic to embrace the participatory audience — the hands-on arts consumer — we shouldn’t forget the large percentage that really just want to watch. Further, the same individual consumer may change their preference for direct engagement as often as they change their mood. The trick remains in offering a range of options for connecting to creative work, some sleeves-up and hands-on, others reactive or responsive, and still others left to quietly observe.
This makes sense to me and I’m not sure it speaks contrary to the notion of increased content-creation via the web. In other words, of the sites that I visit, sure I just watch way more than 52% of ’em. And when I connect with something, I engage – aside from my own site and blog for my image-making. So perhaps we are seeing a bit of selectivity on the part of potential creators. After all, there’s more to life than web-based content creation. (There is, isn’t there??)
Cheers,
Marco
This is a fine example of what true American culture is like. People have become accustomed to sitting down and possibly reading what someone has said on a internet article, but choose not to respond in hopes that someone else will say what they are thinking, or already has. Though in my mind, you shouldn’t need to respond to everything people say in a post or what not. It’s ok to be selective and choose those articles which actually inspire to respond to them.
Andrew, your comment “may change their preference…as often as they change their mood” is absolutely on point. And it doesn’t relate only to the web.
When I moved from Arizona to Wisconsin 15 years ago, I sought a church community to replace one in which I had been extremely – EXTREMELY – engaged. After a number of unsatisfactory visits, I realized that what I really wanted in a new congregation at the time was the freedom to sit alone in the back pew.
My point is that, however much technology has changed, human nature has not. To quote the eminent social psychologists of the PeterPaul candy company, “Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.”