Web-watcher Donna Bogatin challenges a basic assumption of social networks on the web, and sites that celebrate the rise of the active user. She suggests that while media mavens are heralding the new world of user-generated content and a new democracy in public expression, statistics show that most of the world is still just watching.
For example, she points to the dramatic ratio between videos uploaded and videos viewed on YouTube (one-tenth of one percent), and wonders if the user-empowered on-line world is just a new version of the media world that already existed:
All of the Web 2.0 Social Web properties which rely on users to contribute content are faced with what I call the “Social Freeloaders” phenomenon. As in the “real-world,” interactions within social communities on the Web are dominated by an extremely small, self-selected minority of active, vocal participants.
Using similar statistics, however, Charles Leadbeater is ecstatic about the prospect of a one-percent participation rate. In his speech to the TED conference (linked in an earlier weblog), he suggests that one percent of a very large community is actually quite a powerful thing.
If you are a games company and you’ve got a million players in your game, you only need one percent of them to be co-developers, contributing ideas, and you’ve got a development workforce of ten thousand people. Imagine you could take all the children in education in Britain, and one percent of them were co-developers of education. What would that do to the resources available to the education system?
So, is the Internet creating a new generation of ”content makers” or yet another generation of watchers with a few makers in the mix? And how many ”makers” does it take to transform the world? No way to know but to watch it unfold.
Those people are called “lurkers.” They always have existed and always will. And there’s nothing wrong with them.
In addition, 1/10th of a percent seems pretty good to me. If you consider the following:
Almost all videos are made by at least two people. Those two people count for only one “posting.” However if they are fans of YouTube they no doubt count for dozens if not hundreds of views. In addition they may view one video more than once. You can see where this is going: Thousands of views can come from the creators of one posting. This skews the numbers greatly.
A more accurate number would be what percentage of users are also posters. Although this number to has its issues.
That post was batty. Capitalism never gave output the right to inflict poor content on sheep.
just thought i’d improve the percentage
I would extend the dynamics of this notion. We at Cinematheque Films put many of our art videos on YouTube. We do not work the numbers (many Tubers do and that is fine). Mainly we’re focused on producing relevant content and we do enjoy interacting and sharing videos with other tubers.
There is another language at le Tube and that is the language of video. One can (and we do) respond to video not with words but with video. These are called video responses. The old, lumbering art institutions on le Tube have big problems with this. They do not want what they own to be confused with what we own. Or do. Or exhibit. The ancient paradigm does not have them interacting with anyone and certainly not riff raff (like me). Galleries, museums, curators, editors, and publishers do not interact except to speak downward from on high. Attitude is what counts in this world. Status is determined relative to one’s proximity to the public. The less proximity, the more the status. This is, too, the corporate mindset.
I bitched relentlessly at MOMA until they changed. Now they interact and the interactions are friendly and often fascinating. They even post our video responses. They cast off the old paradigm of what a museum is.
Even a museum can interact in another language.
MOCA in LaLaLand is another story. They refuse to interact with tubers whatsoever. The arrogance is quite suffocating. They post their video as advertising gimmick. Typically, they’ll get less than a hundred hits for a video where MOMA is getting thousands.
I bitch at them more relentlessly (if you can believe it) than I do on Art Journal blogs where I am about as welcome as I am at MOCA. MOCA refuses to respond to change. The old idea that the museum is where the real art exists and the rest of us are scum is alive and well in LaLaLand.
The power of YouTube and the content it generates (good and bad) can be creative and that creativity is fueled by reciprocity. The old institutions do not know what reciprocity is.
Content breeds content.
Arrogance breeds indifference.
Tim Barrus
Paris
Unfortunately I think too many contributors in general just post to see their name in print. MySpace for example has become a breeding ground for anyone with a 2 cent opinion and a haven for spammers.