Creationism & The 1/9/90 rule.

[Michael Coulter]

I’m not an admin on 38minutes, consequently I'm flying blind with some of my comments here, so please make allowances if I come across as an arse. (And not for the first, or I suspect last time.)

But I would be interested to know the following stats:

Of all the 230 (odd!) registered members here on 38minutes, what proportion/percentage upload original content, or mainly contribute via comments/uploading existing work, or are happy to simply lurk/read only?

And why, you may ask, do I ask?.

Well, there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these activities, (and I hasten to add, this isn’t a rant or finger-pointing exercise). Rather, it's a genuine inquiry into user involvement here.

In the early days of 38minutes, there seemed to be a surge of enthusiasm to create, contribute and upload here. (Early adopter syndrome?)

However recently most of the traffic seems to have been of the ‘Member A is friends with Member B’, or Member A joins Group C,' variety.

All well and good, but it does bring me to the 1/9/90 principle. Also known as the 1% rule.

It postulates, (oh dear, dipping into the Channel4, stripey Paul Smith shirt, lexicon again), that 1/9/90 % of social media users split into create/contribute/lurk camps.

Much of the theory comes from research covering social spaces like YouTube and the much-respected Jakob Nielsen.

Incidentally I’ve personally always taken JN’s pronouncements with a large pinch of salt, but amongst the sodium you can often find a few gems.

And more importantly, he does adopt a killer look. (One which I am sincerely considering emulating):

But, getting back to the point, I would have thought a creative community such as this would have challenged/surpassed the 1/9/90 rule. And indeed may have. So maybe the admins here, when they have a mo, could publish the stats. My guess is 38minutes will prove to have a higher lever of contribution than the norm.

But even so, maybe more creative people here need to er, create more?

Footnote,

Perhaps it’s ROT thing for some?

In addition to Return On Investment, we now live in the era of ROT, Return On Time.

Writing a blog post here, or cutting together a little movie, not only takes time to generate content for our little community here, it also consumes time and content from some of our other, perhaps more ‘mainstream’ social channels.

For example, I’m posting less on my business blog, and it’s suffering because I now divert time in my day to 38minutes. (Willing, and happily of course.)

It could be that I’ve got too much time on my hands, (but my diary, wife and local publican says otherwise), it maybe that most people here are too busy earning a living to contribute more.

I’d be interested in your reaction, your views, and opinions in how we can enjoy more creationism here.

And if indeed we need it.

Content to recycle and repackage existing content. Which in itself is no bad thing, if it’s work unseen by the community before.

My guess is it’s a combo of both new and old.

With a bit more of an emphasis and boost to the new.

[Brian Baglow]

It's entirely about time. I work, run a blog (ok three...) and check out huge amounts of data on a daily basis. I have to choose very carefully where I spend more than five minutes, otherwise a lot of other things will get left behind (or undone if I am honest). That's why, despite my Twitter account, I've never actually started any meaningful threads/twits on there. I'll get sucked in and something else will have to go. Same reason I don't play *any* MMO games (bar Kingdom of Loathing) - who has that amount of free time?

Happy to dive in, participate, start threads and generally be fabulous in a virtual setting, but if it amounts to smileys, 'me too's' and the odd link, it's not because I don't care. Just because I am running around, screaming and trying to fit everything in...

[Stuart Cosgrove]

My sense is that many people have particpated, as and when they can, and only if they want to. Its unlikely we will ever arrive at statistcial solutions. I think many were curious and wanted to register interest in 4iP. Others are starting out and starting up and want to be noticed and to network. Others feel it would be a neat place to exchange ideas about digital media.

I also think a lot of people like to put space between what they think is public, work-related activity and what they consdier is private domain. That's obviously blurred territory, so even photos and avatars have changed. I think that's a debate that the internet has not yet found sophisticated answers to

For example, I am a very private person but I have a relatively public job. For me 38minutes is principally about work and the debate that surrounds and suffuses it. So I got frightend-off by all the twitter stuff when its started to invade my life in ways that felt uncomfortable. Although the debate, is legitimate, good fun and very revealing.

That for me is one of the outstanding debates about the eras of medai as we move beyond an era shaped by producer/consumer media into the participative domain of new media and sites like 38 Minutes.

So many issues which statistics may hint at, but never fully capture.