Todd Defren over at PR Squared has an interesting post on the responsibility of sharing in social networks (the real kind). The main point is that we all rely on certain people to share different kinds of information with us so isn’t it potentially our responsibility to find a niche of information that we’re responsible for contributing back to the group? If not, are we, at very least, obligated to support our content creating friends by commenting and posting their links in our little user spaces like Facebook?
I have to say “hell yes!” In my experience working with communities, we developed a very simple system to judge the health of a community. We looked at how many members were active in the past week and the past 30 days, trying to keep the difference in the numbers to a minimum. Anything above 7% was deemed healthy but below 5% meant that things were on life support. In general, we were shooting for 15% and, in the best cases, often got above 25%. Granted, this just meant that people logged on and did something but at least they showed up and contributed something, even if it was just a poll.
What has always scared me about the rise of online video (and yet excited me about technologies like Viddler) is that it is traditionally a passive media. I’m somewhat weary of any online technology that takes your hand off the mouse, or takes the interactivity out of the equation. As a higher and higher percentage of the population move online with robust broadband connections, it will be interesting to see if the level of participation goes up or if traditional media moves in and convinces everyone to back away from the keyboard.
Caring and Sharing (or is Caring Enough?)
Posted by Peter Imbres on 11/08/07 • Categorized as Social Media
I have to say “hell yes!” In my experience working with communities, we developed a very simple system to judge the health of a community. We looked at how many members were active in the past week and the past 30 days, trying to keep the difference in the numbers to a minimum. Anything above 7% was deemed healthy but below 5% meant that things were on life support. In general, we were shooting for 15% and, in the best cases, often got above 25%. Granted, this just meant that people logged on and did something but at least they showed up and contributed something, even if it was just a poll.
What has always scared me about the rise of online video (and yet excited me about technologies like Viddler) is that it is traditionally a passive media. I’m somewhat weary of any online technology that takes your hand off the mouse, or takes the interactivity out of the equation. As a higher and higher percentage of the population move online with robust broadband connections, it will be interesting to see if the level of participation goes up or if traditional media moves in and convinces everyone to back away from the keyboard.