Most kids just like to sit and watch. They don't like to play when it comes to Web 2.0, says Reuters.
A tiny 0.16 percent of visits to Google's top video-sharing site, YouTube, are by users seeking to upload video for others to watch, according to a study of online surfing data by Bill Tancer, an analyst with Web audience measurement firm Hitwise.
Similarly, only two-tenths of one percent of visits to Flickr, a popular photo-editing site owned by Yahoo Inc., are to upload new photos, the Hitwise study found.
As much potential as these sites show, apparently no one is stepping up. People are just watching. “Voyeurs,” as psfk puts it.
Where’s the progress? YouTube and Flickr are incredibly liberating artistic platforms, potentially. But when the vast, vast majority of people are just lurking while a select few post over and over again, there’s not really any difference from traditional media outlets.
YouTube “celebrities” gain thousands upon thousands of views for their thoughts, and the same Flickr accounts of popular photographers get pounded over and over. Sure, the way linking works and information spreads across the web facilitates the self perpetuating popularity reach-around. But it still surprises me that so few people are making the leap from fan to contributor. With the available technology and the way it’s developing, that gap’s getting smaller every day. It doesn’t take much.
Hopefully, this isn’t a trend, and the abysmal participation statistics are merely representative of the youth of these outlets. The Internet is supposed to be about interactivity, not an elite group of people dictating over content.
These figures suggest that the majority of people are treating “Web 2.0” sites as another entertainment source, seemingly content to watch the dialogue happen rather than jump in and engage in it.
On the flip side of things, dictator-esque photo sites like last night’s party and the cobra snake have new competition. 476ad, a recently launched party photo site, provides a community of “scenes” for users to populate with their own content.
Once, party chasers had to seek out the roaming, camera toting “artist” to get noticed. Now, they can cut out the middle man/woman/somewhere-in-between and do it themselves. While 476ad may not have the same local scene building potential as a site with a singular voice/aesthetic/location, it nonetheless takes a step towards democratizing what some tout as “exclusive.”
In any event, these sites are only what the users make them in the end. Fans/readers have the ability to shape a site. They can make it great or an abysmal waste of time; but, if only a few contribute, nothing is going to grow.
Ben Parsons @ Fri, 04/20/2007 - 5:35pm
The tiny percentage of YouTube users posting content aren't "an elite group of people dictating over content," because anyone can post if they want to. If somone's got nothing to say, they shouldn't feel compelled to say something for the sake of contribution.