What kind of online participant are you?

As we continue to work on website development, the question comes up about participation from patrons - you! There is a theory called Participation Inequality or 90-9-1. It posits that 90% of us are lurkers on websites, blogs, etc. - we prefer to read and watch rather than participate or contribute. 9% of us will put our toe in the water and contribute to a thread or edit a comment and a whopping 1% of us are active contributors/creators.

With these numbers, I wonder where you stand? How much do you lurk? Where? Where do you contribute and why? Are there online communities that seem to draw you in more than others? Do you find yourself returning to certain sites but not others?

It seems to be like the retail experience. Am I drawn in by the colorful window display? Find the staff friendly and knowledgeable? Even if I did not purchase anything, I may return another time because it was a positive experience. Can I make the same analogy to a website? Some do have nice window displays but their interior pages are not very useful. Others are terrific sites which provide lots of information so I choose to bookmark them.

In my world, I return again and again to goodreads. I find I like keeping track of my reading and it helps me to remember when I want to recommend something. On the other hand, I haven't much used my personal worldcat.org account. While I have experimented with creating lists and tagging items, it has not drawn me in.

With that, I leave this blog returning you to the second paragraph - let me know where you like to hang out in the cyberworld. We'll create our own mini-study!