Web 2.0 Sites - Who Is Really Commenting
I recently did an interview at our Web 2.0 Conference & Expo of members of the Web 2.0 user generation and uncovered an interesting finding. I asked five twenty-somethings if they commented on articles, blogs, and videos. Surprisingly, contrary to the belief that these young Web 2.0'ers are actively posting comments to blog posts they read and videos they watch, is apparently NOT the case. These young people apparently prefer to take a more passive approach as voyeurs rather than active participants. They might read blog posts and watch web videos and even read the comments but not necessarily add to them. One person said he might comment if there were a lot of comments and he really liked the story or video. Another said she would read her friend's blog to keep in touch and might post comments there. But they were not commenting on mainstream blogs or Youtube videos. As it turns out, they weren't commenting because they didn't like what they read or saw just that they didn't feel inclined to engage beyond that. They were happy to consume the content but nothing more.
This begs the question - who is really commenting on these sites?! If the so-called Web 2.0 user generation is not commenting, then who is? Commenting on most sites can be anonymous so if users wish to remain unknown they can. Other sites like Youtube, for instance, requires users to login before posting a comment but the commenters can use screen name aliases. What's also interesting is that most of the comments on these fun consumer sites are generally meaningless one worders or one-liners but the members of the user generation interviewed still did not comment.These interviewees were not shy; they were outgoing and adventurous, some were Stanford students, and they all worked - most in high tech and a couple in the service industry. Their behavior seems to suggest that unless there is an element of familiarity/community or they felt engaged enough or felt strongly enough about something, these Web 2.0-ites simply do not comment.
Labels: usability 2.0, user experience, web 2.0
posted by Reshma Kumar at 2:50 PM
7 Comments:
Reshma I think this is a very important aspect of the new web as well as a somewhat confusing one. Technorati's top "search" topics are very different from the top post topics, indicating that readers and writers are different types of people.
As with most things, I would suspect that 10% of the users contribute 90% of the comments. But I must say that a sample of 5 people is a bit small to make general conclusions about a behavior.
Our cost per click is about $0.003, whereas the cost per click of conventional Internet advertising (such as Google AdWords) is about $0.15. Through Subvert and Profit, it costs about $75 to get a story on the front page of Digg, where it will receive about 25,000 clicks.
That would be me. I am days away from 40 and somewhat of an expert on Clean Tech. I am always jumping in with comments when I see egregious statements or other inaccuracies. I also get sucked in on sports blogs even though I know its a waste of time.
Andy: You are absolutely right...five is not a lot. But big or small, the interviewees are a representative sample of the Web 2.0 gen pool. They ranged in professions/backgrounds, gender, and ethnicity. It's not that they wouldn't ever comment; they just didn't comment gratuitously and there seemed to be circumstances under which they might comment.
Dear Reshma,
When you count the number of unique visitors (or unique page views) versus the number of comments received, whether it be to a page, a site, or a group of sites, it's abundantly clear that most page visits are from those who, at best, have come to be informed, entertained, or enlightened. Comments are but one of the many forms of user-generated content. Regardless of their demographics, most web consumers are not content creators.
Consider for a moment, the YouTube video with a million views. It’s rare that such a gem would have hundreds of comments (less than 0.1 percent at a thousand comments per million). However, your question is a burning example of “what is it that stickiness is made of”, to paraphrase “The Tipping Point”. Surely we will have this question torturing us through restless eons to come.
Perhaps we should be structuring the investigation in terms of multivariate testing and behaviorial analysis. How about a panel discussion at the WebGuild sometime soon?
Cheers, Rich
Sorry, but the grammar nerd needs to point out that in fact, it does not "beg' any question.
What you meant was that it "raises" the question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
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