UWIC DFIM - Nick Gerrard

CCS - Participation

Participation

The Web is evolving, from a simple two way channel for information where the content was provided by companies, via the web, for users to access to a more genuinely free and democratic space with worldwide social networking, reams of user generated content and software available as a service and not a product (SaaS – Software as a Service). Two of the internet’s biggest companies were also two of the first to engage with this Web 2.0 ideology. Amazon with its user reviews and Ebay with its user controlled advertisements and sales. The enormous success enjoyed by these companies seemed to open the floodgates and now many of the webs most famous brands rely heavily, if not solely on user participation. While it is never easy to coin an idea like YouTube which engages the imaginations of such vast numbers of internet users a successful Web 2.0 enterprise has several advantages over traditional websites. For example there is no need for the site owners to continually generate new content and promoting a site becomes a whole lot easier when a user who feels he ‘owns’ the site will be much more inclined to spread the word about that site into his/her own social network. Another offshoot of the increased capabilities of Web 2.0 applications have come with the emergence of ‘mashups’ where different software applications are combined for the benefit of the user. A good example of this is the enterprising Estate Agent search engine provided by Trulia (www.trulia.com) which ‘hijacks’ Google Maps to show search results that include satellite imagery and interactive aerial maps. Participation in this free flowing era of information technology is more then just web applications; the Lottery fund has invested £100,000,000 to create 30,000 public access internet terminals which 16% of the UK adult population now use. Web 2.0 has been described by some commentators as being “an attitude not a technology” (http://paulmiller.typepad.com/thinking_about_the_future/2005/08/thinking_about_.html) and this seems to hold true in a lot of respects. There has been a huge shift in user expectations recently and the successful companies have been the ones that have delivered what is now expected of them. People want programs that can find and assemble the information relevant to them and not feel restricted to paths laid down for them by commercial organisations i.e. I might expect to find information on all available trains to my destination and not just those of one company. Sharing is an important concept in the evolution of Web 2.0, code for example, not only are peers sharing code more then ever but giants like Microsoft have extended the use of open source code in their new web applications. Smart applications are another element of Web 2.0 that we can expect to see more and more of, Amazon’s Recommendation Engine is a good example of how websites can be made to feel more personal. The challenge for web designers is to incorporate all these elements successfully and handle tricky issues like the censoring of user added content. Creating communities and encouraging participation are very important; during last summer’s World Cup FIFA launched MatchCast (http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/t/matchcast/index.html), a step forward from the traditional one way info feed provided by sports websites it had forums, a fantasy football league, and encouraged users to upload their own videos, photos and stories.


The first article I found on user participation in web applications (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html) relates to the quite startling figures on ‘Participation Inequality’ and back up everything you might’ve suspected about internet geeks. There has been a ratio worked out for the average participation reliant sites biggest and smallest contributors, 90 – 9 -1; 90% of users are ‘lurkers’ who read or watch content but never contribute, 9% contribute a little occasionally and 1% of the users add all the rest. When we view these sites and imagine them being fairly representative of their user base they actually aren’t, they are largely the creation of people who have an unhealthy amount of time on their hands. For example one of Amazon’s users had contributed 12,423 reviews, and if you carry the logic of the 90-9-1 ratio over you come to regard the majority of book and music reviews as coming from a suspiciously overactive minority rather than a representative sample of fellow consumers. It isn’t that Lurkers don’t have the opportunity to contribute; they just don’t want to and when we can get something we want without having to give in return how many would? 100% participation will always be impossible for many sites, and even reducing the percentage of lurkers to 80 would be a major step forward for many sites.

The internet has the unique capability of giving people with very niche interests the opportunity to seek out like-minded people. This is called 'long tail theory' where the web connects such vast numbers of people that large communities can be formed around completely obscure fields of interest. Some sites in particular have successfully exploited the user participation trend and 'long tail theory' to create novel and ethically driven online communities. Unwant'd allows people to swap unwanted goods of any kind with others instead of throwing them away while swapaskill.com provides people with a means to share their own individual skills with others and recieve tuition in return without any money changing hands. Imagine how difficult it would be to recieve German lessons in return for teaching someone the basics of fly fishing or to swap a pair of antlers for a Rolling Stones CD without the internet. One of the largest of all participation led sites; ebay profits from 'long tail theory' too with its sheer size allowing people to find buyers for the most bizarre goods. www.bartercard.com has allowed New Zealanders to trade and supply services to each other acquiring 'Bartercard Trade Pounds' which they can then spend on goods and sevrices themselves, over $8.7 billion worth has been exchanged since 1995.

posted by nick_gerrard @ 4:12 PM