Elliott

Craig: I saw something yesterday that makes me think affiliate marketing is going to be a BIG deal in about four years. But will it be in time to save newspapers? We're going to lose quite a few in the next four years. - Robert Scoble

Have you checked out http://blog.spot.us ? - Gerard Barberi via twhirl

There's two issues here: one is that the product of journalism is so easily distributed now, it makes the purchase of its artifacts (the physical paper) unnecessary and even unseemly. - Jim Benson

Interesting. I don't think that funding of journalism ala carte like that will work that well. It might here and there, but the real problem is we don't know what kind of journalism we need until after we see it. Would anyone have done ala carte funding to break open Watergate, for instance? No. Not before the fact. Not very sexy for anyone. After the fact? Yes. - Robert Scoble

The second is that advertising was never quantifiable and never worked very well even in a highly regimented economy. Now, with a more distributed economy, blanket advertising is totally ineffective. -- To solve this we need to solve both problems. (1) dealing with a diffused distribution model and (2) dealing with a diffused economy. - Jim Benson

Jim: the second part (that advertising isn't quantifiable) is what is killing newspaper business models. If you're a business, where would you rather put your ad budget? The local newspaper or Google? I know where I would rather spend my money. - Robert Scoble

Value used to be assigned to two things (1) the object and (2) bulk eyeballs. Repackaging the assumptions of media is key here. They are no longer making a broadcast or a paper (a single big sellable object), but, rather, a lot of diffused things which is monetized in different - but not entirely dissimilar ways. What's funny is ... for news ... context sensitive ads are not applicable. At a school shooting story you don't want adds for automatic weapons, for example. - Jim Benson

Regarding ala carte: I'm going to do another week in Washington DC. It costs about $10,000 to take a video crew there and get media done for a week. If it weren't for a serious sponsor I'd never get to do that. But that's not even serious journalism. To really chew on a story like Watergate you need months of investigative and relationship-building work. Maybe even years. I doubt it could be done by an outsider. That means having millions to fund that kind of work. Ala carte just ain't gonna do that. - Robert Scoble

Jim: good point, the packaging and distribution of news is totally changing. Local news is moving to sights like Topix, too. - Robert Scoble

here's one idea via spot.us: "If the public has a freelance budget, reporters don’t have to wait for an editor to approve their story. Now they can seize the day and pitch the public." http://blog.spot.us/2008/07/29... for example, crowdfunding Scoble-like reporters/bloggers. something like a PBS for the blogosphere. - ~C4Chaos

What's interesting to me is that I'm now in a VERY small town, & the TV broadcast doesn't cover what happens up here in this tiny hamlet. So I'm more dependent on the local rag then I ever was back in the Bay Area. Perhaps creating newspapers that that focus on smaller geographical areas or "types" of people (SAHM moms, environments advocates, etc.) - which is, of course, what bloggers have been able to do with microniching. - Michelle MacPhearson

By thee way, it's interesting that FriendFeed is good for a topic that can be settled in about 20 back and forth messages, but isn't good for longer topics that need a longer effort. We could build an entire conference for a few days around this topic. It's important for our society to figure this out, yet putting all the pieces and all the thinking together on this is very difficult. Admob, for instance, has one tiny piece (really great ads for iPhone) that can play a part in saving journalism. - Robert Scoble

Unfortunately people are getting too used to free everything and seem to be surprised when people need to put food on the table. My wife is a magazine editor so I know first hand how the magazine industry is basically going downhill fast. People are getting laid off daily and taking pay cuts. I would have to say that the current magazine business model will be done soon after newspapers. Not even by virtue of sales and subs but by the reallocation and sheer lack of advertising dollars in this economy. - Scott Lockhart

C4Chaos: let's be honest, though, a crowd-sourced journalism is going to give us all the news we already get. Celebrities and sports. Who will fund some geek to do investigative journalism that sounds really boring? I just don't believe in the masses. I think we need a better idea for how to fund this stuff. And, there's a lot working against you. The people with audiences are too busy to tear themselves away from what they are doing. - Robert Scoble

I still think the key word is Quality. If institutionalized journalist will be able to bring good quality stories the people will buy their paper. In areas like army and politics the veteran publicist have the advantage since having better sources to deliver the stories, in other spaces like tech there's an advantage for internet journalists. Conducting profound inquiries that lead to great documentary/particularized stories can do the work as well, specially on weekend editions. second thing is to establish good internet website to channelize readers to the newspaper brand and maintain popularity within all mediums. Third, is to attract more celebrities to share stories/pictures. Don't forget that a vanity fair cover is more tangible than a 1 second image, passing by on an internet server. Fourth, fighting on good sources and talents. You keep them, you get more readers. Fifth, focus on what you can instead what you can't and make the system efficient. - Nir Ben Yona

Nir: I'm never buying a newspaper again, no matter how good the journalism is inside. Neither is my son. So, bad assumption there. Second of all, the $.50 you pay for the newspaper does NOT pay for the content inside. The advertising does. So, if the advertising disappears the great journalism disappears too (which is happening VERY rapidly in the Bay Area as the newspapers have laid off hundreds of journalists recently). - Robert Scoble

I might be coming across as a Kevin Kelly fanboi today but here http://bit.ly/3aAu3e he suggests that people like to pay because it is; "1) A way of connecting. 2) A sign of approval. 3) A vote. 4) It indicates an alligence with the maker. 5) It feels good to the payer, to support." Hopefully this model might work for journalism, music, and other forms of digital art and expression - jeremy ettinghausen

Nir: I can tell you with a very straight face that good journalism does NOT get readers. What does get readers? Comedy, celebrity, and sports and small, bite-sized news nuggets. - Robert Scoble

Nir: also, we live in a Google World: a world of niches. Some niches pay better than others. Great journalism about digital cameras or cars pays MUCH better than good journalism about world peace, for instance. Why? Because Google's advertising system is biased toward transactional audiences and rewards the creation of content that feeds those audiences. - Robert Scoble

Nir: I would have to disagree with you and agree with Robert - it's ALL about the advertising. That's why magazines give away subscriptions at ridiculous prices compared to their newsstand cost - guaranteed eyeballs to sell ads against. Even if readers were still reading newspapers and magazines at the same rate as they did in the 80s, if the advertising $ today were being diverted to more directed internet campaigns (Google, etc) the industry would still be in decline. - Scott Lockhart

good point on crowdfunding, Robert. but i was thinking more of a PBS model. (also been reading stuff on this topic on http://www.pbs.org/idealab/). the PBS model had been successful for a long time now so its a good place to start. isn't that similar to crowdfunding but without the crowd necessarily dictating what stories to cover? speaking of media and journalism, maybe we can get Danny Schechter (aka "News Dissector" who produced Weapons of Mass Deception) pitch his two cents on this topic. - ~C4Chaos

Seems to me there are two problems at work: producing paper is quite costly on the expense side (big fixed costs, typically union labor, etc.). And on the revenue-generating side, there seems to be not enough of what folks want to read (not enough local, overreliance on AP wire, etc.). I'd argue that papers' reporting isn't local enough/specialized enough to have value. With the right local/specialized content -- some professionally reported, some user-generated -- why wouldn't PPC work for the papers? - Eric Johnson

Oddly I was just thinking about this subject. Unfortunately I came up with very little. One possibility is to create an Xprize type mechanisms so people are richly rewarded for the often unrewarding work of journalism. The key isn't newspapers per say, but supporting the idealism of those who take on the sacred work of providing societies' mirror of truth. This is a distributed people's journalism rather than one organized around artificial organizations like a paper. - todd

The PBS model will not work on the web. Why? Because the web decentralizes and disaggregates things. PBS worked because of the bundling of things together. Yanni raises more money for them than Nova does. But on Web bundling Yanni with Nova makes no sense. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I'm the founder of Spot.Us (mentioned above). I agree that Water Gate wouldn't have been pre-funded, but reporting like this http://wiki.spot.us/election could merit pledges. Right now spot.us is in a VERY early stage (pre-alpha really) - but I do think it's a potentially new revenue stream. Not a silver bullet (I don't think there are any silver bullets), but it can't hurt to try ;) No matter what: I want to thank you for bringing the topic up - it's incredibly important. - David Cohn

losing newspapers is not a loss, look at the stack in your room you haven't read, look at the shallowness of 98% of all reporting ... - Gregory Lent

To continue the idea of support create a legal fund to help fight the battles. Lobbying groups to help fight the muzzle. Organize like a church or non-profit so people could contribute to a support network for journalists. Driving journalism solely through profits may not make sense. Journalism a higher social good packaged like spam. Maybe it should be organized more like other higher callings we appreciate? - todd

Private and public funding seems like a more likely avenue to save journalism. Paper press though is all but dead. - Todd Jordan

I'll go along with Robert, where does an advertiser put his funds? Naturally they want to market to people in their market and not just splash an ad out for people who are not in their market to see To survive the newspaper industry will have to start going further into targeting their ads to a market instead of the the shotgun effect. - Scot Duke

I know nothing about journalism, I'm just a professional code monkey. But I have a crazy idea - what about something like similar to kiva.org to fund journalism? - imabonehead

Gregory: I think you would be surprised at how much news that is spread on the web was first broken by paid journalists, even today. I think the real issue is that the method of information delivery is secondary. It is more about having a free and independent "press" (or wordpress) that holds us all accountable and can provide its contributors a living. So losing newsprint itself is not a loss, but losing the 1000s of reporters and writers that are able to do what they do because of it, is... - Scott Lockhart

@imabonehead Kiva.org is a BIG inspiration for my project: spot.us - in fact, I often just explain it to people as Kiva.org or Donors Choose for journalism. - David Cohn

David, cool. Didn't see the url mentioned earlier by other posters. It's still an early Saturday for me. :) - imabonehead

Robert & Scott: I totally understand your point and i do agree when it comes to day-by-day journalism. After all, it is a lose-lose situation for the institutionalized papers, they can't fight the speed and accessibility of internet news and info, especially for busy people like us who have no time for long articles reading while working. On the other hand i do find niche journals like Science Magazine or Nature for example, able to maintain worldwide readers with quality publication and pro debriefing. - Nir Ben Yona

Nir: I would have to say that I be surprised if they are doing well... Magazines and newspapers are fairly different, yet similar in a lot of ways too. The magazine format with its combination of design and short and long form journalism is a little harder to replicate online and hasn't been done all that well to this point. If you want to see what is happening at least in magazines, even with very niche titles: check out http://magazinedeadpool.com/ There's a whole blog devoted to publications going under - Scott Lockhart

<continue> with experts sharing their thoughts and researches. That is a quality journalism that attracts readers. Robert, i'm sure your 14 years son won't mind getting a monthly pro car magazine or a "PC Mag" alike version if he's into tech or gadgets. My point is that there is a place for quality and somehow (maybe naively) i'd like to think some people do go after interesting stories and not just "Celeb Gossip". Maybe it is the same as after the bubble burst, sort of a cleaning occurrence... - Nir Ben Yona

in an ideal world there would be a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for journalism where journalists could practice their craft free (or almost free) of corruption. a combination of philanthropy/non-profit/donation and subscription model as opposed to journalism run as a for-profit business would save journalism standards. for example, The Nation (see http://www.thenation.com/) is running on a combination of subscriptions, advertising, and donations. - ~C4Chaos

<continue> to let the good prevail. In my vision, in 10 years, the big newspapers will have a weekly internet edition threw their website and a weekend edition with more investigative stories. - Nir Ben Yona

This year in magazines these are the losses in advertising revenues for some very established US magazines. What were are seeing here is just destroying their already small profit margins: Entertainment Weekly (-16.8%), Kiplingers Personal Finance (-15.3%), US News & World Report (-30.3%), Home (-30.9%), and Scientific American (-20.3%) Lucky (-12.2%), The New Yorker (-20.1%), and ESPN The Magazine (-14.8%) - Scott Lockhart

sorry for possibly over-commenting this thread, but it is a subject close to my heart and my shared back account. :) Cheers! - Scott Lockhart

Nir: you're wrong. My son thinks magazines are pretty worthless. He reads MacRumors and Engadget, both of which bring him much better and more timely news than any magazine can (and more of it, too). FastCompany is actually doing very well compared to the magazine industry, which is interesting (it grew last year). But the category it is in lost several competitors, so overall the trend is right and probably will catch up with FastCompany at some point which is why we're investing online more and more. - Robert Scoble

Scott: but maybe it is part of the global recession that has dropped margins everywhere, not just in journalism. - Nir Ben Yona

Here's the process: 1. End of newspaper advertising ends artificial subsidy funding of "quality" journalism; 2. Supply & demand takes effect; 3. We start to get our first picture of what value people will put on different types of information. - Dan

I'm interested in saving journalism, but the question posed here seems to be about funding. Guess it's a chicken-and-egg thing. Seems like the distance between the reader and the writer has knocked a lot of the middle folks out of the picture, and it's harder to justify the kind of money they're asking for. When it comes to value in journalism, however, I still prefer hard facts over style, design, even spelling and sometimes grammar (and I'm a picky art director). Trust costs more than packaging? - Chris Kim A

Two things journalism can offer: targeted "local" audiences, and credentials/journalistic integrity. Where do you go to find out news about a specific area (geographic or topic)?, and where do you go for the truth?. Both are worth something. - Kip

We'll know an awful lot more about the future shape of journalism about a year or so after the 20th century metro newspaper system collapses/goes on life support (I'm guessing by summer of 2009, but that's a guess). But the one thing I'm pretty sure about is this: There won't be one way of funding journalism, and we won't lump everything that gets reported under that one heading anymore.The fundamental idea: There should be a logical connection between the info you produce & its supporting revenue streams. - Dan

Robert: i guess i'm a dope concerning nowadays kiddies. As for FastCompany, i do hope you will keep delivering the good stuff as long as possible. BTW, do you agree with my conjecture of a daily internet edition and weekly hard-copy version, coming up in few years? - Nir Ben Yona

I think you will get a mixture of rich corporations and individuals trying to fill the gap, like Google. But pushed out from the security of the newsroom, there will also be a flurry of entrepreneurship among the journalists who are displaced. Don't assume that subscription won't work in the future, either. It may well be that newspapers have actually been obscuring the need and opportunity for a higher quality journalism. I believe The Economist has achieved impressive growth against the secular trend. - Tim Penn

journalism doesn't necessarily imply newspapers, does it? - pixites

No, but about 90% of what "A-List" blogs do is NOT journalism. I'm no authority, but I'm beginning to see why people say there is a difference. "Editorial Discretion" Oh, @Tim, you're absolutely right. Online and print content can thrive in a subscription model if there is value. The mistake newspapers made was giving it away in the first place. - Andrew Feinberg

And the general newspaper model makes zero sense now. A daily packaged product can work for niche content, but who reads the entire newspaper? I use the big paper websites for different reasons (local, national, international, etc). Political news? Niche publications. I buy (or sometimes expense) Roll Call, CQ and CongressDaily. People in the Cable/Internet/Telecoms buy CommDaily and WID. There are tons of other niche trade pubs that are thriving. It's the blob of daily newspapers that needs to be split up - Andrew Feinberg

It's important to realize that journalism is a process, not a product. Newspapers might not survive but the craft of Journalism will. The question is... how? There are no concrete answers right now - but I do think that practicing journalists are earnestly trying to figure that out (for the first time). @Robert - I don't think Ala cart funding for journalism will lead to Brittany Spears stories. There are ways around that - I'll try and write a blog post at blog.spot.us with more details. - David Cohn

Since there is no known answer to this question, the most important thing to do right now is launch as many possible experiments in as many possible directions, increasing the likelihood that we will find good answers a little faster. But it's vital to understand that this is essentially *research* -- practical research, but research nonetheless. And in research, the dead ends are valuable too. Short-term business thinking inhibits this understanding. But the desperation of the industry moment only intensifies that short-term mindset. - Scott Rosenberg

This is currently an unsolved problem, a hard concept for some to grasp. Every possible answer--rich people! foundations! internet advertising! crowdfunding!--has some pretty glaring defects. No one has the solution yet. Right now the most promising developments are Talking Points Memo (http://is.gd/1cVX), funded by ads and reader support and doing investigative journalism of the kind we want; Pro Publica, funded by rich people (http://is.gd/uLu) and spot.us, which is crowd funding. - Jay Rosen

Jay lists 3 good funding sources. Also consider: Nonprofit corporation (supported by pledge drives, sponsorships, foundations, etc.); true-cost intelligence subscriptions (as with STRATFOR) and smart amalgams of keyword/display/classifieds/and various affiliate-type programs. And where I think it gets REALLY interesting is when you start creating information tools that have specific value to the end user. You add value, you take profit. - Dan

The trick? In Web journalism, you're paying for people costs. You're not paying for trucks and paper and ink and presses. So when people say "The Web can't pay for journalism" what they're REALLY saying is "The Web can't support newspapers and TV stations." - Dan

The thing I'm really looking forward to putting my energy into is developing some kind of smart, shared business infrastructure that would connect individuals who make content to all the reliable services that a new-media businesses will need to make money. You might be able to make some money writing useful articles and selling your own ads and doing your own site, but that's not a bright long-term prognosis. And yes, I'm a newspaper guy who signed up for a buyout last week. - Dan

Won't journalism always win Pulitzers? Which brings a sort of global cache and prestige... which is what newspapers hope to gain, such that the world will pay attention, right? That's at the highest level. There can always be prestige and prize for journalism at all levels... even if it has to come from new sources. - Christopher Galtenberg

it's so easy... just do as in Italy, where crap newspapers (most all of them) are financed by the government! - Luigi Centenaro

Newspapers are thriving in the ethnic market, primarily at the local level. The reason for the success is that their readership is starving for intl/local ethnic information. Weeklies are the way; most papers are run by journalists from their respective countries-it is extremely streamlined. Journalists need to take the initiative with sales professionals and open up local, weekly newspapers that serve specific niches/markets/topics. Also, home delivery is a must, as is a strong grass-roots component. - Harold Cabezas

Robert, I think you could ask a different question here, too. Was there a journalistic failure running through the housing bubble and its aftermath? In his new book, Robert Shiller suggests there was, but he made the arguments clearly before about the tech bubble. Given the scale of importance of this story, if we ask what might journalism have done differently, the answer might also suggest useful commercial or funding structures. - Tim Penn

Altrustic funding isn't the answer. Newspapers will have to stand on their own merits just like any capitalist enterprise. I'd like to more Nritish style - Hutch Carpenter

British style that is. More point of view included in the reporting. You win on your point of view. - Hutch Carpenter

Journalism needs a couple of things (1) a lower distribution cost structure and a lower news acquisition cost structure. If you look at online news folks (like Scoble, others) they've found an effective way to lower the distribution costs of their journalism. To lower news acquisition cost you need to look for alternatives to collecting news, whether it's UGC or leveraging a freelance network like Beet.tv is doing with TurnHere (disclosure - I work for TurnHere). - Morgan

<continued morgan> (2) the big media companies need to move quickly into diversified news outlets (as has been mentioned above) reducing the number of pages in newspapers, moving from trying to bash the mass over the head and instead move towards aggregating the long-tail of news consumers to roll up in to a critical mass not through one communication vehicle (i.e. a paper) but through many diverse channels. Finally they need to go for more sponsorship money and less ad money as we've seen in other biz. - Morgan

whatever it is can't be based on lame-O advertising cuz i NEVER click those. - Susan Beebe

I haven't commented on this yet because I really don't have anything substantial to contribute yet. But it's had me thinking for 24 hours. I guess that's not a bad thing. - Chris Baskind

One of the things implied in all this (at least for me) is the idea of completely self-selected news. It's an exciting development to be able to do that, but what are we missing? Scoble hits it on the head when he says Watergate reporting wouldn't get done under this model. If we're going away from news bundlers like newspapers, can we find a new business model to finance serious journalism? And what does a society without serious journalism look like? - Tom Landini

I don't like that I can't tell when these comments occurred. I have no idea if I should bother to comment. Has the conversation moved on or do people come back and talk more?? And what's with not being able to use paragraphs? Lots of text is a pain to read. - Dawn

Lots of interesting thoughts here. I have to say that this very subject is on my mind daily as I personally aggregate Hispanic news and have done so for 3 years to the tune of 40k+ posts. Just one niche among many but I worry about the loss of journalists especially since at least within the Hispanic community it is perceived that there aren't enough journalists covering issues important to them. Anyway, yes everyone can pick their own news but the flip-side is that there is so much news especially now through aggregation that I believe that a lot of solution boils down to relevancy. I don't think journalism needs saving. What needs saving is how to pay for the service journalists provide our society. Relevancy can build a greater audience. Building an audience around relevancy either via aggregation (hand-picked aggregation in my case) or some other method/service would provide a better avenue for targeting by advertisers and the necessary money they provide and maybe this will help pay a journalist for the - Tomas

Dawn: yeah, time stamps on comments would be very cool. Generally I find a conversation on FriendFeed can go on for about a day. Same with this one. it's pretty much died out, even though a few interesting comments have trickled in today. - Robert Scoble

Then FF will never go mainstream. "Non-passionates" don't want to have to be plugged in 24/7 in order to be able to participate. Thanks for the clarification. - Dawn

I'm actually doing a three-post series on how the internet has changed the economics behind the publishing business this week on Eat Sleep Publish. I'm also doing an event (a mini mini version of what Robert suggested above) in Seattle this Septermber to get smart ppl together to round-table about what the business model is. Robert - you going to be in town? - Jason

All I can say is - I hope newspapers will not go away - since I enjoy the print medium and the ability to carry my paper without having to plug it in every time. One of the reasons why i pay for my Economist is the convenience of having it, rolling it up and enjoying it without having to wait for XP or MaxOS to boot and show it. And even with always-on OSes (like Palm and iPhone), still enjoy the feel of paper. - Sanford

Further to my comment about Robert Shiller and the role of the press in positive and negative feedback loops, a full review of the book is here http://bit.ly/1IFiZb, with further links out. - Tim Penn

Question: WHY do we want to save journalism in the first place? Why not let it die its own death like fax machines and pagers. - Mukund

In the UK we have something that will buck the trend: the BBC. It's funded by a "licence fee', which you have to own BY LAW to have a television in your house. I.e. If you don't have a licence, you're busted. Sure, the BBC has to justify the fee annually, but the UK population seems, on the whole, happy with what it gets: unique, high quality local and national TV, Radio and web uninterrupted by advertisers. A place where in depth "Because it's important" type journalism may still be able to flourish? - Tom Beardshaw

"New school" hip hop is dead to me. I'll look for it once in a while, but its just not what it used to be for me personally. - Shey

mainstream hip hop might be dead, but there's still tons of innovation out there... - Trent Olson

Hip-hop's not dead. It's just in the ICU. - Mona N.

Trent, please name some groups! I feel like underground hiphop isn't in a much better place than mainstream.... but maybe i'm just not listening to the good shit. - Ňicķ

@Nick - the Cool Kids, anything on Def Jux, Subtitle, all of the hip hop/bloghaus crossover stuff... there's so much out there. - Steve Lynch

This is so true. There were definitely parts of this video that gave me flashbacks to my consultancy days. - Kevin Fox

OMG! Im dying!! This is soooo funny! "female intersection zones"... "circles feel very 90s to me" - Erin

What a coincidence! ..I'm currently working on a new GO sign, still not sure if it'll fly.. however I'll give it a road test first.. - Jason Brooks

The last line is classic: "Guys, we don't like the way this is testing..." LOL - Diane Ensey

...so we've got some miiiinor tweaks we're looking into" awesome - Jason Wehmhoener

Hilarious. Also a bit sad that so many times we end up stuck in this sort of a 'process'. - Bindu Reddy

Clients suck. Sometimes they need to be reminded of that fact, gently. - Jason Wehmhoener

Looks interesting, but why pay $90 when you could just build it yourself :P - Bjorn Tipling

...and then you get to the $89 price tag. - Ben Parr

wow, that's a nice-looking theme! - Sarah Perez

I reckon $90 isn't bad. I don't claim to be the fastest developer, but it would take me at least 3hrs to make a theme of this calibre, and that's more than $90. - Mo 'Killer Sauce' Kargas

very nice - anna awesomesauce

Nice theme, but I'm not sure it's $90 nice... - Bryce Moore via twhirl

Overall, a good theme. If the author priced this $29, would prolly have more sales than $90. $90 is just expensive for a WP theme. But that's just me I guess. - AJ Batac ♘

If you can make that theme in 3 hours Mo Kargas, then you are a fast developer - Bjorn Tipling

Great theme...but in all honesty, I'd take Pirillo's FREE WicketPixie theme over it. - Bradley McSpinn

Lol, thanks Bjorn :) Someone should tell my boss. @Spinn, totally agree for the grand price of free - Mo 'Killer Sauce' Kargas

I've seen this a few times now and I wouldn't coin the 90% that matter most when it comes to having a community to speak to as "Lurkers" - it's a negative connotation that deserves a different name - Julian Baldwin

I think you could apply those same percentages to society at large. Question; what's the tipping point that moves a person from one level to the next, up or down? - Jack Carlson

Julian - "lurkers" speaks to the goals of a company running social media. You want participation. But as consumers of information, you're right. I'm learning, not lurking! - Hutch Carpenter

Jack, he defines what each level is right in the article. - Mark Trapp

actions carried out by lurkers (views, time spent per node, node entrance, node exit, etc) can be considered a form of positive participation if you're feeding the trending patterns back into your community. - [edit] - just saw it in the article, 'Make participation a side effect' aka 'read wear'. - Graham Garland

I saw that, Mark, but the examples were internet oriented. When applied to real life or society, there are other tipping points. Some people's lives could be defined by those statistics. They are actively contributing to their lives about 1% of the time and spending 90% of their lives more as spectators than participants. Life's lurkers. - Jack Carlson

Jack, it's not about "tipping points:" he's merely citing statistical data. In general 90% of users online don't participate at all, 9% participate but don't make it their main focus, and 1% seem to focus on nothing other than participating. Therefore, you're not getting a representative sample for user feedback when soliciting comments or methods that require participation. I think it's a stretch to take this data and attempt to discover life's lessons out of it. - Mark Trapp

Old media: TV,magazines,etc. probably 99% lurkers. 10% improvement not bad. - Mark Forman

We all lurk on most things, participate on some things. Last night, there was a good discussion about the safety and reliability of nuclear energy here. I have *nothing* to add to that, I was just as curious as anyone else. Lurking. - Hutch Carpenter

"Wikipedia is thus even more skewed than blogs, with a 99.8-0.2-0.003 rule" - Nicholas James

Wikipedia: "The encyclopedia anyone can edit, but you're really not going to, are you?" - Mark Trapp

Why should we-and put all those wikipediaists out of a job? - Mark Forman

@jbaldwinconnect: I like the term "audience," since it goes right to the heart of what they're there for. To observe, enjoy, and if they feel the urge they CAN interact but don't have to. Sometimes they applaud, sometimes they heckle, even if they don't get on stage. You can't have a theatre WITHOUT them. And why would you want to? Sometimes I think a lot of SocNet activists would like a masturbatory world where everyone's just acting for everyone else and no one's listening. - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

@alexander Clap, clap ,clap encore!!! - Mel.Buckpitt

Yep, +1 Alexander. The performer/audience relationship is just natural. Well said. - Colin Walker via fftogo

Isn't it true of the world in general? - Parth Awasthi

Personally, I think Ye Olde "Lurker" is perfectly apt. In online communities (as opposed to what passes for such in the Web 2.0 world), there is no performer/audience dynamic... there are people who define themselves and the community through participation, and then there are the those who prefer to observe the community without becoming a part of it. - Roger Benningfield

Hutch: I'm not subscribed to you, and yet your name pops up in my FF flow all the time. So that pretty much confirms you're not a lurker in this space... having nothing to say in a specific "thread" doesn't change the fact that you're generally active. - Roger Benningfield

Roger - there are times I lurk, times I jump in. And I just subscribed to you as well. I like the earlier comments regarding the need for people to just *listen*, not always *perform*. Nothing wrong with that. Lurking = learning. - Hutch Carpenter

That's very true. I learn so much here. And sometimes lurking is better than blurting out just anything in order to participate. (Though I've been guilty of that too.) - Abby Martin

Hutch: Oh, I don't mean to suggest that there's some sort of moral imperative to participate. And there can definitely be a learning aspect to lurking... bit it can also be voyeuristic and detached in some contexts. - Roger Benningfield

I'm lurking on this thread. Oh wait. - possible248

Someone who watches and observes is generally thought of as intelligent, open. But in online social communities they are "lurkers." - Alex Williams

Imagine the noise if there was 100% participation. - Morton Fox

Alex: Someone who sits in shadowed silence while observing the party is usually thought of as "creepy". :-D Again, context plays a big role here. I'm simply resistant to the recasting of lurkers as "contributors by other means" or the audience at a show. Lurkers all-too-often bring their own sense of entitlement to the table, and don't need anyone encouraging them to feel more important than they are. - Roger Benningfield

This is an important point for any community strategy: how can you encourage the lurkers to participate easily? The "like" button in FriendFeed was made for lurkers! - Erica Toelle via twhirl

I disagree that people who observe a public community are sitting in "shadowed silence" and are therefore "creepy." I agree that they are not contributors by other means. Now, some silent observers may be creepy but they are a smaller subset of the community. Same could be said about contributors. A subset of that community may be quite "creepy" in their own right, too. - Alex Williams

Erica: To me, the bigger question is, "do you really want to make it easy for people to participate?" I agree that the "like" link is a handy, non-destructive substitute for an endless stream of "+1", "first!!!", and other one-sentence contributions. But I'm not sure it would do much to forge the bonds of community. - Roger Benningfield

i was thinking of passing on this one, not wanting to be the only counter comment - but hey, why not - doesn't anyone else on this thread find it ironic that inside the most progressive participation tool to-date (friendfeed) a thread is occurring around an almost 2 year old "article" written by the ui dinosaur that is jakob nielsen - his way of looking at online interactions was dated back then and it is still dated - anyway, i just thought it was ironic, i'll go back to my lurking now ;) - mike "glemak" dunn

Alex: Again, I'm not saying lurkers are of any single character... I'm just pointing out that, depending on the structure and purpose of a community, lurking can have a very different feel. Honestly, I don't have anything against lurkers in general. I simply chafe at the emphasis that is often placed upon them when discussing community. - Roger Benningfield

sorry one more - alexander has a great line above "Sometimes I think a lot of SocNet activists would like a masturbatory world where everyone's just acting for everyone else and no one's listening." - awesome - mike "glemak" dunn

Mike: That only makes sense to me if we're talking about blogging or a service like FF, where it is entirely possible to approach participation as a fire-and-forget exercise. But in an actual community, you're usually talking *with* someone. Listening is kind of an important part of having a conversation. :) - Roger Benningfield

roger: are you referring to my "ironic" comment, in which case i don't understand or my quotation of alexander's funny statement in which case i still don't understand - can you pls say what you're trying to say a different way? - mike "glemak" dunn

Mike: Non-threaded discussion drives me ape-shit. (grumble grumble) I was referring to the latter... an "acting without listening" environment can really only take shape on a blog or a place like FF, where one can get by with one-way content production. Communities, meanwhile, host conversations, which by their very nature require that someone at least *pretend* to be listening. - Roger Benningfield

I've heard the 80-19-1 split... but many communities probably are closer to 90-9-1 - Eric Berlin

roger: I think you and i define online communities differently - alexander's line was humorous which is why I pointed it out - possibly the joke did not resonate with you but it worked for me - have a good one - mike "glemak" dunn

By the way, please see Forrester's Social Technographics data, this 90 9 1 rule isn't always the case, it depends on the demographics http://www.forrester.com/Groun... - Jeremiah Owyang