Is online participation important to you? - Justin Korn

Interesting points. People can participate on FF without anyone ever noticing. Participation is important to me and I try to do it in as many ways as possible, but I don't expect it to be important to everyone else. - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF

good post. Starting with blogs and then web2.0 the ammont of interaction has been increasing. FF is the forefront of this interaction wave that is connecting everyone on a micro-level. - linkman77

@Rasheen: I'm not trying to force or say that participation is going to be important to everyone. There will always be the passive users, just like there will always be the social butterflies. I'm just trying to encourage the passive users to try and participate a little more, with the LIKE (on FriendFeed) and the FAV (on Flickr) and whatever else is out there that makes it easy. - Justin Korn

Oh, but it gets a little discouraging when you try and contribute like crazy, but nobody notices you... Kind of like when you realize you're talking to yourself. <blush> - Cheryl Allin from NoiseRiver

That's exactly why I liked the article. You point out that people don't really have to step out of their comfort zone or put in much effort at all besides what may come natural in order to participate :) - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF

@Cheryl Allin: I believe Mark Trapp recently said in response to one of my post, "Participation is important, but I think it's more of an art rather than a science to getting your audience engaged." My advise is, contribute because you want to contribute, not because you want a reaction. - Justin Korn

Justin, I know how Cheryl feels. I have seen posts (from myself and others) that I find quite interesting and see little or no comment or interaction from others, and then there are the posts from people saying they just had french toast for breakfast that end up generating an 8 hour conversation. It can get a little discouraging to try to contribute when you see this occurring. - Jeff P. Henderson

@Jeff Henderson: I totally agree, it can get discouraging, overwhelming and annoying. I don't have any good advice (at this point) for this. - Justin Korn

I do want to make it clear, in this post, I am not talking about participating in the form of posting your own content, I am talking specifically about participating in what already has been contributed. I think there is a big difference and that they are two separate topics. - Justin Korn