Who lurks there? You do.
This morning while trolling my daily feeds and tagging items for further private review, I found a familiar term that’s gaining new significance in our Web 2.0 world: lurker. A lurker is essentially anyone who visits a socially empowered website but fails to contribute his or her own content. An article on the IT discussion community DaniWeb references a recent study by Hitwise on social networking participation; lurkers are called out for their antisocial behavior:
“…as long as there has been an online community there have been ‘lurkers’ to accompany it. These are the folk who read messages but do not post them in the forums, who absorb answers but do not ask questions on support site, and who pull down whatever data is available without ever thinking about putting something back.â€
A lurker myself, I was hurt and a little frightened by the implications of this statement. Are we no longer free to quietly browse the Web’s ever-expanding, better-organized content? Must we endure the disapproving virtual stare and suffocating social pressure of those who demand we increase our participation?
According to the study, I am hardly alone in my fear. There are many more lurkers out there, standing in the shadows of the new social Web. It appears, in fact, that the vast majority of users—those who swell the ranks of YouTube, Flickr, and the other booming online communities—are lurkers like me. Check out these very lurker-friendly numbers:
YouTube visitors who participate by uploading videos: 0.16%
YouTube lurkers: 99.84%Flickr visitors who upload new photos: 0.2%
Flickr lurkers: 99.8%Wikipedia content editors and contributors: 4.6%
Wikipedia lurkers: 95.4%
It’s nice to have so much company in my anti-social Web wanderings.
So, are you one of the less-than-five-percent who participate, or are you—like me and almost everyone else—a lurker?
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Claudia said,
on April 23rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm
OK, so this post shook me out of my blissfully lurking state. Since my friend, Marlies, pointed me to this blog, I’ve been enjoying it so much. You have turned me on to a lot of interesting stuff. I look forward to learning something new from you everyday. You always get me thinking. Thanks so much!
In return, I’m inspired to comment about this lurking phenomenon. I remember it well from the days when I tried to use discussion boards as part of e-learning programs in order to get learners to reflect on and discuss topics with each other. The percentages were similar to what you showed here. One or two people would contribute content and everyone else would just read. We finally realized that to make these discussion boards succeed, we had to assign (sometimes pay)people to populate them. The learners seemed to like to read them, but didn’t really want to contribute unless forced to.
Sometimes, we did make contributions to the discussion boards a requirement–similar to passing a test. Recently, I noticed that Training Day blog (http://vnutravel.typepad.com/trainingday/) advertises a Blog and Win strategy. Every week, there’s a contest to win a current book. If you enter a comment to the blog, you’re automatically entered into the contest. That’s motivation enough for me.
Chris O'Leary said,
on April 24th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Hmmm….a “lurker”. No, I am not comfortable with that term and I usually take my cyber subculture lingo cues from William Gibson. I don’t recall him using that to describe the wanderers of the matrix. The fact that we have to navigate should alone indicate the quest for knowledge and make us worthy of a less creepy label. I’d accept “loiterers”…maybe.
Jay Ferrari said,
on April 24th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Eric:
Like a lot of folks, I suspect I’m a lurker on most sites, but an active participant on the handful of sites of genuine importance to me (professional interests, personal hobbies, etc.)
My follow up question then: What, if anything, is to be done about this lurker-filled web world? Do we, as marketing pros, try to get more people involved with a specific site, or do we try to create more sites that cover the range of specific interests? Maybe both?
Any thoughts on what’s pushed you past lurker-dom in the past?
Eric Primmer said,
on April 24th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Jay,
If Claudia, Chris, and even you can cop to being Web 2.0 ‘lurkers’/ ’loiterers’ at least some of the time, then it’s only fair that I confess that sometimes I’m not– this post being one such example. As to what motivates lurkers like me to contribute when we do, I think Claudia’s comment pins it down pretty well.
“…The learners seemed to like to read them, but didn’t really want to contribute unless forced to.â€
Short of a truly compelling reason, such as a graded school assignment, a personal need, or an attractive reward such as money, the avid consumer/ reluctant contributor (the lurker) will be content to stay on the sidelines. To answer your question, I generally contribute to user-participation based sites only when I need to, or when it is made really easy. As a coder, I will post questions on a fairly regular basis to technical forums seeking answers to programming questions I have.
If it’s not something I need, it better at least be really easy, right? Bookmarking sites like Digg and Delicious as well as some news sites like Newsvine make it easy for casual users to contribute to varying degrees through voting buttons and other tools that are quick and easy. I’m not likely to post an original story on Newsvine, but if I enjoyed a story I found there, I certainly have no problem “voting it up the vine†or even “seeding†a story I found somewhere else to Newsvine. That’s contributing, right? Alright, so I’m mostly still a lurker.
Good luck Jay, in your attempts to go beyond the monolog. Even if the general statistical pattern holds true, the growing range of topics on the web is so vast that I think you’ll continue to see examples of lurkers who found their own compelling reason to step out of the shadows, even if just briefly.
Cynthia Creelman said,
on April 24th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I have to say I’m mostly a loiterer too. However, like the others before me, I do contribute from time to time (so far this is my 2nd comment, and I have posted to this blog once). Unlike the common theory that most will contribute only if forced or paid, when I contribute, it’s because I am personally moved to do so.
On some level, I think a lot of people don’t contribute because they don’t believe they have anything to say that’s of interest to others, or they’re afraid to look stupid or be flamed. I know that’s how I’ve felt in the past. But I’m trying hard to step out of my comfort zone as a loiterer and take that risk to participate a little more actively in this strange new world.
Sara said,
on April 25th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Like Jay, I’m a 50/50 blend–very active on some sites, less active on others based on who or what content is engaging me…
There’s nothing wrong with being a lurker…One of the great things about the Web is that you can learn about things–figure things out, without having to ask questions…I don’t have to be a photographer to love photography–so why should I have to participate on Flickr when I I’m just there to get exposed to some cool stuff?
Of course though, from a marketing POV, the mass population of lurkers present a pretty big challenge to user engagement…How do you turn a lurker into a participator?
Cynthia Creelman said,
on April 26th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Hey Sara, your question made me think of another question … does every marketer need you to participate? Or is lurking enough to drive business in some cases? If you see a cool write-up about a product or service, while you might not comment, there is a chance that you will purchase.
Sara Isacson said,
on April 26th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Great point, Cynthia–there’s def. lots of value in content/advertising reaching the lurkers…
I think that my earlier comment was thinking about marketing from the social network’s POV…Ttheir goal is to get members/sign-ups so that they can GET more advertising $$$ and exposure…more members/registered participants=more money, so that’s where lurker-engagement becomes an issue…