The 1% rule in Internet culture.
For those owondering why PandaWhale has way more people reading than writing, look to the 1% rule:
The 1% rule states that the number of people who create content on the Internet represents approximately 1% (or less) of the people actually viewing that content.
There's a great blog post by Bradley Horowitz about this: Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers.
He was at Yahoo when he wrote that, but now he leads Google+.
As he discusses a bit, it's going to be very interesting when more things are structured to create content from relatively passive actions such as Facebook Likes, Netflix ratings, photos, check-ins, etc.
Most people will never actively and consistently create or edit deep content but soon we will have algorithms that create a nicely tailored pastiche of our actions and (if smart enough) might rival deliberate creations.
I can imagine photos showing someone having gotten in amazing shape and then (with their permission) being able to pull down aggregated data about sleeping, eating and exercise habits to show me what worked for them.
The implicit auto-creation of content is a large part of Facebook's future vision: http://allthingsd.com/20110919/read-watch-listen-facebooks-official-motto-for-f8/
I'd imagine as smart phones get smarter they'll implicitly auto-create a lot of content, too.
I'm still a fan of explicit content creation, and what's most interesting to me right now is the explicit Curation-as-Creation behavior of people who use services like Tumblr and Pinterest.
What started a few years ago as Facebook Shares and Twitter Retweets has turned into full-on Curation Nation where I don't have to create great content, I just have to find it and share it.
Absolutely. Many have and will inevitably continue to migrate from the sites of established newsmedia to curators they trust to counter scaling content volume as well as quality and taste issues.
We no longer pick up our daily newspaper. Now we follow our favorite filter. :)
That suggests that applications like Flipboard, Pulse, and Reddit will become increasingly important to Future World.
It's already the case that there's more content available than we could possibly see.
I still want the magic app that keeps track of what I've read and tells me what I should read right now when I have a free minute.
So funny you say that -- I've spent a good portion of the past two weekends "training" Pandora. She has learned quite well. :)
I wonder how much of your magic app is already in existence but is currently used only behind the scenes or the data just has not been properly sliced yet.
Facebook, for instance, knows so much about our relationships they can predict with 1 in 3 chance who we'll be dating next week. And that stat is from years ago. I'm sure it's only gotten more accurate.
Adam.. do you know what % of that 1% are women creating content ? would be interested to find out if women are the creators or the readers! Being a viewer or reader in the 2.0 web space does not mean that you are simply not an influencer though. There will be a large group in that 99% who are not creators- but are influencers. Sharing content, passing it on to other influencers or endorsing, and therefore adding value to content :)
Louise, I've never seen a breakdown of creators by gender.
It really depends on the site.
Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr skew female; Google+, Reddit, and 9gag skew male.
ha ha ha - I can see why Pinterest would be skewed towards females... my husband does not get it :) AS a CFO he wants facts- while I want ideas and inspiration !
Ideas and inspiration are what Pinteresr, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr have in common. :)
Eric wrote: "I wonder how much of your magic app is already in existence but is currently used only behind the scenes or the data just has not been properly sliced yet."
Eric, I think it already exists within some apps -- Pandora and Quora can guide you to the next piece of content, to name two.
I just wonder if it could exist across apps. Across the Web, what's the next thing I should read given what I've already read?
What knows what you've already read? Amazon and your browser, I guess.
Amazon's recommendations are okay, if a bit generic. It's usually in the right ballpark but the crudest of algorithms could do what it does. Given Amazon's money, power and data I expect more. Netflix "got me" much better years ago than Amazon does now.
Something in your browser that tracks what you read across the web and does good personalized recommendations would be amazing...
Thomas Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Very true. Will be posting research about that on the blog this week...
Eric, I'm looking forward to your posts about inspiration and perspiration...
i guess this is changing. more people are creating content today with the rise of social networks and easy to use tools like tumblr. in future, this content will keep growing and people will find it hard to consume it. There will be a high demand for real-time interactions.
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