[Air-L] Research on "passive" social media use?

[Anders Fagerjord]

Liesbeth,

Passive use may be widespread, at least on some sites.

In a study of online video sites, Cha et.al. found that users rated  
the video on only 0.22% of YouTube views, and commented on 0.16%. They  
cite a Reuters article that reports that Hitwise have found similar  
results: only .16% of visits to YouTube are video uploads, and .2% of  
Flickr visits are uploads. I have not been able to get my hands on any  
publication from Hitwise.

Is this special for YouTube, Flickr, and other sites that the OfCom  
study named "User Generated Content sites" (and were not regarded  
social network sites), or can we expect similar numbers for Twitter,  
Facebook, etc.?

Cha, Meeyoung, et al. "I Tube, You Tube, Everybody Tubes: Analyzing  
the World's Largest User Generated Content Video System." Proceedings  
from the Internet Measuremet Conference, San Diego, 2007. New York:   
ACM, 2007. <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1298306.1298309>

Auchard, Eric. "Participation on Web 2.0 Sites Remain Weak".  
_Reuters.com_, 17. April, 2007. <http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1743638820070418 
 >


--anders