guy kawasaki has an interview with the authors of ‘citizen marketers: when people are the message’. they mention the 1% number that gets bandied around a lot when discussing virtual communities or any customer contribution system. basically, 1% of your users will contribute the majority of the feedback/posts/comments/content. the majority will lurk & then some will contribute every once & a while.

jakob nielsen has the 90-9-1 rule. 90% lurk, 9% sometimes contributors & the 1% that contribute the most.

having been involved in communities from a ‘owner/host’ and ‘participant’ perspective, i’d say the numbers are about right. maybe one day i’ll run the numbers on those communities i host (but probably not – more exciting stuff i’d rather do – if someone wants to do it for me….). i think these numbers also pertain to the physical world. think about the last volunteer group you were associated with – what percentage of the people do the majority of the work? and then there’s a group that does some but the biggest chunk will be the people who do realitively nothing. at least that’s been my experience in several groups. i think this is just the way things are, neither bad nor good. it does raise the question of how you get more people to become that 1%, or get new 1%-ers as some leave the group, and how to keep the other 90% or 99% feeling involved. ie the age old question of how you keep your < whatever you want to call it > alive.

there’s a quote in the citizen marketer’s interview i found interesting:

The 1 Percenters flout cultural conventions. Americans love rebels, therefore the 1 Percenters often become the influencers of American culture.

the 1% definitely influence the group (behavior, conversation topics, norms, etc) but i think the rebel idea fits into the marketing side of things (which is what their books is about) and not the community side. at least i haven’t had that experience.