I am a regular user of Social network like FaceBook,Orkut, LinkedIn.
Collaborative Knowledge Sharing Networks Like Wikipedia , WikiQuote,Del.icio.us
Q&A forums like USENET ,Linkedin Answer ,Yahoo Answers .
Media centric communities like Flickr,Slideshare,Youtube
I have noticed that most of the time some specific member of network are more Vocal , enthusiast and involved than others. these user keep the conversation alive . a study says 20 % of Linked In users are answering 80% of Q . Yahoo Answer have similar pattern .
In old product/ technology centric paradigm we often call them power user or early adopters . There is no immediate material /objective gain form Answering someone’s Q or solving a problem on someone’s behalf . still people do it .
someone told me that “It’s not Just Altruism which promotes these guys to do so . another factor is that it satisfy their Vanity “. he even suggested that whole notion of option source is driven more by Vanity than by altruism . [i neither agree nor disagree with him , i never thought of Open source n Free software in that way ,however thats besides the point ]
I think that these Vanity users are Key to any social networks adaptation and growth . Who are these guys who write wikipedia articles ? i know only one such guy . My question is How can a upcoming startup ensure that it gets attention of Vanity users ? what appeals to them ? how can you attract and [more importantly] retain them .
can it be done by
Design ? ie: Having specific feature which uplift user’s social presence [ Linked in Recommendation,Fave count in slideshare , Testimonial in orkut, flickr ]
By reward ? : some incentive ie Cool Quotient index or Giving Visibility ,Profile of the day ,most read profile , max number of connection ,Hot count in Hot or not , Feedback grade in E Bay )
By some grading system ? (FANs in Orkut and Domain Expert status in LinkedIn, Crush Count in Facebook ,Technorati Rating )
whats your thoughts on this
- Event Notification: 5th Meetup of Mobile Monday Delhi - December 21, 2007
- Facebook End Game - September 27, 2007
- BAD APPLE OR BAD BARREL ? - September 5, 2007
I read a post that the number of power users are not 20% but 2%, in case of wikipedia at least.
In my view classifying power users contribution for one specific reason is limiting to understand their real motivation or incentive.
People do it for personal gain, vanity, altruism, reputation, just for fun or for all of it.
Here is a link of post from Digg’s god Niel Patel, on what motivates him :
http://www.quicksprout.com/2007/05/15/how-to-make-more-money-through-personal-branding/
Interview of Wikipedia power user Sydney Poore aka FloNight:
http://zero.newassignment.net/filed/interview_wikipedia_super_contributor
Attracting power users is the real challenge, netscape offered real money to digg power users to join its network.
Yeah you have raised good questions, I’m also trying to find the answer.
– Vicky
http://www.startupnews.in
[ news for entrepreneurs ]
Super post! Very thoughtful.
Very well written article. I agree with RYK . They do not hang out in groups. They probably also do not have similar characteristics ( apart from bein Vanity ) . For example , in my SNS I see people who are most active vary from a college student ( 20 years old , still in college , likes to make a network ) to a retired government employee ( probably above 65 ) . It has been difficult to analyse who might such a user be ( and then incentivise that population ) .
just like some people dress up more, vanity users are more active online. But yes, great insight, i had not been articulate it in this fashion.
Your concept itself provides the solution: 1. Promise them visibility; 2 Give them visibility.
How does one reach them? Well I don’t think they hang out in organised groups, but every one or two in a hundred will be vanity user. The trick is to convert him to your product: so make conversion the backbone of your company.
One of the myspace founder’s once mentioned that they specifically targetted people who were less popular socially, possibly fat or introverted, thus they spent a lot more time online and built very strong profiles. Oops, sounds like me 😉
Great thought. The vanity users apply to blogs as well — Like you writing this post and hunders of users like me just consuming it. A simple attribution is the foundation of such an incentive like allowing the name in the comment field here.
Do you think that a meta-database of such vanity users would have any social value? Extrpolating it further — a social network of vanity users (people who have submitted 100 stories on Digg are eligible to apply, or posters with moderator privileges in slashdot are eligible). It’s a very targeted set of users, maybe a valued set.
Indus