Comments on: Breaking the 90-10 “rule” – Twitter vs. Facebook, and customer communities

By: Joe Cothrel

Joe Cothrel — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:54:01 +0000

Forrester’s number means that 26% of internet users create content somewhere on the web. Nielsen’s 90-9-1 applies only to a given community at a given time. These numbers measure different things — they can’t be used to validate or invalidate each other.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:50:43 +0000

Laurel: Good point. I've argued elsewhere that I wouldn't want Twitter updates to be the same, content-wise, as Facebook status updates. I think Twitter puts a bigger burden on the user to figure out "what do you want from this" and I think that's fine - but it would be great if they had more exposure to "What are the possibilities? How are other people using this? What are other peoples' strategies for learning or publishing here?"

By: Laurel Papworth

Laurel Papworth — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:27:00 +0000

I’m not a believer in one community cherry picking the bestest ideas from another community. We like blogs because they are open, broadcast, delayed content (created in isolation). We like Facebook because it’s NOT – no writing long articles, not preaching to an empty room. Facebook is about distribution inside closed/gated communities. We like Twitter because it’s quick and dirty and synchronous comms (realtime) – adding scrabble and zombies to Twitter to gjve something that newbies with few followers can do, will create social networks that all look alike. And generic does not equal good in social spaces.

For me, Dr. Jakob Neilsen’s 90:9:1 rule* no longer holds true – 26% of users are now creators (Forresters) . Twitter is still sorting out some of the basics: Purpose & Value Systems, Profiles (report card), Places (things to do if you dont follow any/many), Roles & Responsibilities (how to create leaderboards for example), Leaders (actually Twitter have that covered), Rites and rituals (tho they built in the @ after the users created it), Rules & etiquette (varies, hello spammers!), Events (#channels might cover that), Subgroups (they need to introduce groups, or we use Friendfeed). But i don’t think the answer for every social network should be the same answer. Homongenous = boring, in my book! :)

*90:9:1 rule is here http://laurelpapworth.com/jakob-nielsen-9091-rule/

By: Cindy

Cindy — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:33:21 +0000

PuristProductManager: Yes, I know the Twitter team is small, but I’m really surprised they haven’t taken more advantage of the supporting tools that have been built (but are not findable by the “average” new user).

They wouldn’t even need to buy/integrate these companies – just featuring them as part of signup would provide SOME benefit.

Jim: Exactly – and those personas could be addressed with a well-thought-out “how do you want to use Twitter” wizard. You don’t have to tweet to get value – but you do need to know where to look.

By: Jim Holland

Jim Holland — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:25:16 +0000

Cindy – nice post. I believe there are some personas in social media that do not want to provide content, but connect and learn first. Others are unsure of the basics of how to use and derive information from Twitter (newbies). Many leaders, and other senior managers have to accept how they manage their time and participate with there teams (time management). @valworkman has some great insight on the percentages, personas and how it impacts Twitter.

By: PuristProductManagement

PuristProductManagement — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:08:20 +0000

acceptance of statistics as “common wisdom” leads to apathy as you correctly point out. being relatively (re)new to twitter having basked in its glory a year ago, I’m surprised at the lack of pace of the product. The value proposition remains sound, and its core competitencies are strong and have elements which are unique, but there’s not much innovative as yet – But then again, it could all come out as one big bang, which would be fine as long as we’ve not all gone elsewhere in the meantime