Inviting users to participate in web 2.0

January 24th, 2007 by Dr. Taly Weiss

Filed under contribution, Uncategorized, web 2.0

I am working now on a review on the techniques sites use in order to enhance users contribution to the web 2.0 as a public good. During my search, I ran into a creative initiative to call on participation of users to a blogger’s site.
David, a librarian, created a song and a video he uploaded at youtube (worth watching it) ? “Are you blogging this” (http://youtube.com/watch?v=V6Kki_WJJRA). David claims that “Though I didn?t ask anyone specifically to do anything, the title of my song, Are You Blogging This?, apparently did – and people responded to the invitation! It?s one of my most popular posts to date, I have received 26 comments on my original blog post so far, and the video has been watched over 4000 times (3000 on YouTube, 1000 on blip.tv). ”
I think David has succeeded to achieve participation where many large and popular user-created-content sites fail: He cleverly asked users to be active.
Retuning to the issue of enhancing the contribution of users: it is probably legitimate to call for participation! User based sites should not act as if participation is not an issue and should not worry that a request of this type will seem a weakness. I wonder – what if digg for example would personally address its users? Would they be drawn away or might they feel more obligated and thus care to digg and comment rather than just view?

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