Lurkers

[valis2]

lady_branwyn was recently discussing a recent article in an online pub called AlertBox. She mentions this in her entry:

In any on-line community, participation follows a 90/9/1 rule, where 90% of users lurk and never participate, 9% of users participate occasionally, and 1% of users seem to have no life outside of the Internet...

It really made me wonder about how LJ fits in with that. I mean, a lot of people don't comment on the flist even though they read it, but they have journals, which is definitely some form of participation.

I just can't imagine that people are even looking at my LJ without being friended. I mean, sure, passing glances, but I can't imagine much more than that. With the above formula, it would imply that a thousand people are watching this journal and not interacting. Or perhaps I'm completely wrong, and it's really the people who have me friended but don't comment who are considered lurkers.

In any case, I just have this feeling that in LJ, at least in fandom, that there are fewer lurkers/a lower percentage of lurkers.

Anyone else have thoughts on this? Anyone track non-LJ users or non-LJ friends who hit their LJ? Any figures?

Comments

[valis2.livejournal.com]

That's the problem with this entry, I think. I'm still undecided about the definition of "lurker" here.

Is it someone who has a journal, but rarely interacts, or someone without a journal who doesn't interact? Is anyone without a journal really wandering around LJ, looking at random LJers?

[greenpear.livejournal.com]

Lurker always meant someone who you didn't know was there. But that would be true whether someone had an account or not. THe only way to stop lurkers is to friends lock and personally, I don't want to do that. I like it that people can float in and drop me a line.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

For me, lurker has always meant someone you don't know is there, who is reading something semi-regularly.

When someone friends you, however, you know (or at least suspect, ha) that they're reading you. So that only fulfills part of my definition, hence my confusion.

I'm not trying to stop lurkers; I don't have a single flocked entry. In fact, my sister often reads, as does a friend of mine. I'm just trying to get a handle on how many strangers might be stopping by, people without journals.