The “Participation Premium”
Data: Mike Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, said in an article yesterday that he has 10177 people subscribed to him on FriendFeed, about half of the number of followers he has on Twitter.
Data: Allen Stern, founder of Centernetworks, said in an article today that Mike and I are one of the nine people that FriendFeed recommends (we’re right next to each other).
Data: Mike Arrington, according to FriendFeed, is my favorite user on that service. I like more of his posts than any other person, is what that means. So, everyone who is following me sees Mike Arrington’s posts and has an option to subscribe to them.
Data: 15,053 are following me on FriendFeed.
Data: Arrington’s blog is about 10x more popular than mine is.
Data: Arrington was named to Time Magazine’s top 100 most influential people list.
So, why do I have 5,000 more followers on FriendFeed than Mike Arrington does? Especially since he has more advantages than I do (10x more people listen to him on his blog everyday than listen to me — hence he should be able to get thousands to join a new service simply by saying “it’s cool”).
I call this difference the “Participation Premium.”
Let’s look at how Mike and I participate on FriendFeed:
1. Comments. Mike has only left 17 comments, while I’ve left 2,356 comments over the same time period.
2. Likes. These are votes on different items, they basically are telling other people that you think this item is important to read for some reason. Mike has only done 6 likes, while I’ve left 3,625 likes.
What this is telling you is that you can easily get noticed in any community simply by participating. Yes, other factors do matter, but just by participating you’ll build an audience that “the popular kids” can’t get to.
In fact, this is exactly why Mike is at the top of TechMeme today. He participates in the blog world more than anyone. Holds parties. Takes his followers to the movies. Links to them. Argues with them, both on blog and on panels. He’s often seen here on my comments participating.
If you want to be Mike you’ve got to participate. There’s no other way.
Now, the question is, why am I participating in FriendFeed more than I’m participating in the blogosphere lately?
Easy: I think the community over there is geekier and more technology savvy (not to mention friendlier) than any other I watch (and I watch a bunch). It’s amazing how fast FriendFeed is growing, too. Remember, I’ve only been on FriendFeed four months. After being on Twitter four months I only had a few hundred followers. FriendFeed is a very viral community and is changing daily as new people discover it.
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July 6th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I just had this “argument” at a geek meetup in Hawaii where peeps got together to hear from Guy Kawasaki while he was in Hawaii.
My point was that if you want a lot of “followers” then you don’t want to Treat people like “followers” who are there just to Listen to you. Instead, talk With people. Participate. @ back at them. And most of all - do video so people get a chance to get to know you veto d “just text”.
Its amazing how easy it a to build a loyal tribe of followers when you treat them with respect & get them Participating in the new media marketplace.
Thanks Robert 4 being such a great example of Partcipation the right way.
July 6th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
How you find the time to participate in all the different ways you do continually amazes me but you are right. Participation within any group will definitely impact a person’s popularity within any system - Social Media is no different.
July 6th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
You may be interested in a little personal research I’ve done:
http://user21.com/2008/07/04/friendfeed-has-75000-active-users-personal-research/
It’s really based on partial data but may have some value. Especially if I keep on crawling FF to get more results and trends over time. Right now it’s a little side project.
July 6th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
sry 4 the typo
commenting from iPhone
Should read:
get to know them beyond just text
Text = mere words = 7% of communication
video = brings eye contact + body language into communication = 93% more influential
Bottom line:
participate
& do video
then followers will come like a flood
July 6th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Why do I get the feeling that this entire post was a setup just to say this:
“So, why do I have 5,000 more followers on FriendFeed than Mike Arrington does”
July 6th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I would have to agree, participation is ‘Premium’. It is the interaction that makes you more personable. Especially reachable. Or let’s just say, ‘Down to Earth’. Cheers!
~Oddly
Cameron
July 6th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Robert, what I find funny is that people somehow believe that being online changes human nature. On our jobs, in our social lives, in our volunteer activities, at meetings, and parties we pay attention to those who actively participate. The person who joins twitter and simply blasts links is very much like the person that gives you a card and talks nonstop about their business and walks away.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Robert, what makes you and your posts become more viral and engaging is that you do not post and run. You engage in conversation, and unlike Arrington, you are rarely confrontational and you don’t have the same arrogance. I have followed you for a while, but became a real advocate after your trip to DC. I thought your coverage was engaging, informative and it was awesome that you included your son.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Great post, I talked about this a little in my post (link on my name). Participation and adding high quality content is key for building large FF followings.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
agree completely. now if only friendfeed would let me post my user page on a domain that I control, I’d be more comfortable handing it more attention.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Sounds like a bit of ‘woot look at me and my followers, i’m better than Arrington’.
Congrats Scoble…
July 6th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Great post for those still learning the ropes. Way to go..
(I’ve seen Robert get plenty testy with people, esp when they trash videos taken at Mahalo.. its not confrontation that matters, its how you do it. if your confrontational in a “im here to learn, but I think your wrong and heres why but I’m more than willing to listen” type spirit v. just a “screw you - lets see if YOU can do it better” type way makes all the difference….
July 6th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
great read, the only thing I disagree with, is the comparison to Twitter after four months and FriendFeed after four months. As the logic goes, if hundreds (maybe thousands) of Twitter users are jumping the ship, (or, as I imagine, there is quite a bit of overlap), then the logic follows that many of them would land on FriendFeed (and hence follow you). Even though I consider Friendfeed and Twitter to be two very different products, FF is in part riding the micro-blogging wave, which Twitter helped to spearhead.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Why do you have more followers on FriendFeed? Well another thing you failed to mention is you have mentioned FriendFeed and how much you love it countless times in blog posts and introduced more people to FriendFeed than TechCrunch and Mike Arrington have because they aren’t constantly mentioning it in their posts. They don’t plug FriendFeed like you do.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I would say mike is getting the “Participation Premium” he is putting considerably less work into getting followers, yet getting a relatively close amount of followers compared to scoble.
July 6th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Hi Robert, A quick question for you…As a marketer that is diving into social media in a business setting, I am curious about the numbers you seem to promote. It seems to me that you are implying social media is a numbers game too (he/she with the largest number of followers wins). Is that what we should all strive for in social media? Just numbers? Would you say if a company, compared to their competition, doesn’t have a large amount of followers on their blog, socnet, or forum that they are unsuccessful in the social media arena? What if they have a smaller amount of followers, but they listen and have conversations that lead could potentially lead to revenue generation? Would that be seen as less successful by a social media expert like yourself? I just want to make sure I have the right expectations.
July 6th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
[...] guru and blogger Robert Scoble just wrote an article on his blog about a phenomenon called the “Participation Premium.” All of the points that he [...]
July 6th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Rob, only problem with the whole analysis on FF is that it’s all a bit of a lovefest; no one gives you a hard time b/c they’ll get blocked; therefore there’s no real hard and thoughtful debate. Just some like’s and other bullshit that passes off as constructive conversation when it’s really just some brown nosing 101.
Have a think about it.
July 6th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
[...] Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive The “Participation Premium” &l… - Interesting data points used to support an interesting question [...]
July 6th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Thx Robert - several really interesting data points in this discussion although I think you and Mike are such atypical users of both services I wonder if your experiences can be extended to “normal” users.
July 6th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Hi Robert,
I’m still not quite sold on the quantity vs. quality discussion, however. Sure, you can get “noticed” in a community by broadcasting what you’re doing/saying/feeling/thinking/writing. But does that count as truly participating in the discussion, or just being a push mechanism and hoping that others pull?
It’s not enough to add content. You have to be willing to engage in conversation with those that pick up and spend their time with that content, otherwise it’s just old fashioned broadcast media all over again. And with tens of thousands of followers, do you really feel like you’re getting the most of those conversations? I mean with 15,000+ followers, you’d have to be responding over 1200 times an hour in a 12-hour period just to have a smidge of interaction.
I applaud the fact that you have built a loyal following, and appreciate the value that must bring to your media partners. But I’m not sure that “publicizing” to a mass audience and “participating” are really the same thing.
July 6th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
BINGO BABY - you nailed…thank you for posting this… Participation is KEY to community development; hence, follower count, conversation, signal/noise quality, influence, etc.
THANKS! you rock - as always ;-)
Susan
July 6th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
re michael arrington’s comment above
giving up our ideas about control is one of the lessons of this new era of global connectivity
July 6th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Mike has an important point there Robert, considering you are a person who has switched domains/homes online a few times - these services need to be portable and stuck to a home the user owns, otherwise the value you are building is for FriendFeed, not you
July 6th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
nik, in a unified world the difference between you or i and our media is lessening … the value fro friendfeed grows, i grow … surprising how few get what interconnectedness and global unity is all about
how big is your “we” is the measure of your awareness
July 6th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
So, I understand that participation is key. It’s kinda like if you’re a wallflower at a party you’re not going to make friends, but if you talk to people you likely will. It’s pretty communication 101 stuff.
Where I am confused is with the numbers game. I don’t understand the point of this blog, other than to do a comparison with Arrington. I also wonder, with as many followers you have on all of your services, how do you really participate in a quality way with the majority of them. How do you make the selection? There’s no way you’re participating the way the rest of us are participating. Right?
Just curious.
July 6th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Robert, a lot of good ideas in this post. There’s just one comment that I have, however.
You compared your subscriber growth on Twitter vs. FriendFeed in your first four months using both services, whereby you had 100 followers on Twitter vs…. well, thousands, I assume, on FriendFeed.
You wrote the following: “It’s amazing how fast FriendFeed is growing, too. Remember, I’ve only been on FriendFeed four months. After being on Twitter four months I only had a few hundred followers. FriendFeed is a very viral community and is changing daily as new people discover it.”
Is it reasonable to assume a correlation between your FriendFeed subscriber growth and FriendFeed’s overall subscriber growth? That’s what you’re implying, and I don’t doubt that FriendFeed is growing very rapidly, but there are 8 other default recommended FriendFeed users, plus a number of other users, so the apparent link between the two growths is a bit uncertain.
There’s no doubt in my mind that a significant portion of your Twitter audience has followed you to FriendFeed, leading to a large number of FriendFeed followers. Also, Twitter really helped lay the groundwork for an application like FriendFeed by popularizing microblogs and lifestreaming/sharing, so the general audience was probably more receptive to FriendFeed today than, say, two years ago.
I’m just nitpicking on a couple of points, I do think your other observations in this article make sense and I’ve seen them work myself.
July 6th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
[...] (tech) blogging topics that are eternal. Comments vs. no comment. A-listers vs. non-A-listers. Techmeme sucks vs. Techmeme is still teh hot. Also, for those in social media: Digg is pwned by a small number [...]
July 6th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
[...] Scoble points out some interesting stats about FriendFeed, and how participation can win you friends and followers. [...]
July 6th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Why would I follow Mike, when have you to filter and only show me his best?
July 6th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Wow, what exactly did my post do to warrant being deleted? All I did was point out that one reason why you probably have more followers on FriendFeed is because you frequently mention FriendFeed in your blog posts and TechCrunch does not. As a longtime fan and follower of your blog, i’m disappointed to see that happen. All I did was point out that you have probably created more FriendFeed users merely by frequently posting about FriendFeed and TechCrunch does not so they don’t have as many followers on FriendFeed. Care to comment on why the post was deleted? You can do it privately if you would like.
July 6th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I have to say I was watching your comment ratio and its scary active.
http://trendrr.com/timeseries/390144
July 6th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
and pieces like this are why those that block Scoble occasionally miss stuff that is ‘right on’. Agree totally with @coachDeb. Important post Robert.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I think the ultimate pitfall of friend feed it it initial learning curve….may users find the features overwhelming as compared to the simple twitter UI. Once FF revamps its fairly intimidating UI, more people will flock to it…until then…it will be us geeks who benefit.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Carl: I didn’t delete your comment. It was caught in moderation, which I turn on for first-time commenters to keep spam down to a dull roar here.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
>here’s no way you’re participating the way the rest of us are participating.
I don’t know. How are the rest of you participating? I’m watching thousands of you and I’m keeping up with you in both quality and quantity. But maybe I’m missing something. How are you participating in a way that I’m not?
July 6th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Nice article Scoble. However you are missing the default factor here. Default is immense power see my article on it (http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/08/startup-advice-default-is-power/). This is how IBM allowed Microsoft to become a desktop monopoly i.e. by bundling its OS by default on IBM PCs. This is how Microsoft destroyed Netscape i.e. by bundling by default on Windows Operating Systems. This is why Google, and no one else, gets the most search traffic from Firefox Searchbar because Google is the default search option over there….
You guys are recommended by default to everyone who signs up for Friendfeed. This makes you guys feel that Friendfeed is growing like a weed, and than suddenly you start talking about it. Which in turn will attract more bloggers to it. So this perception of viral growth over at Friendfeed will eventually lead to real growth over there (Read David Hornik’s article to understand the phenomena of perceived success leading to real success http://ventureblog.com/articles/2004/06/sillywood_part_1.php). So clearly Friendfeed was intelligent enough to carefully handpick some good bloggers as default. This has transformed you guys into their marketing team. And in return you are getting lots of subscribers aka lots of readers and page views. Good for both.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Scoble I have written a long and elaborate comment… I guess it has been caught up in moderation since it had two links in it as well. Hope you that it will pass through your scrutiny sooon :)
July 6th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
[...] The “Participation Premium” [nw] :: Scobleizer – an interesting post from Robert where he looks at what really makes one popular on social networks. [...]
July 6th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
They are two different animals…
http://tinyurl.com/6m6yp6
July 6th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Oh … and also Techmeme is a game, and Monsieur Arrington knows the rules.
Still doesn’t make him likeable.
July 6th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Talking TO v Talking WITH….
July 6th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
[...] semanas ha tenido mucha más difusión en la blogósfera norteamericana. Arrington, Calacanis, Scoble, RWW y otros han hablado recurrentemente del tema. Y cuando ellos hablan bastante de un servicio, [...]
July 6th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
It sure seems that Twitter set the table for Friendfeed by getting people used to such a service, hooking them, and then becoming so flakey that people looked to Friendfeed to feel the void. What if Friendfeed had arrived before Twitter? Would Twitter even exist or did it take the simplicity of Twitter to turn people on and hook them?
July 7th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Twitter shouldn’t really be compared to FriendFeed since FriendFeed aggregates your activity from everywhere else and Twitter is basically a Facebook status update. I just gave in and setup my FriendFeed account I had registered months ago and I think I finally get it. I am setting up a new blog today and I thought about using WordPress but settled on MovableType simply because of the integrated FriendFeed comments feature. I figured if WordPress had something similar, you would have it.
July 7th, 2008 at 12:23 am
[...] “I’ve noticed that participating brings more people into your lives. I call this ‘The Participation Premium‘” — Robert [...]
July 7th, 2008 at 12:39 am
I wish I had the time to post 3625 likes!
July 7th, 2008 at 1:57 am
[...] However, as Stern points out these very famous Internet people are being offered as “default” on new Internet accounts. (Of the many, Robert Scoble is an extreme user of FriendFeed, has been for a while, and from the looks of it, a totally true believer.) [...]
July 7th, 2008 at 1:57 am
I follow this list of Friendfeed rooms, do u know?
http://blogoscoped.com/friendfeed/rooms
July 7th, 2008 at 3:20 am
[...] היום למדתי משהו מרוברט סקובל. בפוסט שלו, לו הוא קורא The Participation Premium הוא משווה בינו לבין מייקל ארינגטון, חבר שלו, המייסד של [...]
July 7th, 2008 at 3:31 am
[...] Scobleizer — Participation premium definition The value of sharing: traffic lead and awareness. Here’s the reason why you should care about your participation rate! Thanks for sharing your data Scoble. (tags: twitter friendfeed participation COMMUNITY socialmedia socialnetworking fastfwdinnovation Scoble arrington) [...]
July 7th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Hi Robert
i signed up at friendfeed, and it was Scobleized!
July 7th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Robert- I agree with your participation premium theory.Also, I have also noticed that you have followers without claiming to be a guru.And I feel that is a necessary attribute to have in addition to participation. I would like to call it ‘participation humility’. Not claiming to have all the answers, but rather willing to discuss and listen to different viewpoints. This is what makes your writing and views interesting.
An example of Robert’s ‘paicipation humility’
For Robert’s followers, recently I ran into Robert at the DC bash(hosted by Gary Vaynerchuk) and asked him innocently why he does not use a skin(template) for his blog. Anyone else, with half of Robert’s reputation would have looked at me like I have committed a sin or perhaps arrogantly ignored my comment. Instead, he simply said that he did use a skin. Later I realized that his skin did not load at my workplace due to filters(where I usually read the Scoblelizer). When I logged in from home, I could see the blog template in all its glory.
July 7th, 2008 at 8:29 am
[...] but regardless of opinion, these web celebrities are always on the map. (And no, Robert Scoble, participation may make a difference, but its impact is not quite as large as you [...]
July 7th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Great post! I admit, I’m a newbie, and follow you on Twitter and FriendFeed — at least you’re not one of these guys who says “who are these people, I don’t want them following me!” They are not getting it.
Keep up the good work, and setting such a good example!
~H
July 7th, 2008 at 11:47 am
wow thats a lot of interesting data study. I hope and wish friendfeed continue to grow with out any troubles
July 8th, 2008 at 11:12 am
[...] a dead cat in the blogosphere these days without hitting a post touting the benefits of Friendfeed. Scoble’s been using it for months. Now Calacanis is pushing it almost as much as Mahalo. I decided [...]
July 13th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
[...] in lieu of their recent issues. They say that FriendFeed is where the conversation is and that by the numbers and how fast they’ve grown their networks, FriendFeed has something that Twitter [...]
July 13th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
[...] to the grand scheme of things. I stopped reading Scoble when he wouldn’t shut up about how many people he had following him on twitter or friendfeed, and made a big fuss about how Facebook wouldn’t let him have more than 5000 friends. They [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 10:37 am
[...] think new FriendFeed users should read Robert Scoble’s post on FriendFeed participation and how to find the value in FriendFeed. While you’re at it, read my posts on the [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
[...] Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive The “Participation Premium” « So, why do I have 5,000 more followers on FriendFeed than Mike Arrington does? Especially since he has more advantages than I do (10x more people listen to him on his blog everyday than listen to me — hence he should be able to get thousands to join a new service simply by saying “it’s cool”). [...]
July 25th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
[...] The “Participation Premium” Robert Scoble analyzes his and Michael Arrington’s Twitter and FriendFeed habits in order to find what it takes to be popular in social media. “What this is telling you is that you can easily get noticed in any community simply by participating. Yes, other factors do matter, but just by participating you’ll build an audience that “the popular kids” can’t get to.” [...]