Jakob Nielsen has an article about participation inequality and tips on how to encourage more users to contribute. In most online communities, 90% of users are simply lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

When it comes to weblogs, the number is even worse. Only 5% of Internet users have blogs (55 million according to Technorati as of now), and only 0.1% of users post daily (1.6 million posting per day).

My thoughts: I don’t think this is an apple to apple comparison. All forum users and visitors know about the forum or community. But not all Internet users know what a blog is, let alone have one.

Nevertheless, Nielsen has some important points to make. The participation inequality has caused some biases. For instance, users who want to buy a product usually search for a review or two. They have to trust the reviews that only represent a tiny minority of people who have experiences the product.

My addition: Don’t forget that negative experiences are more likely to encourage people to write a review.

The problem with this problem is something we can’t overcome. It is a fact that will never go away. What we can attempt is to achieve a more equitable distribution: minimize the number of lurkers while actively push contribution. Some ways to do it include make it easier to contribute, reward and promote quality contributors.

[Useit]