The ladder of participation in social media

Jeremiah Owyang was kind enough to send me his slides from yesterday’s session on Social Media: Hype vs. Reality at Online Marketing World. I have tweaked the presentation of the information but the findings are Forrester’s.

Here are six levels of participation in social media.

Here’s the picture in the U.S., Europe, and China. Draw your own conclusions.

And here’s the impact of age.

Last Sunday’s New York Times had a six-panel cartoon of two guys standing under a street sign saying “Wall St.” A wave appears to the right of them. It gets bigger panel by panel and finally engulfs them. Floating away, one says to the other, “Whoa, didn’t see that coming.” If the participation-by-age chart above means nothing to you, you’ll soon be able to say the same thing.

10 comments ↓

#1 Ingo Di Bella on 10.05.08 at 5:48 am

Hi Jay,
are Jeremiah’s slides somewhere public, like on slideshare? Would love to see the rest of this preentation.
Ingo

#2 jazzjeppe.se on 10.05.08 at 8:10 am

Hmmm, that was unexpected. But I guess youth networking sites are included in the social media spectra. I would have thought that most joiners would be at least 25+

#3 Where Are YOU on the Ladder of Web 2.0? « Tech from the Non-Techie on 10.06.08 at 6:29 am

[...] Posted on October 6, 2008. Filed under: Social Networks, technology | Tags: almostbaldgeekinmd, collectors, creators, critics, del.icio.us, Friendfeed, Howard County Library, joiners, Maurice Coleman, participation, social media, social networking, spectators, web 2.0 | A post by (almost)baldgeekinmd on FriendFeed about a site he bookmarked using Delicious gave me a great idea about how to market the “What is Web 2.0?” classes I’m presenting. So where are you on the ladder of participation? [...]

#4 The Ladder of Participation in Social Media | Workplace Learning Today on 10.07.08 at 5:03 am

[...] The Ladder of Participation in Social Media | Internet Time Blog | Jay Cross | 3 October 2008 [...]

#5 Damien DeBarra on 10.07.08 at 5:48 am

Those are fascinating stats.

#6 The Day’s Delicious | Patchchord.com on 10.09.08 at 5:00 pm

[...] The ladder of participation in social media: Three quick hits on social media participation [...]

#7 Is the future of information design DIY? « Fitzgerald Steele on 10.09.08 at 8:51 pm

[...] might argue that Gen Y and neomillenials (people born after 1980, often called digital natives) are more active participants in social media, and are more likely to want to create content.  And a few of those natives will likely create a cool framework or mashup that allows his [...]

#8 Kevin Sablan on 10.09.08 at 11:09 pm

In the age and adoption chart, what do the percentages represent? For example, are they saying that 34% of all youth (in the U.S.?) are creators of/in social media?

#9 The ladder of participation in social media - e-wot? on 10.15.08 at 7:39 am

[...] Jay Cross has some interesting stuff here from a Forester Analyst Click for The ladder of participation in social media [...]

#10 Mark on 10.15.08 at 7:43 am

How does he work out the percentages? 10% Europe, 36% China? Howdat? Does he have a reason for this difference?

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