In Internet culture, the 1% rule or the 90–9–1 principle (sometimes also presented as 89:10:1 ratio)[1] reflects a theory that more people will lurk in a virtual community than will participate. This term is often used to refer to participation inequality in the context of the Internet.
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The 1% rule states that the number of people who create content on the internet represents approximately 1% (or less) of the people actually viewing that content (for example, for every person who posts on a forum, there are generally about ninety-nine other people viewing that forum but not posting). The term was coined by authors and bloggers Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba[2] although there are earlier references to the same concept[3] that did not use this name. For example, a large 2005 study of radical Jihadist forums by Akil N Awan found that 87% of users had never posted on the forums, 13% had posted at least once, 5% had posted 50 or more times, and only 1% had posted 500 or more times.[4]
The "90–9–1" version of this rule states that 1% of people create content, 9% edit or modify that content, and 90% view the content without contributing.
The actual percentage is likely to vary depending upon the subject matter. For example, if a forum requires content submissions as a condition of entry, the percentage of people who participate will probably mostly be significantly higher than one percent but the content producers will still be a minority of users. This is validated in a study conducted by Michael Wu, who uses economics techniques to analyze the participation inequality across hundreds of communities segmented by industry, audience type, and community focus.[5]
This can be compared with the similar rules known to information science, such as the 80/20 rule known as the Pareto principle, that 20% of a group will produce 80% of the activity, however the activity may be defined.
A similar concept was introduced by Will Hill of AT&T Laboratories[6] and later cited by Jakob Nielsen; this was the earliest known reference to the term "participation inequality" in an online context.[7] The term regained public attention in 2006 when it was used in a strictly quantitative context within a blog entry on the topic of marketing.[2]