I’ve written before about the bootstrapping problem for social media systems: if people are coming to the site because of the content, how do you draw the first users in? Bootstrapping social media is a classic instance of a positive network effects problem: how do I get enough people to start using my system such that the system provides enough value to everyone to be self-sustaining?
When thinking about bootstrapping, there are really two related but separate issues. First, there is the problem that a newly created social media site has very little content to draw users in. This is the site bootstrapping problem: how do you get users to visit and contribute to your social media site when there isn’t enough activity yet from other users to create a community and sustain interest. A second and closely related problem is related to the difficult that users face when they first visit a website; what kind of contributions are appropriate, and are they feasible? This is the new user bootstrapping problem: how does a user learn how to contribute to this social media site; what contributions are appropriate? Note that these problems are strongly related. A new user that visits a social media site during early site bootstrapping also faces a new user bootstrapping issue. However, as content is contributed, the site bootstrapping problem begins to go away but the new user bootstrapping problem remains.
I think the new user bootstrapping problem really has at least two pieces of information that any new user must learn before they can contribute. First, the new user must understand what type of contributions are appropriate. For example, political rants are rarely considered appropriate when reviewing kitchen appliances on Amazon.com. There are many different types of contribution, and the new user has to figure out what type should be contributed here. Appropriateness is a tricky concept because it can decided in multiple ways. Often the site designer has an idea of what type of content is appropriate: product reviews on Amazon.com for example. However, there is often a community idea of appropriateness also. The other users on the site have their own opinions on what is appropriate, and can enforce those by using various voting mechansims, or writing meta-comments. The fact that appropriateness is often ill-defined and comes from multiple sources makes figuring out what types of contribution are appropriate difficult.
Second, once users understand what information is appropriate, users must also think about feasibility: am I really able to contribute the type of information that is appropriate. The Onion uses parody to illustrate this concept quite clearly with a story about a site called “Noveller” where people can “macroblog” full-length novels. Such contributions are clearly infeasible for most, if not all, users. However, for more real-world sites, feasibility isn’t always clear. How feasible is it to write a product review for Amazon.com? It depends both on who is writing, and how detailed of a review they want to write. Feasibility is really about cost management; how can I exert the effort to contribute without spending too much time or effort on it? Users need to figure out for themselves how much effort to put in, and how to make sure that that amount of effort produces an appropriate contribution.
Post a Comment