Even large producers of content consume more content than they produce. For every blog post I usually view 10-12 sites/articles/posts myself from external sources.

This is news?

Weak in comparison to what standard? So .2% of Flickr visits are to upload photos. What percentage of visits would represent "strong" participation?

My sense is that people just assumed Pareto Principle numbers (80/20 rule) and are making an implicit comparison to that. And they assume participation = content-creation = uploading photos.

But I agree with you. Uploading photos is only one way to participate on Flickr, it's not the only way.

I go to Flickr to upload my photos, but I also go just to look at my photos (which counts as a visit), and I encourage my friends to do so as well. That's what photos are for after all. I also comment on the photos of others and sometimes "favorite" them.

I think the implicit definition of participation in the article is too narrowly defined, at least in the case of Flickr.

Indeed. And note that lots of sites have upload tools. I _never_ visit flickr to upload, though I have a pro account with hundreds of pictures.

Provided these sites have sufficient content, these 'low participation' figures actually suggest that user content is being widely viewed.

Also I think a high submission to viewing ratio would correspond with a deluge of low quality content.

I think this makes sense. I certainly look at far more pictures and videos on Flickr and YouTube than I upload myself. But I do upload to both.

But I think the title is wrong. These ratios seem normal to me, not weak.

An interesting number would be word count of read vs. written in blogs and comments. My guess is that bloggers have an easier time having a conversation than videos or photos allow, making it more participatory.

And on that same note, do you include comments as participation? I think you should, but it doesn't look like they did.

I'd be more interested in % of participating visitors than visits. Also, commenters count, too!

Exactly. Visits is not a useful measurement at all. It's the percentage of users that contribute something that's interesting and there are a lot of ways to contribute.

Hitwise is also a third party without full access to the actual data for these sites. Their reports are definitely inaccurate, the question is just how inaccurate. Someone already pointed out they upload data with a downloadable client that would likely not be counted.

It is too bad this article does not mention what the upload/read only ratio is for MySpace and Facebook since I would imagine that these sites probably have higher ratios that would dispute their claim.

Basically, this article stinks and just uses a sensationalist headline for the sake of it.