Summary: In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.
Blogs have even worse participation inequality than is evident in the 90-9-1 rule that characterizes most online communities. With blogs, the rule is more like 95-5-0.1.
I remember when a major complaint about iPads was that the devices encouraged consumption rather than production. For those of us promoting “doing”, “making”, or “participation“, this was a concern because we liked the seeming utility of the mobile devices. This report from Jakob Nielsen and colleagues indicates this consumption mentality may be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.