Hi all, I've got a lot of ideas for sites (as im sure everyone on here has!) But the whole "web 2.0" style that most of us are now working on is all about users leaving comments, making content, joining in. -- basically, you make the site, then your users do the content - e.g wikipedia, yahoo answers, facebook, etc, etc. BUT What is it that makes users actually bother? Why do people complete, update, maintain a wiki-page? Why do others answer peoples questions on yahoo answers. Whats the deal with updating your profile on facebook/myspace and making comments. what is the incentive for people to join in your web 2.0 site -- and how can you possibly get somthing like yahoo answers/facebook started - if there are very few members, it will be impossible to join in. I'd really like to work on one of my site ideas, but i just do not know how it could possibly work. Cheers for the help!
Well, that's why only the 'big ones' make that; a miniscule % of the sites that try it. Like you say; Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and others. The rest don't, because you can count on benevolence if you have millions of supporters. That's why a lot of them try, some successfully, paying their users (check my sig link for instance; I'm making money there while I actually do the same thing as I am doing here, but here I don't get paid...)
There are many factor that contribute to the success of this kind of site. Let take Yahoo Answer for case study,they implement the user level which mean the more you answer the more point you get which mean the more high level you can get.And this feature will surely encourage more user to answer the question.