Why the user churn rate of Web 2.0 websites is so high?
[+] Users' typical Web 2.0 experience
Mr. X is an ordinary white-collar worker. He uses the Internet to search information and contact customers at work, and after work he may spend some time on the Internet for leisure. The Internet is a medium he uses frequently in his daily life, but it is not particularly important in his life. At least he is not a person who hangs on the Internet everyday.
Recently though he has been getting emails with subjects like "you have been added to somebody's friend list" and the like. Clicking the hyperlink he found that it's by a friend on MSN. How could you decline a friend's invitation? So he signed up that social networking service.
By this way, Mr. X has joined Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, LinkedIn and a bunch of local Chinese language websites. Registering at these websites is a lot of pains. Every website asked him to fill in his profile, upload photos and even contribute his MSN contact list.
At first he was worried that if these friends would visit his personal blog, and it would be impolite if he didn't call at theirs in return. Such relationship pressure was such that he spent two hours after work to reply these messages online for a period of time.
(Interestingly, he didn't know that his friends were tied up on the Internet for the same reason.)
First it was acquaintances, then a bunch of strangers, who added him to their friends list. In the beginning it was fun and nice to socialize with these people online, checking out their newly updated blogs and photos and leaving messages to each other.
After about three months, Mr. X started to get bored socializing with these people online. As the number of friends kept growing, he could not but spend more time on the Internet visiting these websites. At the end two hours a day was not even enough.
He finally decided to quit such Internet services that he had been addicted to when he had almost reached the verge of breakdown. What was the meaning to spend so much time on this stuff? Life should not be like this, and he had to get things back under control.
[+] Typical experience of Web 2.0 website operators
All Web 2.0 websites operators are asking why the user churn rate is so high, and there is seemingly no way to remedy this problem as if it is inherent in Web 2.0 websites. New businesses planning to ride on the force of social networking, which continues to wane, are declining.
These Web 2.0 websites are like a big sieve, trying to capture a large number of users at a time; yet after three months, it always turns out that only half of them remain as effective users, and the rest simply disappear. The size of users may seem big but it is not substantial at all.
For a Web 2.0 website to enjoy growth, its social networking expansion needs to be faster than its user churn, so that, overall, its scale would be increasing. Yet what about when the growth of user numbers slow down?
Social networking websites MySpace and Facebook have shown strong performance and they are yet to hit the growth ceiling with the whole world as their market. (MySpace should reach its growth limit sooner than Facebook as the former has more users.) Therefore, seeking to expand foreign markets seems to be a solution to sustain growth.
Nevertheless, an inherent problem remains unsolved.
Another amazing effect of Web 2.0 websites is that, heavy users are very committed. They are very active and they remain so for a very long period. They visit the websites and stay there everyday.
From registered users to effective users to active users, the number of users continues to get smaller. Is it normal? I would say yes. In terms of online community, it's just the way it is. Just as I mentioned years ago, online communities are where "people of similar attributes gather to warm each other. And these people are the so-called "heavy users," such as active bloggers.
The characteristic of Web 2.0 is high interactivity, which means highly demanding for users. Those who are willing to interact with others and write blog articles are not normal people. They have stronger achievement motive and desire to express themselves, and they find their stage at some community website and feel a sense of belonging.
The question is, while these heavy users are having fun, what are the ordinary netizens doing?
[+] People can get sick of Web 2.0
As to those who quit some Web 2.0 website, do they turn to similar services of competing websites? Some of them (well, the heavy users) do, but for most people who leave, they just won't touch such kind of services and they leave forever.
Only a few people who, after quitting Facebook, would turn to MySpace. Most people would just quit social networking services (SNS) for good. It's the same for blogging. Only a limited number of people would migrate from one blog service provider to another and continue writing. Most would simply stop blogging.
Quitting a website is totally different from quitting a kind of service. For example, we know very clearly the difference between "turning to sohu.com from sina.com because of getting tired of the latter" and "quitting new websites for good."
Woops! It turns out that people can lose interest in Web 2.0 services.
Woops! So what's next when all netizens have become users of my Web 2.0 website?
If market development is like a chess game, then Web 2.0 websites that have been so popular for the past couple of years are entering the endgame phase. These websites operators may appear successful, but in fact they are getting uneasy. How to get away from the doomed path of Web 2.0 websites is an inevitable challenge.
Surprisingly, you may find the solution in Web 1.0.
2007/12/23 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )
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