Social Burnout: MySpace & Facebook

One question online community operators wrestle with is how many communities (social networks, blogs, forums, wikis, etc.) one individual can participate in.

Sure, people are spending more time online these days, but there’s a limit. If a person is spending an hour or two a day posting in one forum, is he likely to do the same in two or three others? If an active member in a community decides to launch a blog on the same topic, will she still devote an hour to creating a detailed, thoughtful post or will that content end up on her blog? While until now, the rising tide of total time spent online (number of users and hours per users) has lifted a lot of boats, but inevitably online activity will become a zero sum game. People who spend more time on one activity will cut back other online participation by the same amount. A couple of blog posts highlight this issue.

First, in