There Goes Everybody

The book "Here Comes Everybody" has some interesting concepts, but my favorite one dealt with the imbalance of participation. Shirky states that with technologies like phones, internet, and social medias, people are more free to say and do things with so many more people. This freedom gives anyone the tools to contribute equally in a given project, but not everyone participates equally. An example is given that over 3,000 Mermaid Parade photos were posted on Flickr by about 118 different people, but 10% of the people contributed more than 50% of the photos. The most active photographer took about twice as many as the next most active photographer, and the 3rd only half as many as the 2nd.
It might seem like this type of contribution would be harmful to large social systems, but it actually helps drive them. Apparently only a very small percentage of wikipedia users ever contribute, but that is enough to create value for millions and millions of users. I find it interesting that in many social systems, this creates a type of hierarchy based on pure performance, as opposed to a workplace situation where leaders are chosen on how long they've worked there (in general). Open source projects gain leaders through the most active contributors, and I think this is a great thing, because they are naturally the most qualified to be leading such efforts.