Social software participation pyramid

An interesting post entitled Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers, from Bradley Horowitz of Yahoo, with a nicely expressive graphic:

His central point, that:

...social software sites don’t require 100% active participation to generate great value.

is not necessarily so original, but he makes good points about the “barriers to entry” faced by consumers wanting to become synthesizers or more active participants. He also makes the point that these barriers are not necessarily entirely bad....

The hurdles that users cross as they transition from lurkers to synthesizers to creators are also filters that can eliminate noise from signal.

The rest of the post, where Horowitz talks about 'implicit creation' is fascinating. I think Horowitz's blog has just become required reading for me.