A new report by research company hit-wise has highlighted trends in using social software and user created content.

The report found that users of web 2.0 have followed similar usage patterns to established internet community usage, such as newsgroups and forums, with the vast majority of people reading, but not contributing to the content.

It is estimated that for most sites that encourage user contribution, about 1 per cent of the users actually added content.

Find out more at http://www.hitwise.com

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen has criticised some of the current trends in web development.

He has compared the fashion for personalisation and social networking, loosely termed Web 2.0, to the dotcom boom, when style was favoured over usability.

Citing the results of the hitwise survey, Mr Neilsen...

• questioned the desire by many sites to offer user created content, when the majority of users want simply to view content.
  
• advised companies
  
  • to get the basics of design right before looking into Web 2.0 functionality and
    
  • to be careful about targeting teenagers over other groups of users.

Find out more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6653119.stm
or visit Jakob Niesen's website at http://www.useit.com/