The ratio of "lurkers" to "participators" in online forums and social networks is changing over time. According to data recently gathered by Forrester Research, 21% of adults online consider themselves "creators," compared to 18% in 2007.  Meanwhile, the number of "inactives" has decreased from 44% in 2007 to 25% in 2008.

This is important information for news publications building social networks and other community interactivity into their sites. Facebook and the rest are turning passive information consumers into active information producers. Is your platform ready to support the new crop of online participators?

The new online participation data is available through Forrester's Social Technographics tool, and has been neatly summarized by Josh Bernoff.