San Francisco - While traffic to "Web 2.0" sites -- like YouTube, Flickr and others that encourage users to upload their own media -- has increased dramatically, the percentage of these users actually contributing content to such sites remains slim, according to a new study from website ratings firm Hitwise.

Traffic to Web 2.0 sites has jumped an impressive 668% over the past two years, and now accounts for 12% of all U.S. Web surfing.

"Web 2.0 and participatory sites (are) really gaining traction," Hitwise analyst Bill Tancer told an audience at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

However, Hitwise found that just 0.16% of YouTube visitors actually upload a video while surfing the site; only 0.2% of visitors to Flickr upload photos.

One exception to this rule is Wikipedia, where 4.6% of visitors come to edit the user-generated entries on the site.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2n2km7 (Reuters)

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/bill-tancer