Remuneration. It's such a strange word. I hadn't heard it before reading this book, and I decided to look up a deffinition of it online. I found that often "remuneration" is refered to as payment or something one recieves in return for something else. In his book, Dr. Howard explains remuneration by relating it to the experience users recieve when participating in a social media site, such as Facebook users being able to connect with the people they care about.
As I think about it, I realize that I used to be much more active on online communities and socail networking sites. Today, I only use Facebook and occasionally Blogger. But when I was in highschool, I had a number of discussion forums that I would participate in. Over time, a few of those forums began to lose membership. As the forums became less and less active, I wasn't get the same experience I had come to enjoy and eventually I too stopped coming. Maybe (as Dr. Howard mentions in his book) seeding could have been done to keep the discussion boards lively or events could have been held to help form connections between members.
A year or so ago, I liked to participate in Yahoo!Answers. However the people on there could be very mean and cruel. Eventually, I stopped going to get away from all the drama. Yahoo!Answers uses stars on messages to show membership contribution levels and it ranks the value of members' messages, but it doesn't stop the trolls from showing up everywhere.
I only use my Blogger account for school blogs and the occasional personal blog. Since I don't have people that regularly follow or comment on my blogs, they are only occasionally updated when I have the notion. I realize that if my experiences were different, I might use the blog more.
Come to think of it, it's a wonder I use Facebook. When I first joined, not many of my friends were using it, so I didn't actually start using Facebook until a year after I had created my account (once more of my friends started using it). Now that I am out of undergrad, I notice that I use Facebook less because my classmates are also using it less. It may be that one day I stop using Facebook as well.
So, yeah, it's all about remuneration. And over time remuneration can change. I think that's something business need to look out for. Just because things are going great for a site now does not mean that the site will continue for years and years to come. Remuneration is a constant and changing process, and if it's not kept up, users will leave and go somewhere else.
I, too, looked up a definition while reading this chapter because I think it's a word that can mean different things in different contexts. I think you did a good job, however, of summing up what it means in the context of social media sites and Dr. Howard's book. I also find myself participating in social media outlets less than I used to in high school, including Facebook, because I think people have a tendency of becoming bored with the same thing over and over again, even if companies try their hardest to keep it fresh and new. Something different will always come along, and that's why it is so important, as you say here, that companies keep this in mind not just in the beginning, but to in the long-run as well, to insure their product doesn't die out as something everyone simply moved on from.
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