Heavy social media contributors becoming a meaningful number

Interesting statistics released in a new report by Netpop Research. Among the data most interesting to me was that 7 million Americans are "heavy" social media contributors (6+ activities) who connect with 248 people on a 'one to many' basis in a typical week.

This figure reminded me of 80:19:1 rule that was written a lot about the past two years segmenting web audiences into passive audience (80%), content creators (1%), and the content curators (19%). What group would this 7 million 'heavy social media contributors' fit into?

As the value of social media becomes more apparent and meaningful to all segments of web users, my guess is that the 80:19:1 theory starts to look like an antiquated idea. Social media tools and applications will continue to be so easy to handle, that depending on context, any given person may play any one of those three roles.

I have seen many technology companies have deep strategic product conversations about how to divide up features to cater to each user type but I think those companies will be better served focusing on having the best content or most interesting conversations shine on a page at any given time. Have to go think about this some more.