There’s a conference at Microsoft today on Social Computing. David Weinberger has posted notes about a presentation from 6 teenage girls and their use of technology.
It would be interesting to get a comparison with the UK usage. I’m not sure that they would necessarily believe text messaging is too expensive; the cross-network SMS has been around a lot longer here and texting is more the norm that in the US. When I work there, I have to change habits, and not assume that texts about being late to next meeting will get through!
“Blogging was big last year, but now it’s not”. As the media are picking up blogging, the week it makes the front cover of Business Week, the teenager has decided it is old hat, and no longer worth bothering about. I’d like to know what they were using – my bet is that it is primarily Livejournal and it was about sharing gossip and other teenage angst; the information sharing that is being talked about now is still gossip and opinion…but seen to be more adult 😉
“My attention span is just too short for email. I need a rapid response.” Fast response, via phone or IM, always there, no waiting, no anticipation. No patience. Indicative of the culture that wants everything now. Then agian, if I’m online I’m the same – looking for information, And if at work or at home, I’m generally on line. So I understand this..I’ve suffered when visting parents with a machine that takes about 5 mins to boots, sort itself out and then get conencted to a 56k dialup. Too slow..I need my email now. But at least with email or web there is some time to reflect on the content. With IM..never.
But the key thing throughout is connection and interactivity. They use what their friends use, whether IM client, blogs or other types of community software. So for the tech business, it gives a model – spot the trend leaders, the conenctors, get them using the software and others will follow.
