Posts tagged as: genw
Generation Wireless or Web?
Posted on Monday, March 27, 2006
at 11:15 AM (permalink)
 I've been using the term Gen W to stand for Web, but an article in Ad Age (free registration required) points out that it should also stand for wireless: "Teens aged 13-17 are three times as likely as the average cellphone owner to use their phones to access shopping guides and content from men's and women's magazines, according to M:Metrics. They use phone features to get restaurant and movie info at more than twice the national average. " There are also more changes in store as Gen W ages: "For those aged 13-17, about 17% say they are somewhat or very likely to subscribe to a live TV service, according to M:Metrics; 13.4% of cell users aged 18-24 expect to do so. Interest falls sharply for older age groups." I seriously doubt that Gen W will make the same distinctions between TV, phone and the Web that older generations do. It will all be one unified medium.
(via Paul Kedrosky)
Graffiti for Gen W
Posted on Thursday, March 23, 2006
at 6:46 AM (permalink)
 LocaModa's demonstration at Monday's Web Innovator's Group may have been one of the best sofware demonstration's I've ever seen. It followed the pattern I prefer, from product to application to technology, perfectly. More importantly, when I saw the Wiffiti application I knew I was looking at the future. Wiffiti (shown in this picture) is a cell phone graffiti board that can be placed in bars, airports, or any public place. You can also view Wiffiti boards over the web. Messages are posted by text messaging to a specific number for each board, and appear in random overlapping patterns reminiscent of a tag cloud. The method of posting and the visual presentation is the essence of cool, and captures the lifestyle of Gen W better than any product I've seen so far. Jessica, my Gen W daughter who is still following her GPS across the country, told me a few years ago that she and her friends liked to play hide and seek at night near the high school with their cell phones. I had no idea what that meant, but I knew that she lived in a very different world from me.
Sure, us old farts will look at this and say "But won't people just post obscenities, especially late at night in bars?" Maybe they will. I don't know. They can do it now with spray paint also. It's funny that I hardly ever see obscene graffiti. It's almost entirely a territorial marker, and occassionally a means of political expression. Anyway, graffiti is a late Boomer or even Gen X phenomenon. Wiffiti is a different technology, and it will be used by a different generation for different purposes. For example, you can call into a Wiffiti board if you're running late and tell your peeps (posse? whatever) that you'll be there soon. The LocaModa people are proud to claim that the first marriage proposal was made and accepted on a Wifitti board on March 17th. I'm too cynical to completely buy the idea that this wasn't set up, but I'm also sure it will happen many times. Certainly flirting will be a big use of this technology.
One of the keys to Wiffiti is that while it is a local form of interaction, you can see the boards from the Web, and can send messages from anywhere in the world. The possibilities for linked Wiffiti boards in multiple locations, and even global patterns of linkages are pretty mind boggling. I guess some people will draw a connection between this idea and the pattern of displaying back channel IRC on a projection screen at conferences. The two have similar features, but the randomness and sense of sharing a virtual and physical space with total strangers gives this a different feel. I have no idea how this plays out, but it wil surely be a part of my kids' lives.
"Code crack" for Gen W
Posted on Saturday, March 18, 2006
at 2:31 AM (permalink)
What if in the process of cynically promoting the next, next, next new thing, what Halley Suit has called "the Viagra of the current business boom," we built something that actually did change the way people used computers and the Internet? As Kathy Sierra discovers MySpace is doing for her teenage daughter: "I wonder if quick release cycles become almost addictive to the end users... we're so used to thinking of how upset they'll be when we change things, but clearly this is a different (and frickin' HUGE) group of users who not only don't mind the change--they THRIVE on it. Perhaps those quick releases are a little like quick fixes. Code Crack." Kathy, you seriously buried your lead. In a comment on Kathy's post, Matt Moran identifies the multi-generational response to MySpace (Gen W, Gen Y, Gen X, Boomer): "Much younger people use it as a social hub, people my age use it as a resource to connect and reacquaint, those older analyze it, then beyond that people don't 'get it' and criticize and predict how it will be the end all to any real social interaction." In keeping with Matt's market segmentation, Scott Karp better be a Boomer, or he is old before his time: "I will say this -- my greatest fear of MySpace is as a parent. That's my personal view, which I won't try to foist on to anyone else. But as Web 2.0 watcher, I have a strong view from a business perspective, which leads me to this prediction: Rupert Murdoch will come to regret the purchase of MySpace."
Gen W on Spring Break
Posted on Thursday, March 16, 2006
at 11:21 AM (permalink)
My daughter Jessica is spending her 19th birthday and Spring Break crisscrossing the country in a Mini Cooper with two college friends and her daddy's credit card. It doesn't get much better than that, does it? She called to check in today, and told me she had left Tampa and was heading towards Cleveland. I asked if they planned on passing through Tennessee, and she said she didn't know because they were playing "guess the next state." They put a destination into the GPS, and just follow directions. It isn't their shaky geography that is so amazing, it is their total confidence in technology. I wonder how long it will be before map mashups appear on GPS systems?
Generation W
Posted on Saturday, March 11, 2006
at 9:33 PM (permalink)
For the past 25 years I've been saying that the really exciting time will arrive when kids who grew up always using computers started to make software for themselves. That time has now arrived. Forget Web 2.0. That is a way for us old farts to pretend we can be young and hip again. The place to look is Generation W(eb).
|
