Slashdot Mirror
Different Social Networks Are... Different
An anonymous reader writes "International Business Times reports that not all online social networks are the same, according to new research released this week. Internet research firm, comScore Networks, said on Thursday that significant age differences exist between the user bases of these websites.
"While the top social networking sites are typically viewed as directly competing with one another, our analysis demonstrates that each site occupies a slightly different niche," commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix."
The original press release
Common sense is not so common
It seems that /. is getting submissions with less and less substance. The submission linked a 204 word blurb that predictably had information content somewhere inbetween zero and nothing (it was a 'business times' site after all). The actual comscore article is here. It has some interesting data.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Wait, you're telling me that Craigslist, Myspace, and MoveOn.org have different audiences? Say it ain't so!
Thank the gods that Mark Foley has been bridging the gap between the Congressional Record and the A/S/L generation...
Be careful of your thoughts; they could become words at any minute...
I always thought of it as a site of 20somethings, not teens, though. On the other hand, I know a myspace who was 18 when I first met her, and I thought she looked 26 then. Maybe people just grow faster nowadays
Not only that, but Facebook always allowed its visitors to continue using the site after they left college, which would have created an upward age shift no matter what they did. Opening up their population will increase that even more, but it is impossible to tell how much due to the lack of a control.
D
FTA: There is a misconception that social networking is the exclusive domain of teenagers, but this analysis confirms that the appeal of social networking sites is far broader.
Of course it's not just teens. It's also all the creepy older people that need to hang out with teens. And I'm not really talking about the sexual predators, I'm just talking about the 35 year olds with tattoos and piercings clinging desperately to what's left of their diminishing youth.
So in a way, this misconception that social networking is for teens is precisely why you get so many creepy older people there - they want to be with the teens. Ironically, now that we have stories coming out like this, the social respectability of these sites will increase and we might to see some normal adults. So the creepy adults are paving the way for broad general acceptance. Not to mention the kids who get started with social sites early and then just grow up with them.
Does anyone else want to pull their hair out whenever the news media reports on tech with such a "golly gee willickers!" tone?
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
That must be him swallowing the advertiser's load.
I created a MySpace account because I like new and unusual music. In my experience, people in their 20's and 30's are more interested in unsigned bands and new music than teenagers are. In fact, the person who sent me a "request" to join MySpace was a composer of experimental "classical" music whose work I've followed for years!
MySpace has become virtually obligatory for musicians, and may be part of the path to breaking the major labels' control of the music production and distribution system.
I still can't stand MySpace, though. Hideous, hideous pages.
MySpace: Crappy bands and empty-headed teenage girls.
LiveJournal: Trolls, drama queens and emo girls who are into cutting.
Orkut: Brazilians and nobody else.
Yahoo / Yahoo 360: Bored teenagers and creepy swingers.
Friendster: Old people who are so behind the curve they think Windows is a pretty neat OS. The kind of people who call their web browser "the Internet" and use MSN Messenger.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Hmmm.. I see nobody has tapped the 1-12 market yet. It's a potential gold mine! They are the social networkers of the future afterall!
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
This is like saying that different cafes attract different kinds of people
...fun things are fun.
That reminds me of the famous quote by an economist, can't remember who, who said, that for instance, at a ski lodge, there are many young girls looking for husbands, and many husbands looking for young girls, but the situation is not exactly transitive...
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Easy -- They're all old guys trying to pick up young girls. My name is Chinese, but most American's think it's female. In fact, they think of this lithe ice skater. The reality is that I'm an overweight, balding, gap-toothed, Asian male nerd... but I get so many requests from 45+ year old guys pretending to be 18 and feigning interest in stuff I listed as my pastimes. E.g., Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hello Kitty merchandise (my daughter loves it), sushi (tons of requests to hang out for sushi and wine, lots of wine). I have emails from dozens of dudes telling me they like walking on the beach and conversations in coffee bars. I finally relate to those millions of women who get physically ill when some dude tries some pathetic line...
(Hmm.. Any females reading this please note how sensitive I am from the above post. If you want to get together to chat, let me know).
I think that may be because the music industry targets teenagers. I'm not entirely certain why; teenagers don't have as much money as the 20-and-ups. Perhaps because they're more homogeneous: rather than produce 20 indie bands to hit 20 million 30-year-olds, they can produce 1 band to hit 15 million teenagers with easily-led tastes.
Do you habitually just jump on the end of a post and pretend to make a counterpoint to a figment of your imagination, or you are just making an exception in my case? Contrary to the impression you leave with your quotation marks (watch where you sling those things!) I never argued that FPS/space shooters were either necessary or sufficient for being "'good' or 'comfortable' with computers" (note that what I put in quotes can actually be found in your post*)
My point was simply that generations prior to ours have a hard time grasping computer concepts. I picked, purely for fun, two gaming-related examples. There are plenty others. If you've ever done any support work in your life, you've met the older men and women who want you to explain how to burn a CD and take line-by-line notes. The result? They can now burn a CD, as long as it's only the same type (e.g. data vs. music) using the exact same software on the same computer. Swap up Nero for Roxio or move the shortcuts to the burning software - and they are lost.
The generation following ours, as far as I can tell, has taken to computers like a duck to water, as it were. Not *all* kids, of course, but by and large they figure stuff out. They blog, surf, rip, burn, etc. with some degree of competence. However this competence is only superficial. Ask a lot of these kids anything about how the technology works and you'll get a blank stare. It just works.
So, generationally speaking, it seems as though the generations that were exposed to computers late enough in life to not take them for granted, but early enough in life to adapt may be a unique generation.
But don't let my questions get in the way of you sounding clever by any means.
-stormin
* I don't always use quotation marks to quote people, but the only other use I think is valid is as a literary device when describing someone speaking, and when there's little chance of the quote being misunderstood (as in my reference to "golly gee willikers!" in my first post on this topic).
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.