Slashdot Mirror
Analyst, 15, Creates Storm After Trashing Twitter
Barence writes "A 15-year-old schoolboy has become an overnight sensation after writing a report on teenagers' media habits for analysts Morgan Stanley. Intern Matthew Robson was asked to write a report about his friends' use of technology during his work experience stint with the firm's media analysts. The report was so good the firm decided to publish it, and it generated 'five or six' times more interest than Morgan Stanley's regular reports. The schoolboy poured scorn on Twitter, claiming that teenagers 'realize that no one is viewing their profile, so their tweets are pointless.' He also claimed games consoles are replacing mobile phones as the way to chat with friends."
I can't believe an editor let that report pass. "Near impossible", ">4", "1/3 of teenagers have... 50% having ... 40% with", and "Some teenagers make purchases on the internet but this is only used by a small percentage", to name a few. There's punctuation errors, capitalization mistakes, poor abbreviation, and subject-verb agreement problems. One sentence, leading a paragraph, begins with a numeral. This report is an unreadable mess; the poor phraseology and numerous mistakes draw attention from whatever point the little moron is trying to make.
Honestly, it's just a 15 year old kid with some views of his life. I highly doubt he's actually got anything revolutionary to say.
Revolutionary, no. Marketable, yes.
A lot of companies consider Twitter the "next big thing", when in reality, not only has Twitter always had major problems, it jumped the shark at least a year ago. Then some kid comes out and effectively points-and-laughs at all the foolish VCs trying to recapture the glory of the Dot Com bubble... Something they'd love to ignore, but unfortunately he perfectly represents their target audience. Not something easily ignored when you have billions on the table calling his bluff, basically betting that this particular 15YO differs enough from the norm that you won't lose your shirt.
Now, the point about in-game chats, well, he has a point, but one limited in validity to his particular market segment (young males with a lot of free time and decent access to money). In that segment, he very much describes reality... Who would bother texting or even booting a PC to chat, when the standalone networked device you sit in front of for 8+ hours a day already has that functionality built in? That doesn't mean texting or IM will go away, but if you want to appeal to a 15YO male PS3 junkie, you'd damned well better know where to reach him.
>I love people that are so utterly self-absorbed and oblivious to their surroundings that they can do something this foolish.
Ya know, I'm not sure it's being self-absorbed that's the problem. I know people who just can't multitask, like the old saw about people who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. My grandfather and aunt are/were like this: they just couldn't do two things at once. It wasn't for lack of smarts, either: he was a self-taught organic chemist with a dozen patents, some quite successful, and she's a graphic designer in high demand. But they were/are what you'd call oblivious unless you know them, and then you realize that some people seem to be mentally incapable of rapid task switching even after (in granddad's case) 90 years of trying. My aunt stopped using her cellphone after months of running into doors while trying to talk and walk at the same time, and on the rare occasions where she drives, she says at the beginning of the drive "I cannot talk while I'm driving or I'm likely to have a crash, so please don't talk." She's learned this from experience (and a couple of wrecked cars) after 40 years of trying. Maybe the woman who fell into the manhole just hasn't figured this out about herself yet.
For that matter, I've seen half a dozen guys walk straight into walls or trip over chairs because they were too busy checking out my gf's butt to watch where they were going. Smart people can realize when their priorities have shifted and they're about to do something stupid, but even smart people need some experience to develop the skill to notice when they're about to do something stupid.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.