"On-Line and Spreading Quickly"
October 1, 2006
On my old-tech AM radio the other day, I heard a report about an elusive
demographic that advertisers and other media are desperately trying to
reach: young people, ages 14-24.
These kids do not communicate via 20th-century media. They are not
inclined to read newspapers and they don’t listen to the radio much
anymore. Why should they? By downloading music onto their computers,
they can program hours of selected music to accompany them while they
study or into a tiny box they can wear wrapped around their biceps when
they exercise. They never have to hear a song they don’t like or another
radio ad. Still, they access tons of information.
I’ve seen it up close, since I have two daughters in that very
demographic.
First it was e-mail, then IM (Instant Messaging) — they barely even
check e-mail anymore, except to communicate with old people, like their
parents or bosses. Now they connect with the world through an on-line
social networking site called Facebook. Our younger daughter is in a
group obsessed with the TV drama “Grey’s Anatomy” and another, “If you
remember this, you grew up in the ’90s.” There are hundreds of thousands
of members, sharing quirky stuff — information, ideas, memories.
Not the sort of craze that comes out of a corporate boardroom.
Facebook is a marketer’s dream: a social-engineering medium that, at no
cost, launches crazes, obsessions, in-jokes, attitudes in the desired
demographic — and it all has potential dollar signs attached. It’s “no
cost” because the kids do it themselves. The trick is to get your hands
around it, control it, but still make the kids think it’s all theirs.
Nice work if you can get it.
The founder of Facebook? Mark Zuckerberg, a 22-year-old who started the
site while an undergraduate at Harvard. It’s been reported that Yahoo is
trying to buy Facebook for a billion dollars. That’s right one ...
billion ... dollars.
Zuckerberg isn’t sure he wants to sell; he still likes to tinker with
Facebook. He’s a real hands-on kind of guy. And not easy to set up
meetings with since he doesn’t roll out of bed until late morning.
Why the huge offer? Because Facebook is where this age range hangs out
and spreads information with the speed of a viral epidemic. Hence the
terms, “viral demographic” and “viral marketing.”
Here’s how it works. My daughter, let’s say, idly surfing the net, comes
across something funny, ironic, cute or cool. She posts it several
places, and within days — hours, if it’s truly white-hot — hundreds,
thousands of other kids her age with money to burn see it. They not only
see it, they download it (or save the link), IM it to their friends, and
post it in their own social networking groups.
Like … Facebook, for instance, where it might even have been posted in
the first place.
See why an information marketing giant like Yahoo is willing to drop a
cool billion on it?
If you don’t, you’re probably my age or older.
Or else ... like Warren Buffet, who stayed out of the dot-com boom
because he “didn’t want to invest in something he couldn’t see.” Buffett
didn’t lose a dime when those stocks collapsed, and so in retrospect he
looks like a genius, rather than the fuddy-duddy left behind by history.
The Wall Street Journal has cautioned that to spend a fortune on
Facebook may not be prudent. Trends come and go and kids are fickle.
Plus, days ago Facebook opened the site to the entire public.
“Everyone my age is outraged,” my daughter said yesterday. “We think
Facebook is selling out.”
Something new and better might, probably will, come along and soon.
Like, maybe tomorrow.
