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SOURCE:
http://mashable.com/2009/08/05/why-teens-dont-tweet/


Why Teens Don’t Tweet

August 5th, 2009 | by Ben Parr187 Comments

Twitter Bird ImageWe struck a nerve with a lot of people this morning with our article Stats Confirm It: Teens Don’t Tweet. In it, we explained how a recent Nielsen report shows that only 16 percent of Twitter (Twitter) users are under 25. The response was overwhelming – especially from teenagers who currently use Twitter.

While the entire debate is a healthy one, there’s been a lack of focus on the most important question of all: Why aren’t teens using Twitter? The answer to this question is essential to not only understanding why Generation Y has not embraced microblogging, but to the very future of the medium. Let’s take a look at the statistics and the thoughts of my fellow under 25-ers to understand just why there’s a shortage of teen tweeters:
The Stats

If you read our Teens Don’t Tweet article, you’ll come across two key stats: that 84% of Twitter users are over 24 years old, and that 90% of TweetDeck (TweetDeck) users are over that age as well. There are some other stats we didn’t touch on though, including that, according to Nielsen, Twitter.com’s reach to this key age group is 6.6%, while it’s nearly double (12.1%) for adults.


You can probably attribute this to the network effect: since more adults are using Twitter, more adults feel the need to try it. Since less teens are on the social media website, less teens feel inclined. This is a snowball effect that will only get larger if the trend continues.

There are other statistical studies that show this trend is prevalent as well. In an April comScore study, the website measurement agency found that Twitter’s middle-aged demographic was the driver of its hyper growth. Here’s what comScore specifically said:

    What [Reuters reporter Alexei Oreskovic] discovered was that 18-24 year olds, the traditional social media early adopters, are actually 12 percent less likely than average to visit Twitter (Index of 88). It is the 25-54 year old crowd that is actually driving this trend. More specifically, 45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group, followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely.

Even as far back as January, people were picking up on this trend. And if we look at the Quantcast numbers, we see the same picture:


So what’s going on?

Facebook Twitter ImageTwitter’s different than Facebook (Facebook) or MySpace (MySpace) because Twitter is not about your friends. As I highlighted in my analysis of Twitter’s new homepage, Twitter is quickly becoming the epicenter of world events. Yes, you can update your status, but you can do that just as easily on Facebook. What you can’t do on other social media sites is learn about the #IranElection crisis in real-time.

But does this really interest teenagers? Teenagers are notorious for being terrible at social engagement, voting, and keeping up with the news. While I don’t want to typecast an entire age demographic, I can say this with confidence: Teens, more than any other age group, care about their friends. It’s the continuation of real-life friendship (and the creation of online ones) that has driven the tremendous growth of MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, etc. It’s about the social graph. That’s why more than 50 percent of Facebook users are under 25, even while older users are joining quickly. We even highlighted these points in When Do You Use Twitter Versus Facebook?

But Twitter is far less about the social graph than it is about the overall conversation surrounding an item. Retweets are about sharing items and @replies are about allowing the public to be part of a conversation you’re having with someone. If you just follow your friends on Twitter, you will barely be using it. A lot of the value comes from following interesting people and celebrities.

Here’s the other problem that I’ve heard consistently: teenagers have nothing to say on Twitter. Twitter is a huge promotional tool – for businesses, for bloggers, for self-described experts – but teenagers aren’t as concerned with these things as a whole. Only the most ambitious teenagers start businesses, and most are worried about school, not about becoming recognized as an expert in his or her space. If they want to update friends on their cereal or their lives, Facebook’s far more effective.
So what’s going to happen with teens and Twitter?


From the stats, here’s what we know:

    - Only about 16% of Twitter’s users are under 25. Compare that to well over half for both Facebook and MySpace

    - The under 25 demographic is 12% less likely to visit Twitter than the average

    - Adults are 2x more likely to try Twitter than teenagers

This will change. While teenagers don’t make up a large part of Twitter, they are still 16% of the userbase. As they talk about Twitter, their friends will start to join and the teenage pick-up rate will increase. Celebrity usage of Twitter will only help, but it’s really about friends adopting Twitter.

Still, Twitter in its current form will be dominated by the over 25 crowd. Twitter offers something that adults crave more than teenagers: an audience. Facebook doesn’t fulfill this need as well as Twitter does, but the offset is that teenagers turn to Facebook to communicate with their friends.

There are two primary ways Twitter can bring young users in and fix the demographic skew:

    - Grow so large that it’s impossible for teens to ignore – aka the peer pressure effect. “Wait, you didn’t hear about Paula Abdul? Oh, I guess that’s because you aren’t on Twitter.”

    - Add features or a culture that provides new value for teenagers who primarily want to talk with friends.

Twitter needs to find better ways to communicate its benefits to a younger population while keeping up its stellar growth. Combine that with features – or 3rd party apps – that focus on friendship circles, and Twitter will soon see teenagers adopting Twitter in droves.

Tags: Twitter Linktu Myspace Facebook Tweet Tweets

On February 4th, 2004 Mark Zuckerberg launched The Facebook, a social network that was at the time exclusively for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks.

The original idea for the term Facebook came from Zuckerberg’s high school (Phillips Exeter Academy). The Exeter Face Book was passed around to every student as a way for students to get to know their classmates for the following year. It was a physical paper book until Zuckerberg brought it to the internet.

With this success, Zuckerberg, Moskowitz and Hughes moved out to Palo Alto for the summer and rented a sublet. A few weeks later, Zuckerberg ran into the former cofounder of Napster, Sean Parker. Parker soon moved in to Zuckerberg’s apartment and they began working together. Parker provided the introduction to their first investor, Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and managing partner of The Founders Fund. Thiel invested $500,000 into Facebook.

With millions more users, Friendster attempted to acquire the company for $10 million in mid 2004. Facebook turned down the offer and subsequently received $12.7 million in funding from Accel Partners, at a valuation of around $100 million. Facebook continued to grow, opening up to high school students in September 2005 and adding an immensely popular photo sharing feature the next month. The next spring, Facebook received $25 million in funding from Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital, as well as previous investors Accel Partners and Peter Thiel. The pre-money valuation for this deal was about $525 million. Facebook subsequently opened up to work networks, eventually amassing over 20,000 work networks. Finally in September 2006, Facebook opened to anyone with an email address.

In the summer of 2006, Yahoo attempted to acquire the company for $1 billion dollars. Reports actually indicated that Zuckerberg made a verbal agreement to sell Facebook to Yahoo. A few days later when Yahoo’s stock price took a dive, the offer was lowered to $800 million and Zuckerberg walked away from the deal. Yahoo later offered $1 billion again, this time Zuckerberg turned Yahoo down and earned instant notoriety as the “kid” who turned down a billion. This was not the first time Zuckerberg turned down an acquisition offer; Viacom had previously unsuccessfully attempted to acquire the company for $750 million in March, 2006.

One sour note for Facebook has been the controversy with social network ConnectU. The founders of ConnectU, former classmates of Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard, allege that Zuckerberg stole their original source code for Facebook. The ordeal has gone to court, and has now been resolved.

Notwithstanding this lingering controversy, Facebook’s growth in the fall of 2007 was staggering. Over 1 million new users signed up every week, 200,000 daily, totaling over 50 million active users. Facebook received 40 billion page views a month. Long gone were the days of Facebook as a social network for college students. 11% of users are over the age of 35, and the fastest growing demographic is users over 30. Facebook has also seen huge growth internationally; 15% of the user base is in Canada. Facebook users’ passion, or addiction, to the site is unparalleled: more than half use the product every single day and users spend an average of 19 minutes a day on Facebook. Facebook is 6th most trafficked site in the US and top photo sharing site with 4.1 billion photos uploaded.

Based on these types of numbers, Microsoft invested $240 million into Facebook for 1.6 percent of the company in October 2007. This meant a valuation of over $15 billion, making Facebook the 5th most valuable US Internet company, yet with only $150 million in annual revenue. Many explained Microsoft’s decision as being solely driven by the desire to outbid Google.

Facebook’s competitors include MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, LinkedIn, Tagged, Hi5, Piczo, Linktu and Open Social.

Tags: Facebook Full Story

ONDON

: After plans for a grand public memorial at 'Neverland' fizzled out, the funeral of 'King of Pop' Michael Jackon may be held at the

Staples Center in Los Angeles next Tuesday.

British tabloid 'Sun' which had published the leaked autopsy report of the pop star claimed that the service will start at 10am at the arena which is home to the LA Lakers basketball team, quoting sources in the US.

The venue which is owned by AEG Live, the organisers of Jackson's comeback gigs at London's O2 arena, has a seating capacity of 20,000 and is expected to be packed to the full.

AEG also plans to put up giant screens outside the venue for the thousands who will not be able get inside.

Los Angeles Times had first reported about the possibility of the ceremony being held at the Staples centre, citing plans for a massive law enforcement deployment on Tuesday morning.

However, the changed plans have disappointed thousands of Jackson's devotees, who had gathered near his California ranch expecting to pay their final goodbye to their idol.

The sprawling 5800 acre property, which Jackson named after J M Barrie's fictitious world of Peter Pan, is a symbol of Jackson's success and excesses.

The property has become a makeshift memorial for thousands of Jackson's fans, who have been coming from different parts of the world to pay their tributes to the star.

Tags: Michael Jackson Funeral