Two Interesting articles recently suggesting that the whole social media thing may be just a bit overhyped (no, really - who woulda believed it!). First,
this piece in Social Computing Journal noting that Gen Y just aren't buying, its those old baby boomer fogeys who are getting into all this stuff:
Twitter
According to Comscore, the majority of Twitter users worldwide are 35 or older. Young adults 18-24 only make up 10.6% of the Twitter population in the US and are less likely than the average user to tweet. 45-54 year olds are actually 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter.
The traditional social media early adopters are 18 -24 and Twitter is the new social media darling. Why isn't Gen Y biting?
LinkedIn
Gen Y is not on LinkedIn. The average age of a LinkedIn user is 40-years old. LinkedIn profiles do two things. They let you show the world all the great things you've accomplished (most twenty-somethings haven't accomplished much yet) and they let you connect with other business people in your industry (Gen Y has no idea what industry they're in and don't have many connections yet).
Want more proof that LinkedIn doesn't get Gen Y? They just did a major marketing and PR push to recent grads offering their premium service for 3 months free and pitching the site as a way to get jobs in a down economy. So far, this isn't working, and I don't expect it to anytime soon.
Facebook
Facebook is growing at an unparalleled speed, and the new adopters are older folks. The 35 to 54 Year old demographic grew at a rate of 276% over the last six months and the 55+ demographic grew more than 194% over the same time period, while 18-24 year olds only grew 20%. These same older adopters are joining sites like Twitter where it's all about real-time updates and hyper-connectivity.
When Facebook made a design change to simulate Twitter, there was a major user revolt, of course, many of the angriest people were long time Facebook users (i.e. Gen Y). Sure, change is difficult and oftentimes people buy in after some getting used to. But this one just seems different.
Want More?
A recent Accenture survey concluded that Baby boomers, defined in Accenture's survey as those 45 years old or older, are embracing popular consumer technology applications nearly 20 times faster than younger generations. Compared to a year ago, Gen Y consumers between the ages of 18 and 24, are decelerating their use of consumer electronics and related services including social networking, blogging, listening to podcasts and posting video on the Internet. Yet, there was a 67 percent increase among baby boomers reading blogs or listening to podcasts.
And now Gartner, inventor of the Hype Curve, is implying that (shock horror) the Whole Social Thing is tipping down into the Slough of Despond - Reuters'
Erich Auchard notes:
Jackie Fenn, the report’s lead analyst and author of the 2008 book “Mastering the Hype Cycle,” delivers the main verdict:
Technologies at the Peak of Inflated Expectations during 2009 include cloud computing, e-books (such as from Amazon and Sony) and internet TV (for example, Hulu), while social software and microblogging sites (such as Twitter) have tipped over the peak and will soon experience disillusionment among corporate users.
Just in case you are tempted to take this with more than a pinch of salt, note that:
It will take up to five years for many of today’s trendy technologies to become mainstream, including Web 2.0, cloud computing, Internet TV, virtual worlds, and a true corporate mouthful, service-oriented architecture (SOA).
Funny how long hype cycles take to pay out. Three years ago, in its 2006 Hype Cycle Report, Gartner predicted Web 2.0 would go mainstream within just two years.
Very few technologies (if any) have 2 year hype-to-mass-adoption curves, we all know that, yet time and again people let themselves be persuaded that this time, it will be different. There is, as PT Barnum observed, one born every minute. But did he realise that the Boomer Fogeys can be taken time and again?
In fact, is there something especially odd about the Boomers that they can be suckered time and again? Gen Y seems to have seen through the SM BS - but why?
.....does Gen Y have an innate sense that too much connectivity and too much time online is unproductive and does nothing more than allow you to run in circles and chase something that you can never actually attain.
Or maybe, Gen Y is still all about being cool, and Silicon Valley just isn't that cool.
One observation I would make is that many of the main hype merchants today in this sector are Gen Y, but maybe Generation Y are also just better inured against their own hype, as they apparently are with all other forms of advertising, and its the older generation that don't have the antihype antibodies?
