The Myspace Generation
It takes a lot of effort to keep up with what is going on in todays world. For the “old folks”, those over thirty five or so, change is coming about at a pace that if not uncomfortable is often totally confusing.
Significant changes are occurring in just about every aspect of society but nowhere as fast as among young folks who are Internet savvy. Myspace is a prime example of a huge and rapidily growing community of folks involved in a new way of making friendships across the globe.
A new generation gap is being created at blinding speed. For youngsters and young adults from 17 to 35 years old or so the use of computers, the Internet, and of social networking over the Internet has become second nature. For those a bit older it is all often still a great mystery.
Already the Myspace generation has a huge online presence. With over 128 million members and with new members joining at the rate of over 220,000 a day the momentum achieved by Myspace is staggering. While such impressive numbers have begun to make an impression on professional marketing and advertising agencies a full understanding of the significant of it all and how it will effect socializing, social contacts, and networking in the future is not at all well understood.
For one thing, the Myspace generation really makes no distinction between events that take place in the virtual world as compared to events that take place in the real world. In fact, it seems that for many generation Myspacers the virtual world has become the real world. A best friend with all that usually means might just as well be a Myspace friend that one has never meet in person as someone that the Myspacers has known close to home for a lifetime. In fact, the likelihood is that there will be a greater sharing of intimate secrets between the online friends than between the real world friends.
No doubt the sheer rate of growth and the absolute huge numbers of Myspace generation members that already exist will be the cause of a great deal of marketing research over the next few years. Already savvy marketers realize that “word of month” advertising among Myspacers has great value. That means that Myspacers with a large friends list could get the ball rolling for a new product or service that could snowball at blinding speed among the Myspacers generation. Fads could come and go at breakneck speed so new products may well have a very short shelve life. But impressive sales figures could be achieved almost over night with the right product being recommended by the right Myspacers.
Kids tend to buy things because a friend recommends the purchase rather than by reacting to something they might see in print, Internet, or TV blatant advertising.
The implications of this fact are immense for marketers. A tremendously successful advertising campaign could be created just my getting a few “right” Myspacers to put out the word. How to harness this new way of rapid fire marketing is something well worth working on by Internet marketers. Those who figure out how best to harness this exposure power and market the right in crowd hot products stand to make true fortunes as the costs of advertising would be minimal and the payoff extremely high.
One real challenge for those marketers who find themselves overage at the ripe old ago of thirty five or so is to even understand the language of Myspacers. This probably means that those who will reap the most benefits from the Myspace craze will be folks who are themselves members of the Myspace generation.
Additional information about the Myspace community may be found at Myspace Best Friends. For those of you who may be interested this is also a site that features many articles about online dating.
