I had a talk about community marketing with two friends of mine and was amazed to see that three people that are only 10 years apart from each other can have such a different perception of the Internet and its potential. Demographics: John, 20, student & musician; Stephen, 39, full-time musician; me, 30, marketer & musician. Stephen grew up without Internet and was not exposed to Internet marketing until he turned 30. John grew up with the Internet and knows how to navigate and use every angle of the net. I started my electronics technician apprenticeship in 1994 with the Internet in its baby shoes, and when I was done with my studies in 1998, the Internet was omnipresent and I already had made good money with my very first online business.  

What also struck me was that Stephen doesn’t want to be exposed as a private person on the Internet—he is a popular musician in Switzerland—but understands that it is important to promote his band on the worldwide web. John, on the other hand, finds it very important to follow his friends on Facebook and keep them posted on what’s going on in his life. He also writes a blog but doesn’t feed his readers that much. John rather reads blogs. And, that is where my generation comes into the pictures—the MTV Generation, a neologism for Generation X, referring to people born from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s. Kyle Lacy writes in his blog entry Is Generation X the Blog Generation? „Many of the individuals I follow on FriendFreed, Twitter, and through Google Reader are over 30. Is micro-blogging/twitter/sms more of a communication medium rather than blogging for the millennial generation?“ Lorraine Ball comments on Kyle’s entry, „[W]hen did they start blogging? Were they in their 20’s? Good blogging requires a consistent effort. Is it that younger folks don’t blog now because of time, distractions, shorter attention span (that may or may not improve with age) or is it that they truly never will?“

According to eMarketer.com, ‘a BIGresearch study found that the average age of adult bloggers [in the USA] is actually 37.6.’ As Kyle stated, the people he follows are over 30. The same is true for me. Authors 30+ write most blogs I read on a regular basis, even though I have recently become a regular reader of blogs written by Gen Yers like Sarah Austin, Katie Rogers, and Greg Rollett. Nonetheless, my favorite blogs are still written by Seth Godin, Chris Anderson, and Garr Reynolds—young Baby Boomers.

David Wilson, author of social-media-optimization.com, wrote in his August 11, 2008, blog entry, „Consumers between 18 and 42 are driving the technology revolution and agenda today,“ which, I think, is still hard to handle, because there is a very big difference in how Gen Yers and Gen Xers use the online world. In Gen Y Is Setting the Tech Agenda, a BusinessWeek.com article, Charles Golvin, principal analyst at Forrester Research said the key distinction between Generation X and Y is that Generation X uses technology when it supports a “lifestyle need” whereas tech is “embedded into everything Gen Yers do” making them the first “native online population”.

However, Gen Yers still rely on input of older bloggers, since older bloggers are more experienced and blog more frequently. One day, Gen Yers will be the experienced bloggers passing on their knowledge to the next generation—Generation Z. Until then, my peers and I will keep blogging, sharing what we know and have to say, and motivate younger generations of bloggers to be persistent with their blogs.

And never forget: “You are what you share.”

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• vignette, cont…
• Should I blog?
• On being judgemental
• Celebrate a mom’s life, help in her recovery