While You Wait, The Internet is Like Teenagers.

I’m trying to write some other things up, but here is an early thought for your viewing pleasure.

So here is that Guy Kawasaki panel with the “kids,” that critical demographic that everyone is trying to change into paying for things.

One note: I’m in that demographic, mwahaha.  It’s a really hard demographic to be in.  Trust me.  I’m a blogger who blogs as practice to get a job, while figuring out what to do with one’s life.  These “kids” are not coming from the most introspective place, because I’ve had moments where I’m not.

Some really basic thoughts.  We see through the basic advertisement.  Really.  Not only that, we see through it really well.

However, it is also clear that we don’t know what we value.  It’s depressing really, to watch this.  These kids, (and I guess on some level, so do I) don’t make a judgement calls about the information, or the people that they are, that they value.  As a result, the questions that end up being geared towards them end up always being about communication and about fun.

No one seems to ever ask about their next step, their next phase in life.  No one asked about the value added or the products they are looking for when they are not playing.  It is one of the reasons LinkedInis so hard to value- practically no one spends ridiculous amounts of time on LinkedIn, but people are willing to pay for upgrades on the account.  They are not at a stage in life where the idea that a lot of the same tools they are using for fun and games could be used for a whole slew of other issues.

To think on how oblivious they are about future uses and how they can grow up and change with the technology they are using as well as the reverse think on the segment about passive data mining of children:

Imagine the following-

A child of an older mother finds out his mother has breast cancer.  He just turned  13.  He blogs about how he feels when he finds out that his mother is a carrier for BRCA2, on top of cancer, to share with his friends, in order to vent. (Totally believable, right)  He was passively spidered, the data is kept.  What the kid doesn’t know is that BRAC2 seems to also be an indicator for Prostate Cancer, if he is a carrier.  Imagine someone holds onto the data until he is 18, and then they mine it.  Can insurers play around with his coverage now?  Can employers turn him down for a job because of potential health issues as he gets older?

I do not have an answer for that, but he was the one who grew up with the tech.  He didn’t think about it when he was young, so…

Or the following:

Kid goes to college, She goes to med school, her friends are changing.  How does Facebook now face into a life of opening up an OB/GYN practice, as she sees her friends posting pregnancy and baby pics?

Yup, the idea of transition hasn’t occurred yet to most of these kids, because they are, well kids.  Once they start growing into a position where they can figure out the flexibility of technology and the multiplicity of its uses, as well as seeing others using it for pay to do certain applications, they will probably also jump on pay bandwagons as they transition into that position.

The Internet is like teenagers.  Still sucking up money, while it figures out how to make its own.  Just needs to grow up some, like the Kids in the video.  If it makes all of you feel any better in entrepreneur-land, we do grow up.  I started to blog because someone told me to, that it would help me get a job one day.  So we grow up.  So to the Internet.  Neither of us have gotten out of the “Wow, we are starting to grow up now!”  We will have when we’ve fully thought out these sorts of issues.  Move on Folks, that panel is not big of a deal, it is inclined to scare you, because we’re a big age group right now.  But we’ll be a big one when we are 28 too and start having you know, real JOBS! and you know, FAMILYS!  Think that way and be prepared.

*I’m on a medicine kick today, alright?

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