[Sigia-l] Web 2.0 99% bad

[James Aylett]

Skot Nelson wrote:

>> It will probably require a fairly major social shift (which will
>> happen gradually), and might take a generation.
> 
> The generational change is already happening. I'm mid-30s and part of
> a transition generation: I read a *lot* of new online, but I still
> like to sit on Saturday morning drinking coffee and reading the Globe
> and Mail in print. Add two 9 month old twins jumping around in jolly
> jumpers and this is *one* of my ideas of a perfect Saturday morning. 
> 
> Go ten years younger than me and people don't even care about the
> print edition. 

Oh yes, it's *started*. However (in the UK - simply because the stats are to hand) the proportion of the population under the age of 15 has dropped from 14.3 million to 11.7 million (about 20%) in the last thirty years, and is projected to drop further to perhaps 15% in the next 30 years. So the shift won't happen that quickly based on generational ageing alone.

I think this is pretty important, actually. The limitation of the tools we currently have (both in terms of the web browsers and the ways websites work) probably imposes a more significant limit on who in the population will really take advantage of them, because most people's mental processes just don't fit nicely into a text box (or whatever). I don't think we'll see any significant limitation based on age alone. (That's an inspired guess :-)

> Similarly, the under 25 set seems to contribute hugely to MySpace,
> Facebook etc. in significantly higher proportions. I can't think of
> an under 25 I know who doesn't contribute to the web of information
> in SOME way, even if it's not deemed to be all that meaningful by
> some.    

Facebook I now have lots of contacts over the age of 35. Paradoxically, as it's getting more popular (now they've opened up the networks) I'm using it less - the social group I shared it with (mainly theatre folk I went to university with) is now being diluted by people from other strands of my life, which makes it less valuable to me. (Although yes, I can just ignore them. That feels a little odd though: I'm not adding you as a friend, because... umm, because... I don't think of you as a Facebook kind of person.)

> (Ok...the twins aren't YET, but I'm sure they will once we design an
> interface simple enough for a nine month old to use.) 

You mean they don't have a MySpace page yet? :-)

(Why can't they use their parents as an interface? You could at least update their status for them. Perhaps Twitter is a better model for nine month olds?)

James

-- 
James Aylett
 Chief Technical Officer, Tangozebra
 Supplier of the Year, 2007 Revolution Awards
 t +44 20 7183 9334

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