We Who Make the Web

Who are we? Wait, who the hell are you? stop spamming me.

Business Week has a better response, complete with "a study". But, in all good measure, insightful: What People Are Doing -- broken down by age and activity. (Hmm, I'm in Generation Y, so that's what it's called.)

The two most interesting to me are the Creators and the Joiners, people who create web content and join social networks, respectively. There the age difference is most pronounced. See that drop between ages 26 and 27? That happened in 2003, the year the Facebook really picked-up and overtook Friendster. At that time Facebook was still an exclusive select-university social network. One was either in-school and cared, or graduated and out of the loop. The split-second time difference was almost tangible. Those who graduated a month before remained on the fast-declining Friendster. Some would eventually migrate to MySpace (where they would land, befuddled by html, and be forced to google phrases like "pimp myspace") and some would get on with the real world, losing interest. Meanwhile, the new Facebook users quickly acclimated, joining MySpace as an aside, and then getting dragged into a whole new wave of web-tooey goodness. This is my perspective from the ground. But golly, it seems to play out in the larger picture too.

The majority, of course, are on MySpace (may it someday rest in peace) not Facebook. And, well, that speaks to another difference (not age) all together. One between the sighted and the blind, I think. In closing: every month counts. People get it or they don't by the drop of a month, a hundred few connections. Are my closest friends doing it, yes or no? No wonder hope springs eternal for these social networking start-ups.

Reporting from a no mans land, online. Fin.