July 28, 2005

Teenagers Online

"The number of teenagers using the internet has grown 24% in the past four years and 87% of those between the ages of 12 and 17 are online." This is from a report released today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. According to the report, American teens live in a world enveloped by communications technologies.

About 21 million teens use the internet and half of them say they go online every day. Instant messaging is more common amongst this group than email. Personal "avatars" and "I'm away" messages provide markers in their virtual world even when they're not directly connected. Their social life has become hinged on ubiquitous access to their virtual world from many physical locations.

An interesting social fabric being woven by the next generation. The full report can be viewed on the Pew Internet web site.

Posted by bob | 5:04 PM | permalink | Comments (0)

July 25, 2005

Konfabulation: Widgets or Browsers?

An article from eweek by Peter Coffee discusses a shift from viewing web content via browser, to the more focused view of a Widget. Yahoo's recent acquisition of Pixoria, Inc., creators of Konfafulator and Apple's new Dashboard technology are clear examples of this.

Good? Howard Rheingold in his book, Smart Mobs, makes the point that highways won out over railways by making the "channel" available for everyone. If widgets follow open standards, they could be a powerful addition to the web. If not, they could serve to build walls to divide it.

Posted by bob | 1:45 PM | permalink | Comments (0)