My living Grandmother won’t read this post, unless my mom prints it out for her and hands it to her in person –actually a common practice in my family.

A few weeks ago, I had a phone conversation with Grandma, we talked of politics, and how many companies would not hire Asians when she was my age, and of course, my favorite topic, the internet.

She still lives in a print world, but is very aware of the online world, and ask me to tour her through the internet when I see her. According to social technographics, she’s an ‘inactive’ when it comes to social media, and that’s ok with me.

She loves to see me in print, and stumbles across my name in her newspaper reading? I rarely touch news ‘paper’, as online is far faster, and much more interactive; “you can’t doubleclick paper” I tell her.

Perhaps one of the things that she has over me is wisdom and experience, one observation she’s had over the years is that she’s noticed that “newspapers are getting thinner”.

Despite the generational differences that we have, we’re still the same, we seek information, news, and opinions about the greater world.

Today is a special day, one that I’ll always remember, like every Oct 31st, today is her birthday, Happy Birthday Grandma, I’ll call you in a bit.

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Sixth graders, are just 10 years from the workforce, I wonder if we’ll be ready.

I’m now in Dallas, about to speak to 250 marketers (then do workshops) who all work for a company that’s about to ramp up their social marketing activities and put community first. Brands foster communities is a trend we’re seeing, just as Oracle boldly launched it’s Oracle Mix Ideas which allows anyone to submit comments right on the corporate website.

On the flight over here from SF, I sat next to a young lady (mid 20s) who is a teacher to sixth graders (12 year olds) in San Antonio. As I almost always do, I shifted the conversation over to the internet and she shared with me how this next generation of digital natives is coming at us fast and strong

The Sixth Graders:

All of her sixth graders were literate, although not all of them had computers at home, so she couldn’t issue mandatory web assignments.

Many of them used the internet for research, she allowed them to cite wikipedia as a supplement–but they had to cite other websites.

Many students turned in their ‘papers’ as digital blog posts on blogspot.com.

The art of writing in cursive is deteriorating, many of the students could not read her cursive writing, soon it may go the way of shorthand.

The sixth graders would often groan and roll their eyes when asked to do a writing assignment –yet when she listed off the internet as one of the methods they could produce the project, they quickly got excited –and lightbulbs went off.

Plagiarism is still an issue, but she and her colleagues have sophisticated ways of checking papers by copying and pasting them in Google, or using proprietary software.

I asked her if she sees an increase in web technologies as they get older, and she says “yes, soon the parents won’t restrict and monitor their usage, as they go to high school and college”.

I asked her if this helped them to be more or less social, she replied: “Both. They still are shy in class presentations as kids are from any generation, but they express more of their personal being online”

During tests, if the students didn’t know the answer to the questions, they would write “IDK”.

Now this certainly wasn’t a scientific study, but I’m sure you can find stories like this from sixth graders all around the United States, and perhaps around the world. Give them a six years, and it’ll be interesting to see how their online behavior impacts their college admissions: “10 percent of admissions officers from prestigious schools said they had peeked at sites like Facebook and MySpace to evaluate college-bound seniors. Of those using the profiles, 38 percent said it had a “negative impact” on the applicant, according to Kaplan Inc”.

If you have experience with the modern day sixth grader, I’d love to hear your observations in the comments below, if you don’t have any stories to tell, forward this to someone who can.

Warning, if you ask me any questions, and I’m unable to respond with a good answer, I may just respond, “IDK”

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In this left picture of Ryan and Teresa Valdez Klein, I upload photos (GPS tagged with location and time) in real time from my mobile phone using Shozu, and share it with my network on Flickr, Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, and now my blog.

Like some of you, I’m still fascinated how digital natives interpret media, communications compared to boomers. Me? I’m in the middle watching it all go down.

Just a few days ago, I compared who had more data about my friend Teresa Valdez Klein, Facebook or the US Government. In the comments, it was almost unanimously the US Government, although interestingly enough, most of the data about her in Facebook is opt-in, rather opt-out.

Do you remember the days of taking your black physical rolls of film to Longs or CVS, waiting a few days or hours to get them developed? There were always risks: hoping we didn’t get an over exposed photo, losing the roll in one’s purse or backpack, or forgetting to pick them up all together? For generation Y, that’s no longer a problem.

Take for example in my recent lunch with Teresa (interestingly I found out that she was in NY the same time I was via Friendfeed) she mentioned her younger siblings were growing up in a world where photos were published instantly to the web from mobile devices –this is a native activity to them.

I spoke with my trusted confidant Jennifer Jones (host of Marketing Voices Podcst) yesterday, when it comes to pictures, her son lives in the digital world. I’ve been to Jennifer’s beautiful home, which has nicely framed pictures of the family and kids from all stages of their life. Like any good mother, Jennifer offered her son to take framed family photos off to college. While it’s often un-cool for any kid to take family photos to college, his honest retort was “I don’t need to Mom, I have Facebook”.

He went on to explain that Facebook photos were more current and ‘real’. I’d add that those photos can be transplanted wherever her son goes, as long as he has access to the internet. Furthermore, they are social objects and assets that are being shared in the nexus of his network, perhaps far more valuable location than ‘on the shelf’.

We start to see a connection of the physical and digital universe. At first positioned as ‘executive desk’ gadgets, the Digital Frame continues to get more popular. I personally have no desire for it, and would only accept it as a gift, never buy it. A few reasons,, to me my sharing is on the web, which I can access from my mobile phone. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of these devices is that many are not internet devices, and a majority of them require physical storage changes –what a hassle.

So where are you when it comes to photos?

Print or Digital?

Instant or Later?

Online or Framed?

Self Contained or Shared Online?

Doubles/Glossy/Matte, or JPEG?

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I’m doing research around how different ages using social networks, communities, and virtual worlds by age, and will compile this list as it grows. I’m looking for established community sites that are mature enough to work with brands.

There is already so much coverage on mainstream social networks like Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn that we forget about the other smaller niche networks. First, understand technographics (how ages use social media 18+) by accessing Forrester’s profile tool, available for free.

If you know the demographics for any of these, please leave a comment.

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Youth
I’m primarily seeking communties that are under 18, beyond just MySpace.

Club Penguin, Disney
8-12, Virtual World

Stardolls
Young Girls 10-17, Social Network, virtual dolls

Barbie Girls
6-16, Virtual World

WeeWorld
Youth, Avatar based Social network

Zookazoo
6-10 year olds, Virtual World

Club Penguin, Disney
8-12, Social network, virtual dolls

Gaia
Teens, Virtual World

Habbo Hotel
European Youth, Virtual World

Cyworld
South Korean youth, (and now global), virtual/social network

Neopets
Youth, Virtual Pets

Pixie Hollow, Disney
Young Girls, Virtual Pet

Teen Second Life
Teen, Virtual World

Webkinz
Youth, Virtual World

Piczo
Teens, Social Network

Dizzywood
Youth, Virtual World/games

Shining Stars, by Russ
Youth, ‘name a star’

Puzzle Pirates
Youth, Gaming, Virtual World

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50+
Now of course, boomers and retired are also going to be on lifestyle social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, but I’m seeking examples that are focused in on reaching these folks.

Eons
50+, Social Network

BOOMj
50+, Social Network

Tee Bee Dee
Boomers, Social Network

AARP
Boomers, Social Network

There’s a larger list of Boomer sites, many I’ve not heard from.

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Departed
Someone suggests this in the comments in Friendfeed, makes sense.

Legacy
Respectance
Tributes.com
SweetMemoriesSite
ChristianMemorials
PreciousMemoriesAndMore

For what it’s worth, I hope this blog lives on past my time here.

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Related Resources

Danah Boyd has a great PDF on Youth and Social Networks (PDF)

Many reports (260) on Forrester site tagged youth

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