Analyst, 15, Creates Storm After Trashing Twitter 381
Barence writes "A 15-year-old schoolboy has become an overnight sensation after writing a report on teenagers' media habits for analysts Morgan Stanley. Intern Matthew Robson was asked to write a report about his friends' use of technology during his work experience stint with the firm's media analysts. The report was so good the firm decided to publish it, and it generated 'five or six' times more interest than Morgan Stanley's regular reports. The schoolboy poured scorn on Twitter, claiming that teenagers 'realize that no one is viewing their profile, so their tweets are pointless.' He also claimed games consoles are replacing mobile phones as the way to chat with friends."
I would never have guessed this is the case~ (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. I'm totally floored. I would never have guessed that the vast majority of people, more specifically teenagers, don't care when you tweet you're on Main Street and saw a cute girl. Or, in the case of Gabe, taking a shit [penny-arcade.com].
Guess this is another example where not having an MBA is an asset.
Re:Games consoles? (Score:1, Interesting)
speak for yourself, i chat more to my friends via xbox live than i do on my phone. mostly because you can see they're available, you know they're not busy, and it's only one button away
I partially agree - twitter, facebook, etc are bad (Score:2, Interesting)
I just had this discussion with my wife over the weekend, but in our case we were talking mainly about Facebook and not Twitter, but the same principal applies. My take is that I like the concept of being able to keep in touch with friends and family easily, but the implementation of facebook, myspace, twitter, and sms messaging leaves a lot to be desired. Facebook and myspace allow other people to post things which you may or may not want posted about you, and it keeps those postings for a certain amount of time (# of posts). Yes, you can delete them, but that's not the point. If there was damage, it's already done. Twitter is completely abused by people posting things about going to the store or going to a movie. Who really cares about that except stalkers or people who need to live vicariously through other more exciting people? I see the point for texting/sms, but I can't stand hearing about people that constantly text their friends. If you need to have a conversation with someone with multiple questions and answers, then it's a lot quicker (and cheaper) to call them. It's only quicker to text if it's a single message with a single response. Yes, I'm very technologically literate - I have worked in the computer networking hardware industry for ten years. But the implementation and addictiveness to many people of these four services is really bad. I know a few people who use these services solely for posting pictures and stories for family and good friends - I definitely get that.
For the flip side - my wife uses facebook quite a bit and likes getting updates from people she probably wouldn't call and talk to. Also enjoys looking at pictures when someone posts them. I get that - I just don't get the constant attention it requires. I look at her page, and see 3-4 updates from some of her friends on a daily basis, and we're not talking high school or college kids here. And half of them are lame attempts at introspective comments like - "can't wait to go drinking", "feeling lonely", "two days until the weekend", "my life is like xxx song lyric", etc. She agreed with me about that stuff, but it seems like most of our joint friends enjoy posting comments like that. As for twitter, she equated it to instant messaging. Definitely not the same thing because it's kept forever and isn't a two way conversation.
I'm not starting flames. I just don't understand why so many people are so addicted to these computer based types of social networks when to an outsiders perspective many of the posts seem either phony or useless. There have to be other people out there that agree with me, or that can come up with rational reasons as to why I'm wrong.
Oh, God, the Grammar (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I've Heard This Story Before (Score:2, Interesting)
Why does it surprise you that Morgan Stanley published something like this? One of their big activities is selling investment analysis, and the people they are selling to aren't exactly going to be wired into what Twitter is about.
They all want in on the next Google, so when something gets as much attention as Twitter has been getting (never mind that the attention is a self fulfilling prophecy; people in the media at least have a tendency to be narcissistic), the herd gets a bit jumpy.
A great example of spending a lot of money to not find the next Google is the giant pile of money that Murdoch shoveled out for MySpace.
The innocent speaking truth (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Relativity (Score:3, Interesting)
Huh, when I was 15 I wasn't thinking about 15 year old girls... it was the 18 year old cheerleaders, 22 yearl old bikini models and 28 year actresses that always got my attention. I didn't think about 15 year old girls until I was 17 and realized that the only girls I had a chance with were 15/16 ;-p since all the girls my own age were dating some college kid or at least thought they should be.
Who cares anyway? (Score:2, Interesting)
My question is: "Who cares?" Twitter especially... I don't care what you are doing at this very moment. If it were worth me hearing about, I have a perfectly good AIM/MSN/Email/Phone. Give me a call, tell me about it. Everyone is concerned about "big brother," and then willingly contribute their "tweets" for the world.
Whatever happened to actually interacting with friends, and not "tweeting that you are tweeting?" I would just like to point out that this is barring the great job it is doing for Iranians in their political push... THAT is good.
Re:Nice disclaimer (Score:3, Interesting)
From the article: Morgan Stanley points out that Robson's assessment of the media landscape doesn't have the statistical rigour of its regular reports.
Translation:
"We felt we could get some PR by putting this out."
Of course, most "analysts" reports are useless anyway - many have no clue about the industry they cover, and merely spout whatever they hear from the analyst calls; so a 15 year old's anecdotal report is probably as good as most others.
Re:I've Heard This Story Before (Score:5, Interesting)
Revolutionary, no. Marketable, yes.
A lot of companies consider Twitter the "next big thing", when in reality, not only has Twitter always had major problems, it jumped the shark at least a year ago. Then some kid comes out and effectively points-and-laughs at all the foolish VCs trying to recapture the glory of the Dot Com bubble... Something they'd love to ignore, but unfortunately he perfectly represents their target audience. Not something easily ignored when you have billions on the table calling his bluff, basically betting that this particular 15YO differs enough from the norm that you won't lose your shirt.
Now, the point about in-game chats, well, he has a point, but one limited in validity to his particular market segment (young males with a lot of free time and decent access to money). In that segment, he very much describes reality... Who would bother texting or even booting a PC to chat, when the standalone networked device you sit in front of for 8+ hours a day already has that functionality built in? That doesn't mean texting or IM will go away, but if you want to appeal to a 15YO male PS3 junkie, you'd damned well better know where to reach him.
Re:I've Heard This Story Before (Score:2, Interesting)
Well... Judging by my daily 6 mile walk home from work.. the sidewalks are amazingly empty of both adults and teens. It's really interesting to see a city of, what, 10 million? (Los Angeles) and the sidewalks are a fucking ghost-town with the exception of the "corner mexican crews" that gather after work to drink and piss on the building...
Re:Here's the real reason... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ya know, I'm not sure it's being self-absorbed that's the problem. I know people who just can't multitask, like the old saw about people who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. My grandfather and aunt are/were like this: they just couldn't do two things at once. It wasn't for lack of smarts, either: he was a self-taught organic chemist with a dozen patents, some quite successful, and she's a graphic designer in high demand. But they were/are what you'd call oblivious unless you know them, and then you realize that some people seem to be mentally incapable of rapid task switching even after (in granddad's case) 90 years of trying. My aunt stopped using her cellphone after months of running into doors while trying to talk and walk at the same time, and on the rare occasions where she drives, she says at the beginning of the drive "I cannot talk while I'm driving or I'm likely to have a crash, so please don't talk." She's learned this from experience (and a couple of wrecked cars) after 40 years of trying. Maybe the woman who fell into the manhole just hasn't figured this out about herself yet.
For that matter, I've seen half a dozen guys walk straight into walls or trip over chairs because they were too busy checking out my gf's butt to watch where they were going. Smart people can realize when their priorities have shifted and they're about to do something stupid, but even smart people need some experience to develop the skill to notice when they're about to do something stupid.
Re:Nice disclaimer (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't blame the kid for writing this way (he's not old enough to know better), but I find it bizarre that Morgan Stanley would take this seriously.
Those in or approaching middle age (i.e. those in charge at Morgan Stanley, I'll bet) and no longer in touch themselves have a tendency to think youths / teenagers == early adopters, users of cutting edge technology, etc., so we should pay attention to them.
Which is definitely true to some extent, but in their paranoia not to be seen as old and out-of-touch, they tend to go too far the other way and take everything that comes from them seriously and without qualification. As has happened here.
Paranoid Linux: Sugar w/ Benefits? (Score:3, Interesting)
Your mention of ad-hoc networks reminded me of the XO I got on the BO-GO program a couple of years back. Compared to the variations on wi-fi w/ Linux/OSX/Windows I've played with, the XO could *really* haul in the connections, finding hot-spots and meshes I had no idea existed near my place. I don't know how h/w dependent the OLPC Mesh/wi-fi modules are.
A nice Paranoid Linux option would be to spoof the MAC addr. After getting all encrypted and proxied up, a final and truly paranoid (and PITA to implement) feature would try to mimic the idiosyncrasies of various networking stacks.
Re:I've Heard This Story Before (Score:3, Interesting)
If he were really smart, he'd be ogling bikinis at the local pool. One day he'll be old and wish he hadn't wasted the best years of his life at Morgan Stanley.
If he were really, really smart, he'd be interning now, get himself a great job post-college, make a truckload of money, and then spend his 30s ogling C-list celebrities and teen models at his pool.