Very well-written, BL. To me personally, the headline was a great hook! :)

My 10-year old knows nothing of Second Life, but he's all over YouTube and blogging. :)

Thanks Cam! They're a long way from Dick & Jane, that's for sure.

I'm constantly delighted by my nephew's analytical mind and his thirst for knowledge. His vocabulary homework always knocks my socks off.

Kudos, BL, on the great post. Nice mix of the personal and the broader lessons therein.

The natural pairing of today's kids and virtual worlds is a favorite theme of mine... because I, too, witness it first-hand. I have a 10-year-old who socializes online as much as offline. She's not into Runescape, but she's way into Webkinz, Sim City, and Club Penguin, and her interaction there is highly collaborative with friends online and offline. Judging by her behavior, and that of her friends, she is poised to be a major fan of Facebook, MySpace, and whatever else will be hot in a year or two...

Marketers should be paying attention to virtual worlds -- or at least be aware of them -- because that's where your customers will increasingly be hanging out, and (most interestingly) building businesses (like JH!)

BL: I spend a decent amount of time coaching and running groups of boys just that age. And I'd put a big fat asterisk next to your conclusion.

You see boys at that age can fairly neatly be divided into "Sports Boys" and "Game Boys"

And the "Game Boys" like your nephew are far more attracted to things like Runescape, just as they spent time with Pokemon and superheroes and read fantasy books and all that. Activities like Runescape take up a lot of their free time and their friends are all heavily involved in that sort of activity as well.

"Sports Boys" wake up and watch SportsCenter on ESPN, spend a lot of time on nfl.com and nba.com where the fact that they can get all sorts of obscure statistics is the coolest thing around. They have a different reading list too-- Mike Lupica is a favorite. They rarely have the free time to spend on social networking sites-- a little Webkinz or Club Penguin to be social, but sports- playing and watching- takes up a lot of their day.

I'm curious to see how this duality plays out as they get older. It doesn't seem like girls are very involved either -they have their own sites, which are more social, less about role-playing.

Bottom line is: while your nephew sounds like a very cool kid, he's definitely at the cutting edge in terms of these types of communities, which may or may not be adopted or embraced by his peers.

BL - Great post. Marketers need to be ready for the generation that has been raised from infancy with a PC in the home and access to the internet (I would say born 1990 and after - shall we call them the iGen?). My children are 13 and 15 and virtual worlds, social media and instant messaging are as natural to them as walking down the road.

I think Webkinz (mentioned by Ann) has a great idea to include a virtual experience with their tangible products.

Hi, BL. You've raised an interesting point. Kids are so tech-savvy today, they'll be more adaptable to changing technology than we ever were.

What concerns me is their growing ineptness at person-to-person social contact. I believe that in business and life, all the smarts in the world won't score as much as the ability to build and nurture relationships. Are we seeing a socially isolated generation in the making here?

Good post BL.

The one thing I'd add, that we've learned from watching our 8 yr old, is how fickle the younger set can be. No sooner did I put my credit card down for Club Penguin, that our son announced that Webkinz was the place to be. Seems all of his friends had picked up stakes and were getting their virtual rooms set up. Now that this phase has died down, we have a closet full of Webkinz...

I'm not sure what this says about loyalty but-- at the end of the day, are they any different from the rest of us :-)

Interesting post. I agree for the most part; however, moving forward the believe the most important thing to teach kids is how to be media thinkers, not just users. Sure plenty of kids know how to use IM and FB, but do they understand how this cool stuff works? I did a talk on this topic at the New York Institute of Technology and one computer teacher told me that after deleting the IE icon on the desktop students came to him asking. "Where is the internet".

Here's is a link to a post I wrote on debunking the YouTube myth and how sometimes we give kids too much credit. BTW, I'm 22 so I'm allowed to bash my generation a bit.

http://senithomas.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/youtube-myth-debunked-kids-are-actually-lazy/

Cheers,

Seni

Thank you so much for all the kind words about this post. I interview JH every month or so, and we email about web stuff a lot.

I actually wrote about Webkinz here during the summer, brought there by my nephew and my niece, who is 7. And they were into Club Penguin, etc., at the time.

But they *are* like us in liking what's new and different, and wanting to stay ahead of the curve.

The difference between us and them - their attention span can be even shorter than ours (much as that seems impossible.)

I disagree about kids not knowing how the Internet actually works. Underestimate them at your own peril.

JH figured out before I did that he could have an avatar on Yahoo, for example.

He's not just one of the "game boys". He's much more well-rounded than that.

Perhaps I needed a number 8 - don't try to over-simplify this stuff.

I mean no offense but I think you suffer from a little bit of projection bias. Your nephew and the kids of people in this space or their friends kids aren't the average. The seminar I held was with inner city school teachers here in NYC and most of them said this was a huge issue. For that matter what about the middle of Kansas, or South Dakota (No offense to people from there)

What a fresh and beautiful post. Your post has captured the spirit so essential to us for life - the spirit of an open mind, inquisitiveness, and uninhibited communication. The kiddy world is so open and without benchmarking - there is an absence of adultish judgementalism. It is about taking care of oneself and being very alive ... lovely boy your nephew and a lovely post.

Sunil - wow! you have made my week with your wonderful response to my post. It means a great deal to me to see my post taken in the spirit in which it was written.
Thank you!

I agree with all 7 points ... Perhaps you need a number 8 to discuss the different online interests of boys and girls.

My daughter has heard of Runescape. She says it's mostly played by boys. She's not interested in the game and told me that you have to be 13 to play. Lucky for me, she still pays attention to those easily defeated age restrictions. She's currently interested in WebKinz, Club Penguin, imbee and neopets.

I think these social networks give girls an interesting outlet. Whenever a colleague suggests that social networking is just a trend, I tell them how integrated social networks are in the life of my 10 year old.

My daughter enjoys finding Easter Eggs in the game and sharing her knowledge with others. The overly pink girly networks tied to Barbie and Bratz have zero appeal.

Nice article!

I love to hear these stories because they really highlight the fact that while we are so preoccupied with "learning the tools" the kids have no thought for the tools, only the content. In other words they are asking the age old question, "What's in it for me?"

Lisa - the original title of my post was "Seven Things Marketers Can Learn From a 10 Year-Old Boy."

MarketingProfs changed the title, which leads to a slight change in focus that a couple of people have noted.

Thanks for the info about girls' online interests.

This is one of the creepiest blog posts I've ever read.

I also have a ten-year-old nephew who: has been writing and illustrating original stories on the computer; is in a gifted program; isn't wild about sports, and; has a cool aunt (me)!

Great post and good ideas for marketers. I have goosebumps...
~mm~

This is great!

My 6 year old daughter develops video games on paper that have multi-levels. I so amazing to hear her explain each level and what you have to do to get there.

Hi BL
Well, the article is good, but it hardly tells us anything that is new. It is a well understood and accepted fact that successive generations are more familiar and responsive to technologies. Response of kids to online games especially is very natural.

The message however can be "papa don't preach" kind of a stuff, which again I guess intellegent marketers are already aware of.