mediaz

..Can MTV Stay Cool?..

But the MTV empire today is a staple of the media Establishment and faces a slew of new threats. After all, it’s the iPod era, a broadband world, and the online generation is defining for itself what is edgy and new. Ratings may be strong for many of the channels, but the original MTV isn’t the must-see it was. “We watch it because it’s there,” says Marie McGrory, a Manhattan 10th grader. Can McGrath keep her empire cool enough and nimble enough for Marie’s generation and beyond?

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Rupert Murdoch is no n00b

“I think [the current portal] model is in danger of becoming out of date,” he said. “Young people today — who are the great users of the Internet — know exactly what sites they want to go to and they go there, they don’t have to work their way through Yahoo!’s homepage, or MSN.” Later he added, “It [MySpace] certainly won’t be a traditional portal.”

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funny short-fic on a post-blogging world

You bloggers were addicts. The medium was almost as important to you as the content. The technological glitz, the bells and whistles — I know it was hard to kick it all cold turkey. But if your content is strong, you can make the transition. Things will just be a little different. But look what Bruce Sterling and the cyberpunks accomplished, without the Internet. After all, even Boing Boing started back then as a fanzine —

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..The MySpace Generation..

Preeminent among these virtual hangouts is MySpace.com, whose membership has nearly quadrupled since January alone, to 40 million members. Youngsters log on so obsessively that MySpace ranked No. 15 on the entire U.S. Internet in terms of page hits in October, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Millions also hang out at other up-and-coming networks such as Facebook.com, which connects college students, and Xanga.com, an agglomeration of shared blogs. A second tier of some 300 smaller sites, such as Buzz-Oven, Classface.com, and Photobucket.com, operate under — and often inside or next to — the larger ones.

Although networks are still in their infancy, experts think they’re already creating new forms of social behavior that blur the distinctions between online and real-world interactions. In fact, today’s young generation largely ignores the difference. Most adults see the Web as a supplement to their daily lives. They tap into information, buy books or send flowers, exchange apartments, or link up with others who share passions for dogs, say, or opera. But for the most part, their social lives remain rooted in the traditional phone call and face-to-face interaction.

The MySpace generation, by contrast, lives comfortably in both worlds at once. Increasingly, America’s middle- and upper-class youth use social networks as virtual community centers, a place to go and sit for a while (sometimes hours). While older folks come and go for a task, Adams and her social circle are just as likely to socialize online as off. This is partly a function of how much more comfortable young people are on the Web: Fully 87% of 12- to 17-year-olds use the Internet, vs. two-thirds of adults, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

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