Rob Bell's Notes from a Yorkshire Internet Megalomaniac

According to this article in Computerworld Twitter traffic has shot up, not due to the teen age group who grew MySpace but rather older people – 45-54 years olds, followed by my generation – the 25-34 year olds. OK you got me, I’m 37 but that’s only on the outside! A ComScore survey found that 18-24 year olds, the ‘traditional’ social media early adopters, were actually 12% less likely to use Twitter than the average. They also found that older users spend more time on the site each visit.

Now I’m not going to repeat the facts in the article verbatim, you only have to click the link above to read it for yourself, but it did get me thinking about why older users might like Twitter much more than other networks. I struggle to believe that I’m now in the 35-54 age group for many surveys, but believe that my generation may be seriously affecting surveys who class us with those almost 20 years older. We were the first generation to grow up with computers available at home – ok they were 1k ZX80s and 48k ZX Spectrums in the early 80s, but we still had them at home,and I’ve now been a computer user for some 29 years (eek!) and an Internet user since 1991, 18 fun filled years (actually 5-10 fun filled years, the days before broadband were awful, we’d wait all night downloading a rubbish picture of a topless girl – that’s right – a picture, just one cos it took that long… You broadband pervs have no idea how lucky you are!) I think people my age have started to skew the survey results where we’re listed with people 20 years older – but that’s beside the point because the article and report don’t use that age grouping – they do it by 10 year gaps, much more accurate and representative, so let’s just get to the point!

I think this metric could have something to do with the ease of use of Twitter in comparison to the other social networks – somewhere like Facebook/MySpace where you have profiles, upload photos and videos, make use of applications you have to install and so forth can be daunting to older people with less computing/internet experience. Maintaining your profile and keeping it updated can take up lots of time, and it’s all very daunting to lots of people. Twitter on the other hand is a beautiful piece of simplicity for the user, and not at all threatening for the inexperienced computer user. You can be up and running in minutes, and there’s always something to read about. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t picked it up and been able to use it straightaway.

Young people easily understand technology, having grown up with it – it’s hard to think we’ve only had computers in the home for about 30 years because they’re everywhere now. My Dad used to stare at my screen in bemusement when he came round because he didn’t believe the people talking directly to me via the computer screen could possibly be real – how were they getting there, and how was text appearing on my screen when I wasn’t typing?!?! Bless him, he was from a generation that grew up before television – he even used a horse and cart for his coal round in his younger days before vans and lorries became the medium of transport for commerce.

How things have changed in such a relatively short space of time in the greater scheme of things.

I think it’s a great positive that Twitter’s attracting an older generation, and many people in their later years find this massive world of information, entertainment, discussion and communication to be as useful and involving as I do. When I broke my back and had to lay down at home for a long time, I couldn’t have survived without the Net – I’d never have escaped my 4 walled virtual prison without it. I see the Net giving those with less mobility wings through which to set themselves free online. I also see it as giving voice to the voiceless and community to the lonely and isolated (although the isolated may struggle to get decent speed broadband in rural areas so they’ll have to stay away from streaming video!)

As the older generation starts to welcome the tech savvy teens of the 80s like myself into their throng via the ‘excuse’ that “we’re not old, we’re only just heading into middle aged”, I’d like to say to each and every one of you silver surfers, “Welcome, it’s a mad place and you’ll fit right in!”

Rob

p.s. I have no excuse for not posting very often today, beyond ‘Twitter ate my homework’

Well, it had to happen eventually – After a long lie in this morning to catch up on the lack of sleep yesterday, this evening I got my first experience of Wii Rock Band, – the game where you either sing, play guitar/bass, or drum to a number of well-known and some not so well-known songs. It’s serious fun – especially when there’s a group of you. 5 of us took it in turns to sing badly, ‘strum’ tunelessly, and mostly miss the beat through artists like Black Sabbath, Weezer, Faith No More, The Beastie Boys and even Die Toten Hosen – a german punk band I first encountered last year in Ibiza courtesy of mein host at a bar I often visited, Tom – a former East German punk.

One of my friends used to drum in bands so he put us to shame once he’s stopped drumming twice as many notes as were on screen, but I discovered my left hand to right foot (kick pedal foot) co-ordination was severely lacking – it soon improved though. Funny how throughout my teens we were told how computer games were making us all unfit, then the advent of the Wii has meant that games can be quite a physical challenge – Wii Boxing is exhausting, one round and I’m drenched with sweat! Heck if Wii’s had been around when we were kids, you might have had more chance of seeing me in the Olympics – the ZX Spectrum was hardly a workout, although typing in the games out of computer magazines certainly improved my typing – anyone else remember spending hours typing in line after line of Hexadecimal code only to discover on completing it that it didn’t work because somewhere in the machine code you’d made a mistake? The only way of solving it was to go through it digit by digit comparing your input to the magazine – many was the time the Spectrum got switched off in disgust after this happening! Ah to have games on tape that took 20 minutes to load, and a thermal printer with shiny silver paper again!

I’ve been busying myself today getting into the $100 Million Challenge – starting the video courses and getting on to my first assignment. So far, I’m really impressed at how well the course is delivered – it’s very easy to get into, and Russell Brunson appears to be way ahead of the curve when it comes to presenting his product – the whole package is very polished.

Although I’ve studied and worked in Marketing since I was 18, I love learning and adding to my knowledge at any opportunity – you never know when one of those things may subsequently skyrocket your achievements and earnings.

Online learning was a lifesaver for me when I was immobilised with a broken back – it helped me get over what was a very difficult time in my life – going from being very sporty to being completely immobile was a sudden and very frustrating change I wouldn’t want anyone to have to go through. Still, I had a fantastic time doing the sports that eventually crippled me and I wouldn’t change anything – except for the 2 specific landings that did the most damage – one in 1999, the latter in 2004!

Just done some Traffic Exchange surfing for the first time in ages, it’s a great way of seeing what people are promoting at the moment, and 10 seconds is a very short time to make someone interested in your product/service so you have to be good to do it well – there are lots of great people in the TE community who are always prepared to help people make money for themselves. I often attend Saturday training at Affiliate Funnel where I’ve learned so much about list building, developing splash pages, landing pages and the world of traffic exchanges from fantastic teachers like Jon Olson, Mike Paetzold and Paul Kinder.

Rob

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