One of the most refreshing and insightful blogs is Speaking Freely from long-time SEO Dean Bloomfield (aka DigitalGhost from ThreadWatch & WebmasterWorld fame). Dean’s blog is straight-forward and dead-on which makes it a must read each day for me. Dean also has introduced one of the coolest features on an SEO blog in awhile – straight talk from a teenager.
In December, Dean introduced Jessica L to his readers:
I wanted a different perspective on the Social Web, Myspace, Digg, etc. I also wanted some fresh input on what is driving the young adopters of technology. So, I’m proud to announce that Jessica L. will be writing for this blog. She’s the 15 year-old junior editor of her school newspaper and one of my daughter’s best friends. She’ll be speaking freely at least once a week, every Wednesday evening.
I spend a lot of time using social networks and I love to hear different opinions on them. Every time I see my two teenage cousins I quiz them on what’s hot, what they like, why they like it, etc. So I was psyched to Dean’s new writer because it could help recreate my all to infrequent conversations with my cousins (Hi Carly & Kayla) and the immense take-aways that I get from being in their minds for a couple of minutes. I would highly recommend following this series as it develops. Dean – one suggestion – why not create a category for Jessica so that it’s easy to track this (for now the alternative is via site search).
Update: Dean just created a Jessica category – so you can now track this there.
Bookmark this post:
8 Responses to “From the Mouths of Teens”
Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
Hello Chris, thanks for the kind words. I was pretty excited about having her write for the blog as well. The ‘Jessica’ category has been created.
Watching teens interact with technology is simply fascinating. Listening to them talk about their interests is enlightening. I recall hearing the word ‘rips’ several times in context before I asked what they were talking about.
That’s a cool rip, he had some cool rips, his rips are tired, etc. For some reason, songs ripped from CDs never occurred to me.
The whole cell phone thing is just crazy. They type faster with their thumbs than I do with my all my fingers and I’ve yet to see a teenager use the address bar in a browser, all navigation is done via the search box.
I’m looking forward to next week’s answers to the questions you asked and her journalism class is now starting an entire blog project. I’ll keep you updated.
Excellent on the category – thanks!
This is definitely something for ALL marketers to be very aware of.
Looking forward to see this unfold – great job!
Excellent idea, thanks for pointing his blog out Chris!!!!!
Great and surprising info. Jessica doesn’t digg and neither should we. Nice find Chris, boy am I old.
That’s a fascinating approach and I am intrigued to see it on an ongoing basis. I read and learn.
Is there anyone working on perhaps the less exciting approach to work with the “senior set” (say the 55 – 70 set? – sorry if I offend anyone, I’m not intending to…:-) ), or have them blog about their uses and approaches vis a vis, search bars, navigation and preferences etc. I find it fascinating to see how unskilled this set is in browing and understanding concepts. So, how much should marketers play into them?
What exactly would studying with that set add insight to? Anything of any value to SEO’s, marketers? There’s not nearly the numbers to work with in this group either.
This is so awesome. I love to see the way the future is shaping up for young people. I myself am feeling overwhelmed by all the blogs out there, but surely have my Bloglines fully stashed with them.
I will look forward to keeping up on Jessica’s stories, and surely she will appreciate the buzz she got in a matter of days just by being young and fresh.
Dean A. Bloomfield is nothing more than a mouth-piece con-man. All he ever does is con people and businesses out of their money saying that he will do "CEO WORK" for them, but that work never gets started nor completed. This so called working man is nothing but a walking con-artist who everyone should be looking out for. He says he knows all these special and great people but when the time comes he has no "faces" to put with the names.
Dean A. Bloomfield is nothing more than a mouth-piece con-man. All he ever does is con people and businesses out of their money saying that he will do "CEO WORK" for them, but that work never gets started nor completed. This so called working man is nothing but a walking con-artist who everyone should be looking out for. He says he knows all these special and great people but when the time comes he has no "faces" to put with the names.
Maybe people might really like to know what " I " "Jessica" have to say. You had no permission to use my name even if it was just my first one. What did you use Shianne and Michaels too? I am sure people would live to hear all about how you drained my aunt and mother out of all the money and life they had. They both were doing so well till you showed up and caused our whole family to go into dept, but thats fine because it wasn't you're money or life being destroyed in the process. You could also write about how you fled from Ohio when you found out that the police were looking for you because of the Domestic Violence and refusal of paying child support for your children.
I hope people actually listen to what I wrote for it is the truth and nothing but the truth. Unlike Mr. Bloomfield I do not try to make peoples lives worse i try to make them safer.