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From the Mouths of TeensJan 04 2007 | Blogging |
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.
Posted by Chris Winfield at 11:33 am
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January 4th, 2007 at 11:53 am
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.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:57 am
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!
January 4th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Excellent idea, thanks for pointing his blog out Chris!!!!!
January 4th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Great and surprising info. Jessica doesn’t digg and neither should we. Nice find Chris, boy am I old.
January 4th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
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.
January 4th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
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.