Facebook Furor

I guess the big 2.0 story this week is Facebook’s TOS/PR brouhaha.  There are thousands of press pieces, podcasts, and blog posts:

The Facebook uprising
Thousands of Facebook users threatened to un-friend the entire Web site this week to protest what one consumer guardian called "a digital rights grab."

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and 25 other groups were poised to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission…

Lots of juicy morsels splayed on this social networking news story smorgasbord - but I’ll only chew on one: diversity. 

Take a look at Peter Himler’s post:

Saving Face (Book)
I knew the moment the news broke that Facebook was in for a rough patch in the court of public opinion … The real value seasoned PR pros offer seems to be in short supply at many tech start-ups, even the most successful ones. It has less to do with the number of journalists or bloggers the PR person knows, or even his or her ability to craft a sticky story line. The real value lies in one's intrinsic sense of how a "public" will react to various outputs -- a skill that is only honed after years of wallowing in the mud.

PR professionals can’t anticipate everything. But the PR department of a social networking site not anticipating a groundswell of negative social networking?

Age Diversity.  I think I’ve blogged about it a few times:

Old Masters and Young Geniuses
What Kind of Genius Are You?
Baby boomers are smarter than you think
Trust Your Gut

And a NYT piece:

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

 

That New York Times graphic?  It’s what Peter Himler is talking about.

The list goes on and on…

Lina Ko of Boomerwatch.ca rounds up examples of mature women in campaigns:

Model Boomers
… 52-year-old Jerry Hall is the new face of Chanel; 59-year-old Twiggy is the model for Marks & Spencer; Helena Christensen, in her late 40s, is modelling underwear for Agent Provocateur. The list goes on and on …

My favorite link Lina provides:

Who says supermodels have to be 14 years old? Former French runway model Inès de La Fressange, 51, walked Jean Paul Gaultier's haute couture runway on Wednesday and stole the show from her younger colleagues.

I’ve blogged this topic before:

Demand For Older Models Grows

London & Marks & Spencer

What happens if you don’t use age-appropriate models.

2009 What’s Next Boomer Business Summit

Some interesting folks speaking this year at The What’s Next Boomer Business Summit in Las Vegas on March 19th:

Discover the business segments with the largest growth opportunity in the boomer, senior and caregiver marketplace.

Read about them.

Television Still Shines

Interesting stats and a news story …

The Stats:

In a Nielsen survey … people of all ages said they spent vastly more time watching television than they did using the Internet … In a Multichannel News article, Starz Entertainment executive director of marketing, sales and corporate research Neil Massey said, “There is no evidence that people are abandoning television for other platforms.” He continued to note that “the universe of people who watch no television but watch long-form video online is about 1%.”

The News Story:

Why Television Still Shines in a World of Screens
by Randall Stross
… Television stands out as the one old-media business with surprising resilience. Though we are spending a record amount of time online, including a record amount of time watching video, we are also watching record amounts of very old-fashioned television …

As enamored as advertisers are with the interactive potential of digital advertising, they know that online is a complement to offline, not its replacement … the typical American watched 142 hours of television monthly, up about five hours from the same quarter the previous year. Internet use averaged more than 27 hours monthly, an increase of an hour and a half …

I talk about this in my presentations and consulting. The web is a boon for most traditional media, not competition. With Baby Boomers, advertising should push them to web sites:

89% typically visit a Web site after seeing a print ad, and 83% visit a site after seeing a television ad.

Boomers Picky Travellers

I’ve said this for years, and blogged it recently:

Cookie-Cutter Cavalcades
Sounds a bit like my book, first published in early 2005.  An excerpt:

 

Canadian Boomers aren’t much different:

Aging boomers picky travellers
New seniors bored by 'package holidays'
Over the next two decades, the ranks of seniors will swell with a vast generation that's healthier, more active and more discerning about travel than any before them, experts say.
"They want new experiences; they don't want the beaten track," says David Cravit, vice-president of ZoomerMedia, which handles communications for CARP, Canada' association for the 45-plus.