Up-and-coming age group tuned-in, turned on

Top Forrester analyst and blogger, Charlene Li, reports that 24 percent of “Generation Y” reads blogs. Writes Li:

Gen Yers—18- to 26-year-olds who came of age with broadband, cell phones and iPods, among other things—stand apart from older generations because of their hands-on approach to the Web. Marketers trying to anticipate future consumer trends should tune in to Gen Yers.

 

One key data point that stood out for me: 24% of Gen Yers read blogs, which is twice as often as the 12% of Gen Xers (ages 27-40) and three times the 7% of Young Boomers (ages 41-50) that read blogs. So skeptics of blogs should suspend their disbelief and look to at least one bellwether demographic to get an idea of how widespread blog readership can potentially grow in the future… More »

Advertisers exploring the potential value of the long tail, take heed: the Gen Y demographic accounts for 28 percent of the U.S. population alone. Likewise, bloggers and other small- and medium-sized publishers ought to consider taking this tech-smart and affluent group’s wants into account when developing content and community.

For me, personally, there’s good news and bad news in Charlene’s findings. The good news is I can say to the blog skeptics out there: “Take that!” The bad news is finding out that I’m a “Young Boomer.”

—Michael Mattis, Blog Editor