Shifting Expectations

So AOL - Time Warner have bought Bebo in an attempt to get in on the social neworking act. Not THAT much money(£417 million-ish) and I'm sure they know what they are doing! I'm quite sure they have done their sums and know what they are about - with 40 million subscribers there are lots of users out there and time will tell if they have backed the right horse. Will Bebo remain popular with notoriously fickly kids who wouldn't feel they have any particular brand loyalty if something cooler came along... Anyway, I heard an interesting statistic on BBC Five Live as I was driving home this evening - during an interview with a web analyst bloke from an organisation whose name I forget. He said that there are almost double the number of over 50s online as under 18s. This seemed a remarkable figure, and it certainly took me by surprise! There must definitely be an opportunity for someone to come up with that killer app for the silver surfers out there!

Interesting post on Rory Cellan-Jones’s blog . Rory was in a school filming for the BBC’s School Edition project. Rory clearly ‘gets it’! He talks about how the kids are “knowledgeable, articulate and very demanding of the technology” and that “While adults are dipping their toes into the mobile internet rather gingerly, children are taking the plunge”. And Rory also recognises that there are implications for this technology for the teachers; who, although the school currently bans mobile phones (without success) “they are even beginning to explore how mobile phones could be used in lessons – one class was using phones to film simple animations.” Good to see the BBC getting it and getting it right!