John (17) and Patrick (19) Collison of Limerick, Ireland are the
latest in a growing number of millionaire teens. Launched just last
summer, their web software company Auctomatic.com sold for about $5
million,
reported The Irish Times. Their venture “provides web-based
software for heavy users of the eBay auction site which enables
them to manage inventory more efficiently” and was made possible
through funding from Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator.
To inform this new generation of go-getters, Greg Muller of
The Age explains that “Citizen 2.0 is today’s teenager, born in
a connected world, accustomed to rapid change and possessing unique
information-age skills. Citizen 2.0 will challenge any organisation
selling products, services or ideas in the future.”
(cont.)
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Virtual worlds for kids are an exploding market. But what do they
mean for our youth and for the future of our society?
I just had the pleasure to sit through a Virtual Worlds 2008
session titled Kids and Tweens: Why Virtual Worlds Are The
New Saturday Morning TV during which a panel of experts
shared their thoughts on the rise of virtual worlds as the primary
form of entertainment for our youth, exhibiting what moderator
Richard Gottlieb labeled
as a “sense of overwhelming optimism” about the growing
industry.
The following are my favorite bytes and take-aways:
Jason Root, Senior Vice President, Digital, Nick.Com And
Nick At Nite.Com asserted that “gaming is the new
programming that kids gravitate to”, adding that Nickelodeon views
it and virtual worlds “as a logical extension to the web space” and
not a replacement for narrative television programming. “That leads
kids into a new open-ended experience,” said Root, noting that
what’s emerging is an audience “that hungers for both linear and
non-linear content.”
Kenneth Locker, Senior Vice President, Digital Media,
Cookie Jar Entertainment explained that virtual world
experience producers “don’t create content, they create context”,
meaning that the goal is to facilitate a variety of sticky
open-ended experiences rather than passive consumption. “TV is a
top-down medium,” he concluded, “The internet has no beginning,
middle or end.”
(cont.)
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