If someone asked you the #1 website for teens, my guess would be that you’d answer one of the top social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.  Same goes for the twenty-something set.  Well if so, the most recent TRU Study would have proved you wrong.  I was pretty surprised to see YouTube #1 with 8 of 10 Teens visiting in the last 30 days…beating out both MySpace at #4 (56%) and Facebook at #7 (42%).  A few other things that caught my eye:

• 50% of Teens and 56% of Twenty-somethings visited Wikipedia in the past 30 days.  I think that answers the question of what Geny Y views as “credible” information.
• eBay makes the top 6 on both lists and is the #1 “commerce” site for Gen Y.
• Yahoo is #3 on both lists.  They have been getting slammed recently and basically discounted as irrelevant by some in the press.  My guess would be the high ranking of Yahoo is thanks to their Web 2.0 plays like Flickr, Del.ico.us and MyBlogLog…not their base portal or search (except maybe Yahoo Mail).

TRU July 2008 Most Visited Websites

Have you noticed the badge on this site for Brazen Careerist?  Have you even heard of the site before?  If not, you need to check it out.  In their words:

A Brazen Careerist knows that defining your own career, finding the right field, and pursuing it are key ingredients to a fulfilling life. Like the tag line suggests, when you define your career on your own terms first, you control your life.  We’re an online career center aimed at Generation Y — young professionals who want to design and define their careers using the new rules for success.

The site’s co-founder Ryan Paugh (of Employee Evolution) invited me to join and I’m happy to be part of their community.  I have found it to be a great site…not only to promote Hard Knox Life but also to network with fellow Gen Y Young Professionals.  Networking is key to success in business….plenty of books have been written telling you that.  But the Internet (and sites like BC or LinkedIn) make it easier then ever to form a great network.  You don’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a MBA…you don’t need to travel to every industry conference there is.  Just start networking through your blog and you will meet great people that share your same passion.

So check out my profile on Brazen Careerist and enjoy the site.  You won’t be disappointed.

This week I am headed back to Cincinnati to serve my Best Man duties at the wedding of one of my great friends.  All will be quiet on the blogging front while I am away but here are a few links to leave you with that have got me thinking lately:

• AttentionMax “Why Passion Matters” – I just love this statement: “passion is not something that can be bought, outsourced or faked.”  When I think about people I want on my team, passion is #1.  You can train someone to be a great marketer…you can’t train passion though.  I’ll take the bet that the person passionate about their job and life in general will beat experience or a “pedigree” any day.
• Copyblogger “Are You Talkin’ To My Generation” – A great look at how to think about talking and getting in the minds of different generations.
• Lightheavyweight “What is Strategy?” -Simple thoughts but very needed.  Too many brands try to be everything to everyone.  Strategy needs to be simple, narrow and focused.
• Godin “We Specialize in Everything” – I missed this post until I caught a mention of it on m-cause.  I love this quote “When choice is limited, I want a generalist. When selection is difficult, a jack of all trades is just fine.  But whenever possible, please bring me a brilliant specialist.”  There is something to be said about finding yourself a niche and doing it better than anyone else.
• The Gen Y Guide to Web 2.0 Work – This is brilliant…even more so for the fact she created a killer presentation on her Nintendo DS! [slideshare id=396865&doc=genyweb20-1210364558509716-8&w=425]
• Digital Nomads and The New Workforce – Great post and something I want to write about more later.  In today’s world, great talent can work anywhere.  Companies need to start embracing this and thinking about a world where their best people might not need to live in the home office.  Save on relocation money and let them live/work where they want.  Doing so opens up endless opportunities to attract amazing talent.
• Viral Garden “Social Media: Where Have We Been, Where are We Going?” – Great summary post.  I’m actually thinking of putting together a presentation along these lines to educate my fellow Brand Managers about the Social Media space along with successes and failures.  If helpful, I’ll post here for all to see.
• Techno/Marketer “Developing Personas for Marketing Strategy” – This is one of the best summaries on the concepts of personas that I have ever read.  At P&G we talk about personas as our WHO, attaching a name to a Prime Prospect that is our target market.  Great, great summary of how to develop a WHO for your person.  When I consult, I am shocked at how many brands and businesses havent taken this step.  You can’t create a marketing plan without developing a robust WHO…it’s that simple.

So it looks like a group of my generational peers are fed up with all the names being used to describe us and are pushing for a new description, The Splinter Generation.  As they describe it:

Our generation has been called Generation Me, Generation Y, the Google Generation, Generation DotNet, and Generation 9-11 … the list goes on forever. But none of these names seem to fit. Sure, we use the internet; yes, 9-11 was a formative political experience; true, the letter Y comes after the letter X. But we, the editors, argue that these names don’t sufficiently capture who we are as a group. They don’t capture who we are as a generation.

I love the concept.  My age group is an age group of niches.  Sure we have commonalities like technology or major events like 9-11, but I think we are a lot closer to the description of the Splinter Generation – “Our generation is split into a million different cultures and subcultures, whether they are religious, musical, literary, racial, class-based or consumer-based”.  So what do you think?  Could this thing have legs?  Is Splinter Generation a good description?

I came across a great presentation that the team at BrandNoise presented to a class at Parsons the New School of Design in New York City.  Really killer summary of how generations are shaped.
[slideshare id=314529&doc=generations-cultural-narrative-1205984520591324-2&w=425]