Many comments focus on Facebook. I believe Facebook will be great and enduring. Why? Because they are moving to a platform architecture. That means that people can develop “Facebook Applications” that users can “install” on their profile pages.

Why does that help Facebook? Because it’s one more orthogonal dimension of user generation. First users provided content. Now users provide applications to host content. Next we will see users providing tools to create applications to host user generated content (sourceforge anyone?).

This is related to my biggest gripe with the iPhone: open it up! Allow third party applications to be installed and you open many doors to popularity.

Apple should take a hint form Intuit (makers of Quicken, Quickbooks, Turbotax, etc.) Intuit founder Scott Cook wrote, “My biggest surprise was discovering how customers will invent your business for you,” with regard to being customer driven. I personally use Quickbooks to keep track of personal finances, LLC finances, and the rent and utilities payments that my housemates owe. This is possible because of Quicken’s versatile, open nature. The point? Let your customers tell you what they want in a product, rather than telling them what a product will do for them. Imagine what people would invent for the iPhone if they were free to write applications for it. But I digress…

My takeaway from this event:
1) KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
2) Open it up!
3) 18-24
4) Don’t build another social network. Seriously.
5) Philanthropy can be market driven.

Shirish, I’m not sure how long we’ll stay with facebook, but not by any fault of facebook’s. Rather, I’d imagine that as we grow up our needs will change, from sharing information, photos, etc. on facebook to a place where we can connect for real-world purposes, like LinkedIn. As we move on, though, other users will step in to take our place. We may move on because our needs have changed, but whether or not the social networking sites themselves fail will be based on how they continue to work for a certain age group; unless, of course, facebook wants to grow up with us, which we certainly wouldn’t mind!

and Liz, thank YOU for your article! It’s great when adults try to get our views and see things the way we do, without demeaning us or our views. Us teens are certainly not afraid to speak up if you’d only ask; all we ask is some respect for the opinions you’re asking for. I’m glad the panel went well, it certainly seems like it did. The only thing with this panel is that it’s from silicon valley kids; not only are they all taken from the same area, it’s a pretty tech-oriented area [I think]. It’d be really interesting to have a panel from all over; just, please, no more of those web surveys that try to be cool that send emails with subject lines like “TOTALLY RAD, A NEW SURVEY FOR DUDES ONLY”. Now that certainly does not work. That’s just asking for faked answers.

;-)

Werner

gagan, now that is just silly. There are plenty of comments from both genders in the story.

seth, I think you might underestimate the age of our readers, but they’re definitely welcome to comment here!

@One girl told the audience, “I would be lost, helpless, and alone without the Internet. I don’t know how you people survived without it!”

Very funny…. lolzzz …

@liz .. ru tryin to prove by this article that gals r too stupid to use this tech. … u have listed all the funny(stupid) things said by gals only..

Good to see you moderating a panel of teens, I really enjoyed this read.

I am curious to see how many years today’s facebook users will stay with facebook. They may want to not change to another social-network cycle but the generation that is just getting introduced to social networks may choose a competitor. My guess is 4-6 years then users will jump to linkedin like job network.

This is just the beginning of social-networks.

I would completely agree with the fact that most of us get around school internet filters, and most of us find nothing wrong with it; we’re not dodging the filters in order to look at porn and download music, we’re dodging the filters to get to blocked sites like wikipedia.

We do tend to keep our phones and iPods with us, though we’re not supposed to have either.

I’m not surprised that the panel was confused by the question about converging devices and mash-ups, it’s not something that you would generally talk about [among teens.] After all, we would be more likely to discuss specific services than a trend of mashing-up services. We’re more likely to compare gaim["pidgin"] to AIM than to discuss gaim’s ability to integrate multiple IM services.

MySpace IS out of favor, for quite a few reasons. For one, facebook has no ads, while myspace is loaded with them. For another, myspace tends to have frequent server problems and we often can’t log in or use it. The fact that myspace is so open in what people can put in their profile means that some profiles are loaded with bandwidth-sucking content- content that is poorly laid out and often useless. Facebook is clean, streamlined, easy to use, ad-free, and always running. Plus, facebook allows “wall-to-wall” views of conversations between users, whereas myspace doesn’t allow this easy view. Instead we have to scroll through everyone’s comments in two different windows or tabs. MySpace was a good “gateway drug” to social sites, but Facebook is the drug of choice. And yes, we do need to have our friends on a social network for us to join it; Orkut is great, but who else is on there from our generation? You can’t expect us to waste our time with something new if it hasn’t proven itself or shown itself to be potentially awesome. You guys created the instant gratification information age, and we’ve grown up with it. Most social networks don’t offer anything new or unique enough for us to bother.

straight from the mouth of a member of the social-network generation =]

I think social networks should begin focusing on existing relationships rather than the facilitation of new ones: Strengthen what already exists. I know who my network is, all you need to do is make it easier for me to communicate with them. MySpace was good for meeting new people, but now I’m tired of “meeting new people” - I just want to efficiently communicate with those whom I already know.