Gen Y is Changing the Web
June 15, 2008 | By Joel Dehlin | 5 Comments
Generation Y is the generation born approximately between 1981 and 2001. They are primarily the children of the baby boomers.
Here are some key characteristics of this new generation (mostly from the the Wikipedia article on Gen Y):
- Represent about 70 million consumers in the United States
- Earn about $211 billion and spend about $172 billion per year (They will probably be primarily responsible for the health-related decisions for their parents, the baby boomers and thus control a lot more future “spend”).
- 97% own a computer
- 94% own a cell phone
- 76% use instant messaging
- They tend to move jobs more than ever before
This will be an influential generation.
Here’s a great article on how they are changing the web (or is the web changing them?). It’s worth a read.
Steven Tedjamulia said...
Joel,
I am responsible for fast offerings for the Lake Travis Ward in Austin Texas. We have a big area to cover. Some of our routes take up to 2 hours. We try to go to every member’s house every fast Sunday. One problem we have is that as new members come in, we need to redo the routes. This is a very time intensive process. We need to add a member to a list and find out where he lives and what route should he should be placed in. When 5 new members join this is more challenging. Also, when we have a new deacon we need to redo the routes to accommodate this new deacon and minimize the travel distance for the others.
What we need is a web service that allows us to upload a member list and have it plot all the members in mapquest or google maps. Then we should be able to see clusters and select routes that show us how long the route would take. Also, we would like to save this route and make modifications to it later as changes need to be made. Finally, we would like to print the routes and email them to those responsible for each route.
Please let me know if the Church can help us with this effort. I was thinking of starting an open source project for this. It should not take to long. I am not a developer, but I can help with the requirements and project management. Please let me know if this is something you can support and if you can help.
Your response is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Steven Tedjamulia
stedjamulia AT collaborationcast DOT com
June 17, 2008 5:08 am #
queuno said...
So when will MLS be updated to accommodate all those cell phones and email addresses? Generation Y is getting kind of old already and is already serving in ward clerk callings …
And frankly, I’d like to be able to pay my tithes and offerings online…
[Joel: We're working on some of these ideas.]
July 17, 2008 9:01 pm #
KingM said...
>># 97% own a computer
# 94% own a cell phone
# 76% use instant messaging
Given that a good number of these people born between 1981 and 2001 are seven, eight, nine years old, I highly doubt these numbers.
July 29, 2008 5:17 pm #
Mark Nelson said...
@KingM
If you follow the link Joel posted to the source of his statistics, you’ll see that the media stats come from a 2007 study of 7,705 college students in the US. It doesn’t represent the entire age spectrum of Gen Y.
/mark
August 13, 2008 8:49 am #
Eric Werny said...
Just remember all tho toys you enjoy now were invented by the Baby Boomers
August 24, 2008 4:03 pm #