For some fun during the holidays, you should check out what Dave and Carl are up to.  

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Dave vs Carl: Sharpshooting

Mike has a really good post on an analogy between banking and online file storage. I think the analogy is right on but think we have a long way to go to make things work like that. Not only do you need reliable storage, you need:

• Fast connections to let you access the data quickly. Right now, connections in many places are painfully slow, just as file sizes are getting bigger. I can deposit and take out money through an ATM, which for the most part takes less than a minute.
• You need a standard way to define files so that you can access just the part you want. Unlike money, files are not homogenous so you can't take out as easily.
• You need open standards so that you can access the data from different service providers. I can take the same money out from any banks (with a fee sometimes) through interbank transfer networks.
• You need to reward users for posting on your site, or at a minimum provide it free and make money yourself. I personally don't think advertising as we know it is enough to recoup costs of storage in foreseeable future. Either advertising will be boosted by a massive invasion of privacy (similar to a banker looking at yoru safety deposit box and selling you something based on that) or we discover a new form of monetization.

I hope we get there as an ether for my files is a nirvana worth striving for.

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Banking and Hosted Storage

Earlier this year, Jay and I attended a talk with John Connors (former Microsoft CFO, not the guy from the Terminator movies who fails to save the world) and I asked him where he thought our most important files would end up - in the "cloud" or our desktop?  His response was something like (I'm paraphrasing), "It actually won't matter.  You won't have to think about how or where to store your files, they will just be available when and where you need them."

...More on Mike's blog!

I read a really interesting article on teen trends in a CNET news article a few days ago. It claimed that "Young Americans spend more than 72 hours a week using the Internet, cell phones, television, music and video games" based on a study by the Harrisson Group. That's a whopping 10 hours a day. I question the math used by the study (for example, were they counting usage of multiple services simultaneously as consecutive minutes) but some of the other take aways were bang on.

• Teens have great purchasing power, thanks to money coming in from part-time jobs and parents. Teenagers spend about $195 billion annually on clothes, eating out, cars, movies and cell phones.
• One-third of teens reported owning an Apple Computer iPod, up from only 1 percent in 2003, according to the study. More than half said they also own and play Sony's PlayStation 2, and one-third said they own an original Microsoft Xbox game console.
• Their love of music is second only to their love of friends and even ahead of their love of family.
• Seventy five percent of teens spend two or three hours a day downloading or listening to music online. Roughly half of those kids say that downloading music for free is illegal. But 41 percent are unconcerned with the ramifications or ethics of illegal downloads.
• An estimated 68 percent of teens have created profiles on social networking sites like MySpace.com, Xanga or Facebook.
• The average teen chats via IM with 35 people for a total of three hours a week. But the average teen will only call or e-mail with seven people who are not on their IM list on a weekly basis.
• Among their top concerns are Internet predators, the Iraq war and energy consumption. More than half of all teenagers cited in the study said that environmental issues are a "critical or extremely serious problem."

If you assume the advertising market is 10% of expenditure and that 5% of ad spend is online, that represents a potential teen online ad market of close to $1 Billion today. That's not bad and the number is only likely to grow given how difficult it is to reach teens.

Teen technology habits are also bound to impact the long term viability of companies too. Apple is in a good place to build a life long relationship with teens as they become workplace decision makers. And the prevalence of illegal downloading may not just go away as teens grow up - think about the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Parents might have thought it was immoral, but as teens grew up they maintained their new moral standard. Maybe we need to plan for a world where piracy is seen as a norm and think of other ways of creating value. I know this is already happening with open source but not fast enough.

The importance of relationship building for teens is also interesting. They are potentially the group that will be masters of maintaining broader and broader relationships with technology without killing their time. Many adults today find it difficult to maintain relationships with many people and even think it is bad. I am not sure that will be the case for the next generation. They will expect tools that help make their relationship maintenance as efficient as so many other things they do.

Finally, I wonder if enough has been done to mobilize the teen population and their passions around issues. I know a few organizations that encourage debate in this area but what could happen if teens and early tweens realized they had power and actually used it. A revolution?