 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
January 2008
From the Editor: Too much information?
By Danica Tormohlen
I don’t know about you, but it’s shocking to me how much personal information people put on the Internet. One of my single, 20-something girlfriends has a MySpace account, and she gave me access to it so I could check out her “friends” and read some of the notes they posted. I was amazed by what people she barely knew were willing to put down in writing for the world to see. Of course, she never gave it a second thought. Her profile is filled with all kinds of personal information about her likes and dislikes, dreams and aspirations, religion and sexual orientation, and much, much more.
Facebook, another popular social networking Web site with more than 55 million users, launched an ad program called Beacon late last year. The program shared information about users’ purchases and other activities outside Facebook, accompanied by relevant advertisements. Basically, it sent your friends messages about things you bought or sites you visited. Almost immediately, Facebook subscribers began complaining about invasions of privacy. Facebook dropped the program in less than a month, but not before MoveOn.org got 50,000 people to sign a petition calling for Facebook to allow users to opt out of Beacon.
I don’t consider myself a particularly conservative or private person, but there’s just no way I could post that kind of personal information online. And, quite frankly, I don’t care what my friends are buying or doing 24/7, nor do I have the time to read about it. This is just one of the many differences between Gen Y and Gen X (which I’m part of) and Baby Boomers (see our feature: Beyond Boomers, page 40).
My Gen Y friend is a young business professional who works for a Fortune 100 company. She’s never been to a trade show, but she’s definitely one of the up-and-coming decision makers our shows will want to attract. And if you want to reach her, you’ll have to learn how she uses the Internet and communicates with her peers.
The lines between consumer and business expectations continue to blur. Young business professionals especially are beginning to demand the online tools and applications they use in their personal lives.
I’m not suggesting that everyone needs to create and maintain a MySpace or Facebook page (I know I won’t be creating one anytime soon) to understand how to attract Gen Y attendees, but I would hire and seek input from someone who does if that were the audience I wanted to reach. And there are plenty of business networking sites you can join to see how cool some of these features are. I recently updated my profile on LinkedIn after receiving several messages from industry colleagues who I respect requesting “connections.” Yes, I did add some additional personal information — but not too much.
Danica Tormohlen, Editor, dtormohlen@red7media.com |
|
|
Stay informed with Expo's weekly e-newsletter:
Get daily industry news via RSS  What is RSS?
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| |
A Red 7 Media publication - 7015 College Blvd., Suite 600, Overland Park, KS 66211, USA
Tel 913.344.1376 — Fax 913.469.0806
|
|
|
|
