"Never ending" hype about Web 2.0

MySpace and Isobar & Carat recently commissioned a report about social networking that focuses on MySpace. Though offering nothing ground-breaking, it's a quick read and basically reinforces what you already know. It also has some nice charts and stats to add credibility to our trusted paradigm, that is, people are really into this social networking thing. All kinds of people are into it, of all ages, and the interest is building, not waning. And they are really, really into it. A lot. When you study the stats, it can get a little overwhelming.

We also know that marketers have caught on. Now we (the marketers) just have to keep focusing on how to exploit this new medium and the people that spend so much time there. We will have our evil way with them. Oh yes, we will.

I will say that I found some of the interviewee quotes a little disturbing. Here are two:

“I can’t come home from school and not want to go on MySpace.
I wake up in the morning, brush my teeth, and go on MySpace.
I have to in the morning. My mom gets so mad. I have to check on
MySpace in the morning because maybe at 3:00 in the morning
someone wrote me a comment. I just have to do it. It’s addictive.”
— Britney, 17, Los Angeles

“It just hooks you in there and you’ll just sit there and you’ll look at
people’s profi les or you’ll just randomly browse what’s going on, and
you just can’t stop. And you’re looking at the watch and you thought
you’d just sit down for a minute and you ended up sitting for an
hour, like what the hell am I doing?”
— Paul, 25, Chicago

I'm not really sure why I find them disturbing, I'm all about connecting and connecting online is the bomb. But some of the comments seemed to broach on internet addiction. Good stuff for marketers. Weird stuff for our society.