Gen Y, a term sometimes used for those 20-35 years old, are old enough to be (some of) our kids but more importantly make up our next generation of clients. This generation, defined more by popular culture than by age, is an Internet-hungry and online-casual bunch. Currently, there are about 76 million of them in the U.S., not a bad market slice.

They communicated first via Instant Message and made the sport popular. After webcams were affordable, dating sites emerged. By the time YouTube opened up the face-to-face world, research as we knew it had changed permanently. Then social sites like MySpace, and Facebook blew onto the virtual landscape. Television is becoming secondary to seeing what you want when you want it (this is the ongoing theme) and BitTorrent (among others) is the way to find preferred media, not TV Guide.

If your business is looking for its next generation of customers, what kind of online presence do you need to attract and keep the techno-oriented Y'ers who spend big bucks online? Although neither exhaustive nor scientific (my sample was everyone I know under 35), here is a list of popular places where young folks come together online. If you market, you should consider these sites.

Download Squad and its cousins – people want to know what's out there as soon as it's launched. DLS not only tells you what's there but also make it easy to find plus they let you know if it's worthwhile. With so much information out there, DLS and its cousin sites offer today's specials so you don't have to bother with the entire menu.

Gmail, Google News Reader, Google Docs – free online services by King Google are the prime haunt of many 20-35 year olds. Make sure you know how they work so when you build apps on your site you try to mimic the look and feel. When they want world news, they often use the links at the top of the pages.

The News Empire – the business-oriented target group seems to enjoy CNN's plethora of sites including cnn.com for news, cnnsi.com for sports, and the new CNN video area. They find news at their local paper's site as well as at the major news sites including The NY Times, WaPo, Google and Yahoo!.

Things Technical – if the users are geeky (a term I use with respect), they're likely to grab the most current news available from sites like Slashdot, Digg, Techmeme, Engadget and Reddit. Never heard of them? Each is a field-leader and they all use a blog-like or RSS-like updating system. Ease of use and consistent uptime can be more important than design. (A site is successful when its name becomes a verb, like, "Google that..." or "My review was slashdotted...")

Sharing Socially – social networking sites are more than just a "what's new" news item. Facebook and MySpace connect this international generation like virtual glue. Many users consider these sites to be their homepages and include links to other sites they want to visit (like Twitter, Google Reader, Pownce, their favorite blogs) right from those pages.

Photo Share – Got a shelf full of quaint photo albums? Today's shelves are online on a Flickr, Picasa or other photo site's servers. With the rapid availability of fast bandwidth, pictures go online instantaneously and can circle the globe in less than a morning. Others can comment and you can share all the photos you upload from your digital camera or more likely from your phone. In the olden days, we taught people how to attach a photo to an email. Today, we read the Flickr feed to see a picture that might interest us.

It's All in the RSS – most everyone who leans toward the technical has an RSS reader, whether it's Google or FeedDemon or others. The younger online group gets the feed for whatever interests them and checks that feed several times a day. It's neater and cleaner than browsing all over the Web and they get what they want when they want it (the ongoing theme) and have time to read it. If you don't yet have an RSS feed, what are you waiting for?

Share, Share, Share – the definition of social sites is sharing. We share not only photos and text but also we expect sharing in return. It's almost as if the Web has come full circle. From the olden days of the early 1990s to the mid-first decade of this millennium, the Web has evolved from open and free (when I started) to pay-as-you-go (when they expected you to pay to get news) and has grown into freely shared spaces that are your own. The mantra of sites is "Twitter/Pownce - Digg - Flickr" for the younger and clued-in audience.

Whether you consider this generation of Internet users to be egocentric and instantaneous gratifiers or open-minded and savvy, the proof of the online pudding is in the feed. Click a few links and see how they are coming to the knowledge that will make them – or keep them – from becoming your future customers.

If your fav site was omitted, please add it in the comments. You'd be surprised how many great sites we find out simply by asking others who are slightly more geeky than we are.

Okay, confession time. Despite being an early adopter for most things, I hadn't caught the basecamp train and got on board. Why you ask? I had no good use for it, though it is an excellently crafted application. I love software, and thus I checked it out, but for some reason I didn't see how its use would fit into my busy life, until now.

Becoming a self-employed web developer threw my daily routine out the window in a big way, and my preciously corporate sanctioned work-flow as well, giving me a new set of problems. One new problem I've had is process tracking, central information storage and updating, and project management. If this sounds like three problems, you're right, but they are tightly connected.

Having many projects and lots of information to track, share, and modify, basecamp handles with ease and makes me work less and takes care of these problems without taking too much of my time. I am finally "with it" when it comes to project management.

Developing software is no picnic (as you know), but now at least I know where the utensils are. Try eating potato salad without a fork, and you'll get the idea. If you haven't checked out basecamp (by 37 signals) it is worth it, there is a free account, awesome simple tutorial videos, and a great application to help you track life and work.

If you are with it, and use basecamp religiously (or casually), do you have tips for a basecamp beginner like me, or ideas to get more out of basecamp? We're all ears.

Google has announced a new labs project, a free 411 service. The Google Voice Local Search is an experiment, but it aims to get users fully automated access to local business information.

The GOOG 411 service holds the same information that would typically be found on Google.com, but for times when you just cant get to an internet connection and all you have access to is a cell phone or home phone, this is your next best bet.

The service is free to use, and Google does not charge businesses for connecting customers to them. It is still in an experimental form, and only available in English in the US, for US business listings. To try out the service, dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

Update: Download Squad's Brad Linder put GOOG 411 to the test, and here's the result:

goog 411.mp3

Ask has been running some new controversial ads in the UK recently informing people about Google's huge success and the impact it could have.

The campaign is trying to get across that 75% of all searches performed in the UK are done through Google, thus limiting the sources that people are getting information from.

Ask is trying to ramp up its search engine market in Europe by creating a tiny rebellious market through the use of a non branded campaign encompassing radio, street stunts, TV, and web. Most ads and materials do not even mention Ask, they just direct the audience to an Information Revolution website which encourages people to "Join the Revolution."

It's a very interesting and unique approach, and Google welcomes the competition, but has Ask gone a little far by creating a "Revolution" to gain a bit of market share in Europe?

Check out a video of the ads and commercials after the jump...

Additional coverage can be found on SearchEngineLand and WSJ.

Want to get a total unbiased report on a new product you are thinking about purchasing? ProductWiki can help.

ProductWiki is a product information site that is based off of a collaborative wiki format. The website is entirely maintained by visitors and users who share information or review consumer products from around the world.

The goal the team behind ProductWiki has is to create a comprehensive information resource that covers all products in depth. All products might be a little hard to get onto the site, but it's overflowing with a range of products already, from LCD TV's, external hard drives, tea cups, games, health and beauty products, cars and a truckload more.

When searching for an item, the site not only will give a review from the submitter, but will also show pictures, key features, and places where it can be bought. Users can choose to tag items, and write additional pros and cons based on experience they have had with the item.

ProductWiki is another great place to go to check out the items that are on your shopping list, getting great first hand results from people that actually own and use it.


[via eHub]

The team at Microsoft has agreed to acquire a company which specializes in medical information. Medstory Inc, is a small company that produced an artificial intelligence software which picks up and scans medical and health information in medical journals, government documents and the internet.

The Medstory team will join the Microsoft's Health Solutions Group which will manage the development and delivery of the new offering. The words "Microsoft Anti-Virus" could take on a whole new meaning.

It looks like Google is testing new features in their search results age. As you can see in the screenshot, there is a blue arrow that appears next to results now that, when twirled down, can reveal new information such as images, related links and even the ability to search the site - all before you actually click to visit it (could this possibly be a result of those Ask.com commercials with the monkeys?).

CyberNet, where I found these screenshots, welcomes these new features and I have to agree. It looks like a great, unobtrusive way to boost the power of their search without cluttering up the page with all sorts of buttons and do-dads. The one thing I'd like to see with this new results page is the ability to navigate results the same way one can navigate Gmail messages - shortcuts like j/k to move up and down the link results list and enter to open the link would be great.

Obviously, I don't know if these are real, or if they are - how CyberNet came across them, or  even whether Google is offering some kind of sign-up list to get in on the beta action. But one thing's for sure: if this new search results UI is real, it will likely be one of the first new Google products/features of late to not debut as a beta.

[via Macworld]