Just coming back from brunch with my friends Cristina, Daniel and their 12 year old son Sid. I was asking him about his Internet usage and what he and his friends do online. And the answer shocked me:

Kids don’t do Facebook. Internet is for adults and it’s boring. They think they’re so cool with their Facebook but it’s soooo old. We don’t use email, myspace, IM… We text! I just gave up my monthly allowance to get unlimited texts!

So weird to get a reality-check from a 12 y.o. but thanks kid!

According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project recent survey, the audience for YouTube and other internet video sharing sites has risen sharply in the past year. At the end of 2007, the share of internet users going to such video sites on a typical day was nearly twice as large as it had been at the end of 2006. Fifteen percent reported using a site like YouTube the day before being contacted for the survey, compared to eight percent of users last year. And 48% of the internet users have been to video-sharing sites such as YouTube. Full memo here.

Few factors that can explain this surge: number of high-speed internet connections rose by 45% in the same period, the multiplication of video-sharing sites, the increased interest for user-generated content and, last but not least, the Writers Guild of America strike that deprived the US TV viewers from new series and talk shows, forcing networks to broadcast re-runs. And the strike is not over, no movie nor TV series have been shot in months and things probably won’t resume to normal anytime soon, meaning that no fresh content will air for a while. It’s time to work on this little animation project you’ve been putting aside for too long now, it’s the perfect timing to show off your skills, there is nothing on TV!