Morgan Stanley is the bank where the veteran Internet analyst, Mary Meeker, is in residence and communicates her insights on tech stocks and their performance.

The team has garnered a good reputation for calling it right over the years and I read a fair amount of Meeker’s reports from conferences on the developments and future of the Internet too. Nonetheless, her team’s not always spot on — as this competitive spat over GOOG stock valuations in 2007 with Henry Blodget, formerly the Internet analyst at Merrill Lynch (an RIP bank, acquired by Bank of America in Q4 2008) and now CEO, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Silicon Alley Insider, shows:

· http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/08/24/henry-blodget-blasts-mary-meekers-google-goog-math/

· http://www.businessinsider.com/alleyinsider

Today’s FT informs us that Morgan Stanley has a new star Internet analyst: a 15 year-old intern called Matthew Robson. Apparently, his research note on social media says in no uncertain terms that, “Twitter is not for teenagers!” and CEOs and senior people are all abuzz about the report:

* http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/035e83fe-6f18-11de-9109-00144feabdc0.html

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/13/twitter-teenage-media-habits

* http://voices.allthingsd.com/20090713/note-by-teenage-scribbler-causes-sensation/

How Teenagers Consume Media

Now — whilst this is all fantastic for young Matthew Robson — Morgan Stanley and the various CEOs and media moguls who attended Sun Valley 2009 as well as institutional fund managers need to ask themselves, “How’s it possible our 30/40-something analysts’ eyes are off the radar?! What are we paying them for?! This is the type of blind-sidedness and incompetence that ends up contributing to global financial crisis which then affect economies and employment!”

Sorry, but anyone worth their salt as an analyst — even a novice one, fresh out of Harvard / Oxbridge / INSEAD / any other Ivy League business school — would have picked up on “Twitter is not for teenagers” and the non-40something Twitterati OVER THREE MONTHS AGO! Notably, if the analysts had any sense of humor and were actually ON THE BALL they’d have seen the twitter topix link syndicated on the brilliant Kosmix (http://www.kosmix.com) and gone to the Current TV site:

* http://current.com/items/89891774_twouble-with-twitters.htm

Here are the links to the YouTube videos too for good measure:

· www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w

· www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHAZt-Exuaw

[I can't embed the videos because of country restrictions. It's not available on YouTube UK site.]

Please note what the Current TV/Supernews comedy anarchists are saying: the young guy in the cartoon doesn’t get the hype about Twitter and is making a mockery out of the 40-something Twitterer. That’s a pretty good insight on whether it has teen appeal too.

Teens aren’t into tech hyped up by middle-aged celebrities or SEO spammers. They like to be the ones discovering it, populating it with their identity markers as their own identities take shape, breaking new grounds with it and they want to know that if they shell out monies to update their tweets via their mobile phone credits………..Robert Pattison (he of Twilight and a million schoolgirl daydreams), the Harry Potter kid stars and the Jonas Brothers / Miley Cyrus / the Obama girls or the coolest boy / girl in school they fancy are going to become their avid followers.

What the Morgan Stanley story about the teenage analyst shows is that senior management desperately need analysts and advisors who are on-the-ball, perspicacious and engage in a similar or like-for-like way the target market they’re writing about and trying to build business case models for do.

Moreover, this “Twitter is not for teens” is SERIOUSLY OLD NEWS to the viewers of Current TV and anyone with a genuine pulse on the socmedia sphere. The FT too will have to shape up and get more………current and informed.

LOL.

[Yes, I was the first person to flag the Current TV/Supernews hilarity about Twitter to my friends. No, I’m not a teenager but I can be child-like --- if not juvenile, immature or a novice --- about how I consume and explore media. Just because I have the adult tools to put socmedia players into a Porter matrix or McKinsey product life cycle graph or to calculate staggered revenue streams in a balance sheet doesn't mean I've lost my abilities to play with and test out digital media with the wonder (and mischief) of a child.

Hey and the YouTube videos aren’t even relayed in my country because of copyright restrictions! Still………….if a person really needs to know……….they can find anything in the socmedia sphere.]

LOOOOOOOOOOL.

Humor and wit can help our insights on business models in the most surprising ways!

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UPDATE

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I made my post early this morning, as soon as I read the original FT.com article and MS’ prognosis on twitter and other soc media for GenY (http://media.ft.com/cms/c3852b2e-6f9a-11de-bfc5-00144feabdc0.pdf).

How Teenagers Consume Media

During the course of the day, it seems to have captured the attentions of the blogosphere (ReadWriteWeb, HuffPost, Silicon Alley Insider, Crunchgear, etc.):

*http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/teens_not_into_twitter_tv_radio_newspapers.php

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/13/matthew-robson-15yearold-_n_230495.html

* http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-15-year-old-analyst-trashes-tv-newspapers-radio-andtwitter-2009-7

* http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/13/morgan-stanley-reports-shows-that-teens-dont-use-twitter-dont-buy-music-but-still-go-to-the-movies/

There’ve been hundreds of comments on the blogs. Notably, so many hours after my blog post……still NO ONE has referred to the Current TV/Supernews spoof.

I think I’m going to have to remind everyone of its comedic genius.

Clearly, the comedians are ahead of the curve compared with the analysts.

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UPDATE II

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Ah, yes, and real-life young intern Matthew Robson puts his age at “15 and 7 months” in the Morgan Stanley note. This is LOL because the fictitious character, Adrian Mole, was 13 and 3/4 when he shared his teenage insights with us:

*  http://www.adrianmole.com/

Of course, the teenage Adrian’s singular musings were the creations of the mid-30’s FEMALE author, Sue Townsend……….

*  http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=authC2D9C28A18dac23605uLr31DC862

Reading through the MS research note, it’s obvious that the 30-something analysts on the MS media team have contributed their input to the teenager Robson’s insights. Former bankers can spot this from a continent away.

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UPDATE NUMERO TRE

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I am ROTFLOL!!!

In tomorrow’s Times newspaper, there’s an interview with Matthew Robson and his mother in which they explain how he got his internship. She was walking the family dog in Greenwich Park and bumped into another dog-walker by accident. He happened to be Patrick Wellington, a senior financial analyst at MS. The Robson family dog is a whippet (as in smart / quick as) and it’s called….RUDOLPH, so someone’s obviously Santa Claus and everyone’s Christmases have come at once!

Matthew Robson gets his internship. Morgan Stanley gets buzz about a research note. Sun Valley media moguls get an insight into the teen market they themselves are (some of them with the exception of Zuckerberg) over three decades too old to qualify for membership in. Twitter gets information on which audience to focus their efforts (no strategic rationale to migrate towards tweens because the marketing efforts won’t work on them).

Synchronicity? Serendipity? The Super Being of SocMedia moving in mysterious ways?

LOOOOOOOOL, I love this story!

Oh and how does the Times entitle its article?

“TWITTER IS FOR OLD PEOPLE, WORK EXPERIENCE WHIZ-KID TELLS BANKERS” !!!!!!!!!!!!

* http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6703399.ece?Submitted=true

Ha! Now am I glad I never took to Twitter!

OLD people, indeed!!! LOOOOOOOOL! There go the hopes of the socmedia’s “I’m young and cool” hipponistas! LOOOOOOOOL!!!

In the same week that the media moguls are gathered in Sun Valley to attend boutique investment bank, Allen + Co’s, pow-pow over how to monetize social networks, get consumers to pay for content and make their investors happy, the political leaders are in Italy discussing the global economic crisis and climate change.

The two events may seem discrete and unconnected, but actually they can be “twained”. Here goes……..

Yesterday news reports said that G8 leaders had hailed a “historic” agreement on climate change policies to try and set new temperature and CO2 emission targets for 2050 (lowering by 2 degrees Celsius and halving, respectively). This follows on from 1990 agreements to cut CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Here’s the website of the July 2009 G8 summit being held in L’Aquila, Italy and hosted by the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi:

News coverage on the G8 is available here:

* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/g8/

Below are some useful links on what the UN Environment Program, Oxfam, BBC forum bloggers, Open Democracy, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the All Africa network believes needs to be covered by the climate change agenda at the G8 summit:

· http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=593&ArticleID=6242&l=en

· http://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/g8-2009

· http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=6705&edition=1&ttl=20090709111737

· http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-g8-and-climate-change-towards-copenhagen

· http://www.panda.org.za/?section=News_AboutUs&id=191

· http://allafrica.com/stories/200907070060.html

CLIMATE CHANGE: TWAINING SOCIAL NETWORKS TECHNOLOGY WITH PRODUCTION STREAMS AND CUTTING CO2 EMISSIONS

Several years ago, I posted a broad overview of my business case for “Web 3.0: socially-voiced co-creation” onto slideshare — an excellent site run by an excellent management team, btw. In its time it was ranked #1 if you searched for “Web 3.0”.

Now, I’m not going to be one of those people who allows the “Why should emerging economies agree to cuts when it’s the developed economies who’ve been responsible for polluting the world ever since the Industrial Revolution for the last two centuries?” argument distract me from what is a CLEAR CHALLENGE AND SOLUTION we all need to find. Nor am I going to argue, “Well, emerging economies like India and China are actually churning out more CO2 because their factories are manufacturing goods to fulfill the consumption demands of developed economies. It’s actually them that’s causing us to pollute in the first place. Factories built because developed country economies wanted to take advantage of the cheaper labor and wage costs abroad, etc. etc. etc.”

There are countless objections all sides can put forward to why developed and emerging economies shouldn’t do something about climate change but all of these objections are, frankly, fatuous and don’t move human progress forward (and I like moving human progress forward, :*)).

What also needs to be recognized is that what all governments have yet to do is to make COMPELLING BUSINESS ARGUMENTS for companies and consumers to tackle climate change. Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth documentary remains a philosophical call to our conscience rather than a pragmatic program towards change in action — not simply attitude — of consumer behavior.

What we need is the model I propose in ‘Web 3.0: socially-voiced co-creation’.

At the moment, social networks seem to be little more than online meeting points where consumer herds are channeled into topic pens for marketers to push more information at them and increase their consumption habits. They then buy more goods (often not what they genuinely need but for momentary consumer satiation or fad reasons), cause factories to churn out more CO2 and other noxious chemicals to pollute the environment and then waste electricity on the gadgets and goods they’ve bought but don’t really need. Disposal of these over-produced gadgets with their harmful substances (e.g., mercury in monitors, aluminum smelting, etc.) further causes complications to the ozone layer which still need to be researched and mitigated against. Admittedly, there are political lobby groups set up on the social networks — including climate change activists — but still this is not the optimal harnessing of consumer intelligence, influence or active collaboration on a wider and more effective scale than some educated niche activists providing information and awareness rather than instigating actions which affect bottom line results.

In short, the non-virtuous cycle of climate concerns goes around: we’re marketed into wanting, we buy to satisfy this want and then we worry about what kind of Earth our children and their children will inherit (deforestation, ocean pollution, out of control weather, airborne chemicals which damage their lungs, etc.).

Now let’s turn the social network model on its head and think about a monetization model at the same time.

Imagine if, instead of registered users being pushed marketing at or lobbied, they were engaged in the production process. Imagine if they were harnessed as a gigantic market research pool to ask them:

· what products they’d like to buy

· what price point they’d be prepared to pay for that item

· when they plan to complete purchase (within 1 week, 1 month, 1 quarter, half a year, end of year)

· which distribution outlet they’re more likely to buy it from (online, boutique, super-store)

· who else they would recommend the product to

instead of the current market research methods which try to extrapolate purchase intent from demographic information gathered (e.g., if you live in a household where income is US$100K and you are a white, male professional who reads the New Yorker, you’re likely to buy the Apple iPhone).

Then imagine if they were enabled with tools to collaborate in the design of products, with a percentage share in the net profits of any sold for a defined period of time. Next, imagine that this market research and product collaboration feeds directly into a sophisticated inventory system so that the company produces a level of goods which more accurately reflects and meets consumer demands — rather than the current way this works which is whereby companies have to make projections 3 to 5 CAGR years in advance, based on consumption behavior gathered in reports from the likes of Datamonitor etc. which are only comparatively small sample populations with all their inherent skews, extrapolation inaccuracies and time lags rather than social network sampling which is instantaneous, targeted and more representative of sizeable populations. The way it currently works also means that there is a lot of wastage in materials used to market to consumers (e.g., flyers, billboards, paper cut-outs at consumer electronic shows).

Finally, consider how this change in engaging the consumer further upstream in the production process will change CO2 emissions and move the climate change issue towards a positive solution.

Companies will actually gain insights into what consumers REALLY need and want. They can better manage their inventories to produce at levels needed rather than over-stock. In this way, factories won’t be over-producing and churning out excessive chemicals to further damage the environment. Plus companies will increase their communication effectiveness and production efficiencies, and reduce the wastage and costs incurred in over-stocking of materials, labor, electricity etc. needed to produce goods to meet consumer demands.

Governments can support companies which foster this form of positive consumer influence by giving them tax breaks, emission offsets and assistance with factories abroad where the goods will be manufactured.

Moreover, the consumer can be incentivized and will be rewarded for their participation in product design process. They will also end up getting products they want: what, when, where and how they want it.

Now, THAT is the COMPELLING BUSINESS ARGUMENT governments, companies and policy-makers need to explore and implement.

These “2 degrees Celsius and halving CO2 emissions here and there, developed versus emerging economies claims to be allowed to build factories and use electricity” etc. are too ephemeral and theoretical to companies and to consumers.

What we need to do is transform the awareness of climate change into ACTION at the bottom line level. We need to engage consumers further upstream in the production process and not simply downstream where they’re pushed more marketing to increase unnecessary consumption (and, inadvertently, CO2 emissions).

There, that’s my “twaining” of the paradigms between technology, business models and government policy on climate change.

Now we just need Google to choose my GREENSPOT proposal (an Android / mobile devices application to develop a global social network for green consumers) in their 2008/9 Project 10 to 100th competition so that we can realize this vision of companies and consumers contributing positive action where climate change, changing consumption behavior and better production levels is concerned!

* http://www.project10tothe100.com/

Yes, we do need the commitment of tech giants like Google to do it — purely because they have the global resources to reach out towards corporate and consumer audiences and encourage them to convert to new consumption and production frameworks.

Yes and the ‘Web 3.0: socially-voiced co-creation” model is consistent with the Global Brain and Web 3.0 (the Semantic Web) constructs. The objective of any Global Brain is for us to collectively collaborate to solve the world’s major challenges which includes climate change. The usefulness of a Semantic Web would be for machines to be able to understand us and each other when, for example, there’s an inventory order out of Paris and we can work out that means from the capital of France instead of the Hilton celebrity.

Tesla is right: think through before we do. At some point, the theories and the practices will twain — LOL.

I have a new life objective: be invited to the Allen+Co Sun Valley conference by 40.

These are interesting reads:

· http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/reuters/2009/07/08/media-chiefs-ponder-future-at-sun-valley-conference

· http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/274235/Marc-Andreessen-Raises-300M-Venture-Firm-Predicts-Hundreds-of-Others-Will-Close?tickers=TWX,%5EIXIC,HPQ&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=4610bd3a5c312a1ea53e3cac4b889170&ccode=

· http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/07/07/sun-valley-paid-content-on-the-agenda/

· http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/07/08/sun-valley-will-twitter-ceo-be-this-years-star/

· http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/08/google-chrome-os-new-pc-o_n_227513.html

· http://www.pcworld.com/article/168039/five_questions_about_google_chrome_os.html

I know someone who’s at the Sun Valley conference so I’m going to see if he’ll tell me anything!

Marc Andreessen closing a US$300m VC fund is pretty remarkable since Google Venture’s fund is a third of that size at US$100m and the fund raising environment remains testy. Prior to officially successfully closing the fund, in an interview with Charlie Rose, he said that over the last three years, he and his investment partner (Ben Horowitz) had made 36 investments of up to US$200,000 and were aiming to raise a US$250 million fund. This means they’ve overshot their target by US$50 million and is good news for start-ups. His new VC firm will allocate up to US$1 million on technology companies they decide to invest in.

A word of caution, though: we’re already seeing how the global economic crisis is affecting tech sector layoffs:

* · http://www.techcrunch.com/layoffs/