One of the more interesting presentations at the Always On conference yesterday was one on community. While it’s no secret that social networking sites like MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook have enormous audiences and potential for marketers, I was less familiar with those sites targeted at the younger, “tween” generation.
San Francisco-based Piczo boasts 21 million users, 81% of which are ages 13-15. And unlike My Space, it takes a “walled-garden” approach, making it safer for its users but a little trickier for marketers to penetrate. Similarly, Habbo, a sort of G-rated version of Second Life, has more than 7.5 million unique visitors per month and generates a lot of spending as well. Recent media ventures into this market, such as Conde Nast’s impending launch of Flip, a social networking site for this age group, illustrate that these younger media consumers should be on the radar.
