Ok, given two pieces of research I just read, I will edit two of my "predictions" from yesterday.

Hot: (or really lukewarm)

Mobile social networking. Allison and Alan from NGT wrote about this in a Ypulse Guest Post recently. I think 2008 is the year this will really begin to take off with teens -- mostly as another way to check "email" or messages, comments, etc. via cellphone since MySpace and Facebook have replaced email as the way teens message each other. I also think it's a way for teens who either don't have access to the internet at home or who are forbidden to use these sites to participate in social networking -- MTV has already launched a mobile social network for Tr3s...

Let's temper this. I got my hands on a report from Jupiter Research telling me that "in aggregate, only two percent of cell phone users have accessed a social networking site from a cell phone, though four percent have interest in doing do so in the future." Four percent "in the future" means this won't be huge in '08. But it's interesting to note that Jupiter also found that among young adults ages 18 to 24, twelve percent have posted content online with their cell phones and six percent have visited social networking sites with their cell phones. I'm thinking the cost of data plans may be factor for under 18s. And one more interesting tidbit: "There are, however, some pockets of high use, especially among MySpace users with Sidekicks from T-Mobile: 85 percent of the total Web page views of this group are MySpace pages." I would love to know the age/race of those particular users.

Not: (or Not so much)

TV. Teens have been replacing television with the internet (addition: and video games) even before the writers' strike or at least are surfing while watching their favorite shows. But with the strike dragging on, this will only intensify and speed up in '08. I definitely don't think TV is dead for this generation, but this is just one more reason to turn it off and go online.

Time to tweak: Maybe it's not replacing one for the other but that it's less about tuning in and watching and more about watching it online or on their iPods and interacting with community (or talking about it with friends) online. According to Deloitte & Touche's "State of Media Democracy" survey reported by ReelPop:

Approximately half of both millennials and GenXers visit television Web sites every week. Plus 64 percent of millennials want to easily connect their television to the Internet for viewing videos and downloading content to their television.

Even with that bit of research, part of me still feels like there is a healthy percentage of teens who are turning away from traditional TV....

And here's a holiday gift for magazine editors -- "almost three-quarters [71 percent of millennials] enjoy reading print magazines even though they know they could find most of the same information online."

Posted by anastasia