The good folks at the Pew Internet & American Life Project yesterday released a survey that showed nine of 10 teens--90 percent--of all teens are hardwired to, and communicate through the Net. They consume nearly all of their news online, too.
That's an impressive percentage; almost complete market saturation. It won't be long to get to the other 10 percent.
If there were any questions about how ingrained into the lives of an entire generation the Web has become, this should settle them. The numbers shouldn't really be a surprise; it's young people who are every generation's early adopters. What's interesting this time around is that marketing, PR, advertising and journalism have the opportunity to merge seamlessly with the early adopters rather than scramble to catch up to them.
Teens wield a tremendous amount of buying power that will only grow. It's the market for the foreseeable future, and new media relations will be an indispensable part of life for everyone. Now is the time to get the rules of engagement right.