"THE IM GENERATION IN CHARGE"

Tony Perkins has a good article from the AlwaysOn blogozine which he just put up on the AO site:

The IM Generation in Charge
Bye-bye standalone PC, hello social networking and mobile content. The real money is in making the 21-year-old set happy online.

While the "PC Generation"—led by guys like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell—drove the tech economy for the past 20 years, the "Instant Messaging Generation" is now in charge of innovation. Born between 1980 and 2000, this is the first generation for which the Internet and various digital communications technologies have been a persistent cultural presence.

While computer sales still represent a huge and growing part of the economy, today's under-twenty-five "IMers" are employing their PCs differently, and they're just as likely to use their mobile phones to post and share digital content or message their friends.

If you're either an aspiring entrepreneur or a venture capitalist, do take the advice Morgan Stanley's Mary Meeker gave the students at Stanford Graduate School of Business last November: "Watch what the kids are doing—that is the future...."

Chairman of tech investment bank Jeffries Broadview Paul Deninger says, "You can sell your networking company for $250 million to Cisco, but you will have to pump $80 million into it to get there. So you've hit a double at best." He explained, "The big multiples are in the Internet space." To confirm Deninger's premise, you need only look at some of the Internet deals over the last year. (full article)