Teens Migrate to Social Networks

The Center For Media Research put out a report last week on the migration of teens from Buddy Lists over to Social Networks. The research was about as deep as a rain puddle but did point at an interesting trend and one I am going to take a stab at unraveling.  Teens and pre-teens are hungry for social connection and a larger, more easily searchable social network site fulfills those desires better than a buddy list. There are more people and it is easier to find them than on an IM system. Social networks expose more information, the kind of information one can use to form a cursory relationship on (music, cars, makeup, tv shows). As a trend I would look to expansion of niche markets to cater to teens and pre-teens by providing easer to use and configure personal spaces and tighter security so that parents will be willing to allow their child to develop their online personality freely.