MySpace and eBay and Fear, oh my!

March 2, 2006 · Filed Under Internet Media · Comment

I just did a guest lecture at George Washington University. I opened by asking the kids (mostly sophomores-juniors in college so what , about 19-20) how they felt about using eBay. I shared my fear of just having bought an expensive handbag on eBay. Immediately, 7 hands went up, all eager to share their fraud stories from eBay. These kids know how to work the system, though: their hints were great. They steer clear of escrow and all its relatives; they look for tags of authenticity.

Then, I asked them about MySpace…this too elicited tales of sexual predators and lots of hearsay. 5 minutes into my class I was thinking these kids did not trust the web at all…

So I asked, do you feel like the Internet is a scary place? One summed it up nicely, I thought. He said, “I feel like a 7 years ago, like when I was 12, it was a lot worse. Like, I would get molested if I went online.”

I said, a ha, my friend: that’s the result of a good social marketing campaign, not truth. What I thought was so interesting was the completely blase attitude of these young folks: yeah, eBay might defraud you and MySpace might be sketchy, but that’s life. The Internet is part of it. Deal.

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