Who is Time's 'you'?

It’s not just teenage social networkers, ABC News reports, referring to Time’s decision that the Person of the Year is “you,” as in all the you’s driving the user-driven Web. Citing Nielsen/NetRatings figures, ABC says about 55% of YouTube’s users are 35-64 and 25% is 18-34; and about 57% of Wikipedia’s users are 35-64 and 23% 18-34. As for MySpace, ABC says the actual number of its users is “probably closer to half” the 100 million+ profiles on its service because that figure “includes inactive accounts, fake accounts and multiple accounts (which might be set up by a single user). About 30% of users hadn't logged in since creating their page, according to an informal analysis done by tech Web site forevergeek.com.” And ABC cites the view of a Harvard Business School professor that the increasing ranks of 35-to-54-year-olds are parents wanting to check out what their kids are up to on the site (not that there aren’t plenty of single adults looking for dates on the site, ABC adds). “And there are many casual MySpace users who set up a profile, but do most of their networking on niche sites. Michael Ellenbogen, a 30-something filmmaker, has a MySpace presence but spends most of his time on aSmallWorld.” Writing on this subject, a Toronto Globe & Mail columnist cites some notable “come-from-nowhere” stories of social-Web stars getting lucrative contracts in the mainstream media.