The same site that created the world’s youngest billionaire has felt its first growing pains, but it’s not a unique story in internet history. You don’t even need to go as far back as the dotcom bust: just look at MySpace, which Murdoch bought for US$580m in 2005. Its value soon mushroomed upwards of $2bn. Earlier this year, News Corp couldn’t shift it for a paltry $100m.
What has this got to do with print? ProPrint is looking at young people, who, according to doomsayers, have turned their back on the printed page and are sprinting headlong toward new media. But that’s a simplistic view.
Like any teen romance, young people fall head over heels in love with the latest online service, be it Facebook, MySpace or the next big thing, only for the affair to go splitsville at the smallest bump in the road. Our relationship with print goes much deeper.
My sense from our conversations with under-30s this month is that they don’t really see the conflict between print and online. There are just more choices than ever before. Until scientists invent a 25-hour day, we only have finite time to spend on consuming any media, whether print, TV or the internet.
This month, we spoke to young people in print and outside. I often hear concerns that “kids don’t want to work in the printing industry”. I disagree – I’ll bet most graduates don’t even know what ‘the printing industry’ is. As shown by our vox pop of under-30s on the streets of Sydney (p30), the concept is a new one on them. Perhaps we’re failing to spread the message to careers officers. But it’s also true that we use the term ‘printing industry’ in an inward-looking way to define what we do.
People entering the jobs market want to work for a company with a future, and learn skills that will provide them with ongoing, dynamic employment opportunities. The print houses that embed these kinds of forward-looking principles will be the ones that last the test of time and also attract the best recruits. Many printers are still looking back, waiting for the good times to return: can you blame the next generation if they want something more progressive from their dream job?
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