Morgan Stanley’s executive director of their European media team, Edward Hill-Wood described it as "one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen – so we published it".

The result was plenty of publicity for Morgan Stanley – and more responses from prospective customers, analysts and fund managers than anything else the company have ever produced.

An interesting point that few have picked up on, but Loyalty feels is important, is that the interest seems to be generated by a fundamental wish that Twitter COULD be ignored because it is boring, inane and a waste of time. We are all hoping desperately that we won’t have to devote large chunks of our working lives assessing content on the site and responding to it. This is because the majority of Twitter content is tedious in the extreme. If Twitter doesn’t even rate for teenagers, we can all forget about it.

Matthew Robson dismissed Twitter and described online advertising as pointless. He may not be right, but as far as Twitter is concerned we hope he is. The only interesting Tweet I have read lately is the one written by a woman in the process of a bank robbery. It got her caught of course. Idiot.

Twitter and social networking
 "Teenagers do not use Twitter," wrote Matthew Robson (pictured right). "Most have signed up to the service, but then just leave it as they realise that they are not going to update it (mostly because texting Twitter uses up credit, and they would rather text friends with that credit). They realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their tweets are pointless."

He warned that traditional media – television, radio and newspapers – are losing ground.

No teenager Robson knew reads a newspaper regularly since most "cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text while they could watch the news summarised on the internet or on TV". The only newspapers that are read are the cheaper tabloids and freesheets.

His peers are also put off by intrusive advertising so they prefer listening to advert-free music on websites such as Last.fm to traditional radio. Teens see adverts on websites - pop ups, banner ads - as "extremely annoying and pointless," Robson said. However, "most teenagers enjoy and support viral marketing, as often it creates humorous and interesting content".

He stressed that his peers were "very reluctant" to pay for music and most had never bought a CD, with a large majority downloading songs illegally from filesharing sites.

Money and time are instead devoted to cinema, concerts and video game consoles. Downloading films off the internet is not popular as the films are usually bad quality and have to be watched on a small computer screen and there is a risk of viruses, Robson said.

Game consoles like Wii, which are now able to connect to the internet and offer free voice chat between users, have emerged as a more popular choice for chatting with friends than the phone.

His report came as media moguls gathered at the Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. This annual event is a chance for the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to discuss the latest business and technology issues in a relaxed atmosphere. But don’t be fooled into thinking that even they know what is going to be successful next. Take a look at the 25 most spectacular technology flops on the CNET site. It is sobering how many of them contain a picture of Bill Gates launching it.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10288870-1.html

Teenagers are different
It shouldn’t be forgotten that teenagers are not like the rest of us. They grunt rather than talk, sleep till noon and wear jeans with a crutch around their knees.

They don't read, don't pay for music, don't listen to adults and don't care about Twitter. In short, they don't use media the way we do. But that doesn’t mean they won’t when they are a little older.

Loyalty believes Twitter is not nearly as important as some people have been suggesting of late, but on the other hand, it is dangerous to ignore it. A good marketer has to pay attention to all channels, all trends and all fads - whether they want to or not.