Hot stuff

Entrepreneur, Dec, 1999

SITES TO SEE

TEENS

www.pathfinder.com/teenpeople: Teen People online

www.technoteen.com: site for techsavvy teens

www.mtv.com: MTV Online

www.alloy.com: online community for hip girls

www.teen.com: online community for teens

www.bolt.com: touts itself as the largest teen-focused destination on the Net

www.teenresearch.com: Teenage Research Unlimited's Web site

TWENTYSOMETHINGS

In a nutshell, today's twentysomethings are generally seeking and preparing for a bright future - but they're doing it in the most modern manner. Whether by embracing "digital living," as marketing consulting firm The Zandl Group calls it, or by redefining the boundaries of love and marriage, this set of increasingly affluent consumers ranges from unsettled adults still clinging to their teenage years to heads of top Internet companies earning $1 million or more a year.

Trading stocks, shopping and meeting people online top the list of "What's Getting Cooler" in the digital living arena, according to The Zandl Group's findings. Retro fever ('80s music and cocktails rated highest in the retro category) also tickles the fancies of today's go-getters.

Although they're not a generation born into high-tech, twentysomethings find the efficiency they crave by shopping at e-commerce businesses. Content-commerce models that partner with big-name lifestyle brands - from Food & Wine magazine to J.Crew - fare well, giving users one-stop destinations for their wining and dining, clothing, and travel needs.

As for domestic twentysomethings, Rutgers University's National Marriage Project study, released in July, found a 43 percent drop in the marriage rate from 1960 to 1996 due to later-in-life marriages and unmarried cohabitation. With the latter in mind, demand is increasing for traditional appliances with a new-retro feel and furnishings able to capture the essence of busy lives.

With lifestyles running the gamut from eclectic to traditional, twentysomethings aren't an easy category to peg or market to. As long as you present them with products and services so they can live in style - and affordably doesn't hurt - without trying to force-feed your concept, you'll win over this up-and-coming generation of high-end shoppers.

HOT BUSINESS: MATCHMAKING

No, we're not talking about video-based matchmaking. The experts agree that Y2K twentysomethings wouldn't think of fast-forwarding through hundreds of awkward personality pitches.

Where it's at is online. What started with chat-room flirting has evolved into actual entrepreneurial endeavors allowing friends and strangers to "meet" via anonymous e-mail indications of their crushes. Nontraditional, yes - but a match remains the goal. Take Clark Benson and Karen DeMars' eCrush service (www.ecrush.com), with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. DeMars, 29, sees it as an "electronic note-passer," winch, Utilizing a proprietary database, searches for two people who have proclaimed crushes on each other, and e-mails both users simultaneously.

It took about $100,000 of 31-year-old Benson's capital to start, but with increased ad sales, sponsorships and affiliate programs, eCrush is starting to see revenues.