Firms target young Internet users

By Yenni Kwok

JAKARTA (JP): He is purple, wears a bandana and a pair of funky sunglasses. If you are thinking of Barney, the purple dinosaur, you are wrong. Meet Diffy the Spider, an inhabitant of the World Wide Web.

The site is Diffy's World, http://www.diffy.com. Unlike its elder sister D-net, Diffy's World has a younger target market: those aged from 13 to 25 years old. Its web site consists of different pages, such as Diffy Study, Diffy Chatting, Diffy Fashion and Diffy Entertainment.

The language is upbeat, heavy in Indonesian slang words. The design is dynamic and full of bright colors. And the topics have a similar flavor as well. For instance, before Valentine's Day, the Diffy Sharing corner, called "Curhat" from curahan hati (emotional outflow) was filled with members' sending their romantic experiences.

The choice of a spider icon is not only because it is a creature who lives in a web. "Diffy has four hands, which symbolizes youths' multiple interests and activities," said Ferly Junandar, Diffy's World project manager.

So far, Diffy is doing well. Since its launch at the end of January, its web site has been accessed 5,500 times. Diffy also provides e-mail addresses. Ferly said there has been a growing interest for people to move from D-net to Diffy because its domain name, diffy.com, is shorter and easier to remember.

But Diffy is not alone in trying to lure young people from the middle- and upper-class. Pacific Internet, a Singapore-based franchise, who just entered the already-saturated Indonesian Internet market last January, also targets young people with its Planet Remaja (Teenager's Planet) web site (http://www.pacific.net.id/content/remaja).

Oneline

Jacobus Djohan, a high school chemistry teacher, has also targeted the younger audience. Jacobus set up a High School Chemistry Homepage (http://www.cbn.net.id/~johanoni). The page has a number of chemistry test questions.

So far the result has been disappointing, he said. He has encouraged his students to look at the page, but only a few of them have access to the Internet. Some students from other schools have responded to his site, but they are a small handful, Jacobus said.

So what's the difference between Diffy's World and the Chemistry Homepage?

Diffy's World is entertainment-oriented, while the Chemistry Homepage is very academic and boring for most people.

Most of the younger generation access the Internet for entertainment purposes.

Yoga Adhistira, a communication major at the University of Indonesia, is an example. He frequently uses the Net for information about films and music or for news from Tempo Online or Kompas Online.

However, he never tries to find academic material from the Net. "If I want to make a thesis paper, I won't do research on the Net," Yoga said. "I cannot determine whether it is reliable or not."

And what about pornography? After all, it's the most concerning material available on the Net for the younger generation.

Yoga admits he was tempted by such pictures when he first started to use the Net. But he later quit. "It took a long time to download the pictures. Sometimes I even had to pay (to access a site). Anyway, there are still other sites."

Ferly said the interesting design of Diffy's World tries to divert young people's interest from pornographic sites.

"We try to show that for young people, the Internet is not only about dirty stuff," said Dodong Cahyono, Diffy's World marketing supervisor.

People and the media sometimes only underscore one aspect of the Internet, namely entertainment, said Ruli Manurung, who recently graduated with a degree in computer technology.

For example, a teenager's magazine only points out that people can look at NBA scores or celebrity gossip from the Web. Some young Internet users may spend hours playing online games.

"They only consume the Net. We need to be both a creator and a consumer," Ruli said.

He himself has set an example. While he was still attending the University of Indonesia, he and another friend built a local area network of seven computers at his boarding house in Depok. The network, called the Ethernet, has some Internet-like features, such as e-mail, multiple-player games, and even a web server.

Sure, Ruli can do it thanks to his major. However, he points out that one does not need to be a computer whiz to be a "creator" on the Net.

Even a non-computer expert can build a web site only with some basic knowledge on how to program the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). "We can develop our creativity on the Net," he said.