The other worrying issue is cyberbullying

Children just need to ollow the "common sense" that is used in the real world - the "don't talk to strangers" mantra turns into "don't meet up with people you don't know" in the online world. Parental super ision is necessary, he says.The other worrying issue is cyber-bullying. Birch points out that the internet means that, or the irst time, parents can actually see the bullying going on and ha e a record o it. Con ersely, they need to make sure that their children are not using the web to be bullies.Bebo, which only launched in July 2005, is already the second most popular social-networking site in the UK, just behind MySpace. And with 25 million users worldwide, Bebo pro ides some serious competition to MySpace, which leads the ield with 100 million users. In the US, Bebo is reckoned to be the number-three player, behind MySpace, and acebook, which is popular among uni ersity students.Should traditional media companies eel threatened? You bet.

Rupert Murdoch was so worried he paid $580m or MySpace last year.A report by the media regulator O com ound that the a erage 16-to-24-year-old watched an hour's less T a day than older iewers last year because they were spending more time on the net. Social-networking sites are used by more than 70 per cent o young internet users and 41 per cent o UK adult users, O com said.Bebo has a reputation as a site or younger kids, but the majority o its users are, in act, o er 16. In the UK, 28 per cent o them are o er 35, while an astonishing 40 per cent o MySpace users in this country are o er 35, according to data rom Nielsen/NetRatings.Birch says that teenagers tend to be early adopters o new technology but, as usage spreads, audiences become much older. So it is not just teenage and kids' media that will su er, and tele ision is just the initial ictim, Birch warns."Consumers are spending a lot more time on these sites, to the detriment o tele ision And, with that time, go the ad ertising opportunities. The experience is becoming more like tele ision anyway, with the upsurge in ideos being put onto the sites."Emap recently announced that it was stopping the celebrity gossip title Sneak because so many o its teen audience were spending time online.Compared with traditional media, the cost-base or Bebo and other such sites is just antastic "You don't spend money on marketing. "Postboxes are not randomly placed."This is geomapping, and it's a technique that NI honed a ter talking to the Scandina ian publishing company Shipsted, which Milner rates as the most sophisticated in the global ree-newspaper industry "We' e spent a signi icant amount o money E ery single zone we occupy we ha e had geomapped.

We will ha e many, many more merchandisers."Postboxes? "The Post O ice, all those years ago, also mapped to ind out high-tra ic areas," says Milner. " i e Tubes, 32 bus-stops, eight car-parks, 35 key o ice buildings that deli er the right pro ile, 32 retailers that ha e got the right audience, six media agencies that will hope ully buy our product, 14 postboxes, and there are 25 E ening Standard sellers in there. It is the pile that justi ies thelondonpaper ad ertising campaign - aimed at the ad ertising industry - showing a woman in a purple suit with a card saying: "We Know Where You Walk"."There's Soho," says Milner, ingering his data. ramed ront pages o The Times and The Sunday Times are on the wall behind him, and a large pile o data is be ore him. ree newspapers are a worldwide phenomenon and growing ery, ery ast. Paris has three titles, Madrid has i e and Barcelona has our. What emerges is that, despite the way the industry talks about newspapers - paid- or newspapers - the ree model is growing and is succeeding in attracting a young reader."Milner is at a table in his o ice.