Has the interweb outdated traditional demographics?
Like a mint on a pillow with a dead hooker underneath the box spring, traditional demographics to me always come across as outdated ways of pleasing a client. Almost as an unnescessary assurance of professionalism, traditional demographics are still being used and requested in new online social media projects. The industry seems to be trying too hard to fit the same solution into new problems - essentially keeping us always behind the curve.
At yet another ad:tech session I sat in, the CEO of AdAge's Multicultural Agency of the Year gave a presentation on various projects and all the extensive demographic work behind them. But when she was presenting the results of each project, she didn't present who it reached, just how many. So what if you reach a larger than expected audience? Did you reach the right audience? There's so much talk about demographics, but in the end, people only care about numbers instead of the effectiveness, no less defining effective influence. Even in looking at the blogging community, the traditional M18-34 demographic doesn't cover the majority of successful bloggers.
An article that Steve Hall pointed me to seems to at least show that efforts are being made to break down the traditions. Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine was quoted last month as saying that "the internet favors infinite niches, not one-size-fits-all-fare." Admittedly, this is a quote that I have at the bottom of my outgoing emails.