-By Jim Cooper

"Commercial!" My 5-year-old Grayce shouts this annoyed heads-up from the other room. It seems the DVR'd episode of SpongeBob needs fast forwarding through the ads she deems not worthy of her attention. I dutifully comply. She'll be able to do it herself soon enough. Wistfully, it occurs to me that technology has become an accelerant to my parenting obsolescence.

This may all sound a bit much, but she and kids in her age range, say 2 to 10, have unprecedented control of technology--actually technology is the wrong word. These are appliances since they've never been without them--and therefore a burgeoning mastery of the media they consume. So since every generation must have a moniker assigned to them, I'll call these kids gen O.D.--Generation On-Demand.

And demand they do. DVRs (which reached 21.5 million homes at the end of 2007, according to Kagan), iPods, mobile, fast connections to sites catering to all their long-tail interests, gaming, and now virtual media have obliterated the appointment model. When they want to watch, hear, read, play and be something, they can do it in the moment.

A recent study by Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that digital media has become an integral part of children's lives. Nearly half (48 percent) of children 6 and under have used a computer (31 percent of 0-3-year-olds and 70 percent of 4-6-year-olds). No doubt, these kids are fully wired, but even wired is a graying notion.

Of course, this has very serious implications for the media marketplace. This year the industry is only just stirring in the primordial ooze of time-shifted media measurement. The interim solution of live-plus-whatever will have to be replaced in a matter of months with something more precise. And there will be a lot of drama to go along with that effort and its marketplace applications.

But what happens when gen O.D. comes of age as a mass media force? Not only will these guys be totally time-shifted, thanks to hyper-powerful mobile apps, but they'll also be space-shifted, and thanks to virtual media, they'll be dimension-shifted as well. How do you reach, connect with and measure someone who absolutely controls the time, space and reality of their media consumption? It sounds more like mapping for a physicist rather than a media planner, but that's the reality the industry faces.

The good news is that tech cuts both ways. The planning visionaries will come up with something. It will probably happen fast from somewhere unexpected. It might also come off as a bit out there in the early going.

Take PHD president and CEO Matt Seiler's brain-mapping trials. Yeah, it sounds a bit sci-fi, but having a better handle on impulses will provide peeks behind gen O.D.'s time-, space- and shape-shifting masks to create resonant messaging. It will be a game of cat and mouse played with digital tech. For now, gen O.D. has a head start. This is native territory for them. Us fogies? We're immigrants.

Let's consider four areas to watch: long-tail media, mobile, gaming and virtual apps.

The iPod has incredibly allowed my daughter to become a long-tail consumer. She has eclectic tastes all her own. She loves "Who Let the Dogs Out" by the Baha Men as much as the Beach Boys' "Surfing Safari." (My attempts to intro Bob Marley have been futile so far.) This is very bad news for linear TV and radio. Waiting around for a favorite or show song to cycle through a schedule or playlist represents an ocean of dead time for gen O.D. Without even being conscious of it, they're stirring in the cracking chrysalis of linear media.

Interestingly, my daughter is drawn to print. It didn't hurt for the local weekly to print photos of her soccer team--they've made a connection with her. Magazines, like music, are niche enough to tap into her long tail. Her subscription to Highlights--which she adores for the simple but powerful reason that it comes with her name on the mailing label--will morph into Seventeen and onward.

The very first media adopted by both of my daughters was mobile. They play cell phone, holding up blocks, a banana, and jibber jabber--setting up and rescheduling make-believe "meetings" (read: playdates). They will come of age when they trade the banana in for a mobile device that'll make the functionality of the iPhone look very 1.0.

Gaming presents an interesting challenge. I'd always prefer my kids to experience the actual before the virtual and play outside rather than in. But the gaming tsunami has rolled over me. My daughter has never experienced the soft musty shoes and faint electric smell of a bowling alley, but she can throw strike after strike on Wii bowling. And the future media implications of the marriage of gaming and social networking will be huge for gen O.D.

That leads me to the advent of virtual media, where I'm officially out of my depth. Webkinz are benign enough for now, but will I eventually have to create a dad avatar to create a virtual curfew for virtual boyfriends?

There are bound to be deleterious effects of all this media control. Are we raising a generation that will be missing important creative tools because everything is so finger-touch immediate? Taking it a step further, will it be a generation of plagiarists, who mash up content and experience without ever having the need to create anything new? Their destiny is truly in their hands at a very early age. It will be fascinating to see what they come up with.

"Commercial!" Gotta go.

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Jim Cooper is Mediaweek's executive editor. He can be reached at jcooper@mediaweek.com