Apple Gets It. Got It?

This column was originally published on RealMoney on Jan. 10 at 9:55 a.m. EST. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers. For more information about subscribing to RealMoney, please click here.

Thank heavens I have teens! Without them on this Web stuff, you don't have a clue.

You believe that when the newspapers get together for Web initiatives -- as Gannett(GCI), McClatchy(MNI) and Tribune(TRB) are, according to The Wall Street Journal -- it will save them, even though my kids wouldn't know a newspaper from a black-and-white television.

You think that when a major network such as CBS(CBS) offers some sort of unoriginal programming on the Web that people will watch it, until you get the word from those execs that they'd prefer watching reruns of Matlock to coming up with something that would cause them to throw up.

You believe that the initiatives we see from the online divisions of Disney(DIS) or from NBC's hapless iVillage will have some traction until the teens tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about. (Only Fox has penetrated that group, and that's because the network is represented on iTunes with episodes of 24. Then there's fellow News Corp.(NWS) business unit MySpace.com, which teens love.)

And then there is Apple(AAPL). I gave my eldest daughter her fourth iPod for the holidays, this time one with expanded battery. I gave my youngest the video iPod 'cause she wants to re-watch episodes of 24 on the small screen.

Now I am praying that they don't see any video about the iPhone. Because if they do, I will have to spend the next five months getting this product before other kids get it.

When we think Web, we're still approaching it as if it was something that's a dumping ground for content developed for television, or where you can link to old programming in order to further monetize it. "We" is frankly anyone not in their teens or 20s.

Painful.

We aren't used to businesses that are related to the teen demographic (with the exception, again, of Fox, which always amazes because Murdoch seems to know what this group wants). We look at a Sony(SNE) gadget that is superior to Apple on the face of it and we think, That's the end of Apple. Or we look at Microsoft's(MSFT) vast cash hoard and its success with Xbox and we presume, Apple wipe-out.