the txting generation

Boston Globe editorial: the revenge of e.e. cummings.

Item: A new study warns that writing text messages could hurt a writer's command of standardized English.

We had to LOL when we read how txt-msg lingo is replacing stndrd english in student academic pprs. 1 casualty of da trend is uz of capital letter to start a sentence. kids feel free to lowercase everything. pnktu8n is also dissed. tchaz try to help but its often 2 l8.

new paragraphs r not uzed in txting either. kids prolly think all dis iz ok cuz even Richard Sterling, emeritus xecutiv director of the ntl riting prjct, gives it the nod. natl riting prjct is sposd 2 improve riting instruxn in americas schoolz.

"i think in the future, capitalization will disappear," he sed in the nytimes. 4 lazy students dis is 2G2BT!

a big natl study by the College Board and Pew Project on the Internet and American Life finds teenagers riting more b/c of txting but in a hybrid language with conventions of its own: call it Textlish. they don't consider it frml english but 64 percent admit it seeps into their writing at school. ...

May 2, 2008 at 10:31 PM in Amusing, Digital life, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

The student's guide to voting

Here's a college student's guide to voting, with a section on how social media and Web 2.0 technologies are helping to engage more young people in the democratic process, plus a state-by-state guide to voting registration deadlines.

March 21, 2008 at 02:24 PM in Politics, Social-media, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

StrangerFestival to spotlight talented youths

I probably won't be able to attend, but one of the most extraordinary European festivals of the year looks to be the first StrangerFestival, coming to Amsterdam on July 3-5. The event will feature video workshops, expert meetings and awards. Says project leader Tommi Laitio:

StrangerFestival gives thousands of young people an opportunity to show who they are and what they are into. If you know young people with talent and something to say, this is their chance.

After Amsterdam, the festival will move to various museums, galleries and cultural centers across Europe. Sounds fascinating. Here's a two-page promotional PDF about the event. Spread the word.

March 19, 2008 at 10:21 PM in International, Video, Web/Tech, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

The texting generation gap

The New York Times on cell phones, teens, parents and new ways of communicating.

March 9, 2008 at 09:20 PM in Mobile, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Probing attention in the classroom

On his videoblog, professor-author Howard Rheingold is exploring the issues around attention in modern society and attention in the classroom.

March 9, 2008 at 07:44 PM in Education, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Reaching students through social media

A mashup from OCLC via Educause Connect: Reaching students through Facebook, YouTube, digital storytelling and Second Life. 

February 21, 2008 at 11:31 PM in Social-media, Video, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (3) | | (0)

The Marketing of the President 2008

One of the most eye-opening posts of the political season over at techPresident: The Marketing of the President 2008. From the entry:

Which one of these logos is not like the other? Even with the telltale red, white, and blue of the Obama logomark, the answer is none of them.

Watching Obamamania unfold over the last few days, I have gradually come to the realization that we are living through the first Presidential campaign that is being marketed like a high-end consumer brand.

The logo itself is a good jumping off point. The typical Presidential campaign logo usually features some variant of the stars and stripes. Beyond patriotism, they have no message. They are pretty much interchangeable between Republicans and Democrats.

Obama's logo rearranges these patriotic elements into an emblem that distills his message to the core: the hope of the sun rising [or, Republicans, is it setting?] over amber waves of grain, with the novelty of the candidate's unusual last name reinforced in an "O". Unlike virtually every political logo in history, this one doesn't shy away from the glows and gradients meant to give modern corporate logos realism and depth. And like good corporate logos, this logomark can be disaggregated from the candidate's name, in the same way that the swoosh instantly screams "Nike" or the circular logos of BMW and Mercedes spark instant associations with affluence and prestige.

This is not only the theory. It's the gameplan. Lately, most of Obama's signage doesn't say Obama.

The Obama campaign is not selling Obama. It is not selling a public figure with progressive political beliefs. It is selling Hope -- and Change. This is why distant historical references aside, it is deliberately difficult to find the politics in the Will.i.am video. ...

Fascinating, and absolutely dead on. Those who believe that there's something duplicitous about "branding" a political campaign are completely missing the point. The Obama campaign is selling an idea, not a candidate. That's what makes it a social movement, not just a typical political campaign.

Related, from the Feb. 11 issue of Newsweek: When it's head versus heart, the heart wins.

February 17, 2008 at 12:16 AM in Politics, Web/Tech, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

'I was dumped on Facebook'

Telegraph.co.uk: I was dumped on Facebook. Breaking up in cyberspace adds a new dimension to heartache, writes Samuel Pinney.

When a relationship goes sour, it doesn't happen behind closed doors any more. Now it takes place in the middle of the village square of cyberspace. Facebook users can conduct their break-ups online, recording every slanging match for posterity on their 'walls'. If you're dumped on Facebook, everyone in your list of friends is instantly notified of your new status: 'Single'.

February 11, 2008 at 01:56 AM in Social networks, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Facebook rocks the vote

CNN: A Northwestern freshman reports on how Rock the Vote uses is using Facebook to reach plugged-in voters. Here's the application on Facebook.

February 9, 2008 at 12:07 AM in Politics, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

The anti-Facebook movement

London Times Online: The anti-Facebook movement. A growing number of students at British universities known as "Facebook refusenicks" are boycotting the social networking site - but with consequences, says our student writer.

January 30, 2008 at 12:31 AM in Social networks, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

This time, under-30 voters are showing up at polls

Front-page story in today's SF Chronicle: This time, under-30 voters are showing up.

Fantastic! Excerpt:

MTV's Ian Rowe said "several of the top-tier campaigns from both sides" called the network Friday morning wanting to know when they could participate in the next Presidential Dialogue that the youth-oriented network has been co-sponsoring with online giant MySpace. So far, only Obama, Edwards and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have participated, even though all the campaigns were invited weeks ago.

"They asked, 'Can we do this as soon as possible?' " said Rowe, MTV's director for strategic partnerships and a former White House staffer for Bush. "They're realizing that young people are very engaged and that they want to talk to the candidates in an unfiltered way. I fully expect this level of participation to last through New Hampshire, South Carolina and for as long as the race is competitive."

January 6, 2008 at 11:23 PM in Politics, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Virtual worlds for kids

NY Times: Web Playgrounds of the Very Young. (Photo by Disney.) Excerpt:

LOS ANGELES — Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the grammar-school set.

Trying to duplicate the success of blockbuster Web sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz, children’s entertainment companies are greatly accelerating efforts to build virtual worlds for children. Media conglomerates in particular think these sites — part online role-playing game and part social scene — can deliver quick growth, help keep movie franchises alive and instill brand loyalty in a generation of new customers.

Second Life and other virtual worlds for grown-ups have enjoyed intense media attention in the last year but fallen far short of breathless expectations. The children’s versions are proving much more popular, to the dismay of some parents and child advocacy groups. ...

“Get ready for total inundation,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at the research firm eMarketer, who estimates that 20 million children will be members of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8.2 million today.

Worlds like Webkinz, where children care for stuffed animals that come to life, have become some of the Web’s fastest-growing businesses. More than six million unique visitors logged on to Webkinz in November, up 342 percent from November 2006, according to ComScore Media Metrix, a research firm.

Club Penguin, where members pay $5.95 a month to dress and groom penguin characters and play games with them, attracts seven times more traffic than Second Life. ...

January 1, 2008 at 01:04 AM in Games, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Teens and social media

A study released Wednesday finds that young people are networking and creating content in large numbers.

Teens and social media study by Pew Internet.

SF Chronicle: Inspired by networking sites, teens creating more online content.

More and more teenagers are publishing their photos, diaries, videos and art online, fueled in part by social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, according to a report released Wednesday.

Almost two-thirds of online teens have created something online, whether it's a personal Web page or a remixed video, according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace have opened the doors, giving them many of the necessary tools. ...

More than half of teenagers online have created a profile on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace. And though much of it is often perceived as entertainment, using social networks and publishing online could help teenagers in the future, said Nicole Ellison, an assistant professor at Michigan State University.

"It's a facet of digital literacy," Ellison said. "These teens are really developing skills that will prove to be increasingly important as they go on to lead professional and social lives."

San Jose Mercury News: Study: Teens' online lives keep expanding. Girls more apt to write blogs, boys more likely to post videos. 

December 20, 2007 at 11:20 PM in Social networks, Social-media, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Videochatting with UNLV students

Had a very rewarding and engaging hourlong video conference over iChat earlier this evening with Prof. Charlotte-Anne Lucas's journalism students at the University of Nevada - Las Vegas, while Prof. Lucas video-conferenced in from San Antonio. We talked about emerging media media forms, the future of newspapers, videoblogging, and what journalism students should be focusing on as they enter the media marketplace, among other things.

The j-students put together this noteworthy blog about the Democratic presidential debate at the university earlier this month.

November 26, 2007 at 09:36 PM in Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (3) | | (0)

How much less are young people reading?

Was reading Time magazine's new special report, America by the Numbers, and this factoid jumped out at me:

On weekends, people over 75 spend 1 1⁄2 hours reading, while those from 15 to 19 spend seven minutes.

I wonder if the critera for "reading" here means traditional reading materials like newspapers, magazines and books. Because my guess is that young people are spending a lot of time reading text messages, IMs, MySpace and Facebook pages and other websites.

November 22, 2007 at 06:16 PM in Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Fussiness in the California school system

Had my first meeting with Bobby's third-grade teacher Friday. He's doing well. But I noticed that on one of his tests, he was marked wrong for not using a serial comma. A serial comma, for those who don't know, is the comma before the final "and" in a phrase such as "ham, chips, and eggs."

That's right. It's a fussy vestige of "proper" English that few people use anymore. You won't see it in any leading newspaper, in almost any major magazine, and in few books outside of literary works. It will surely be history by the time Bobby reaches high school and becomes a full-fledged member of the texting generation.

But leave out a serial comma on a test in the California school system and you get points off, despite the fact that 95 percent of the culture is sending these kids a different message.

Absurd. As in: Wrong-headed, antiquated and futile.

November 18, 2007 at 12:21 AM in Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

It's all about the network

David Brooks' latest column in the New York Times, The Outsourced Brain, reminded me of a conversation I had a week ago with Dianne Lynch, the new dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley.

Brooks writes:

My G.P.S. goddess liberated me from this drudgery. She enabled me to externalize geographic information from my own brain to a satellite brain, and you know how it felt? It felt like nirvana.

Through that experience I discovered the Sacred Order of the External Mind. I realized I could outsource those mental tasks I didn’t want to perform. ...

Until that moment, I had thought that the magic of the information age was that it allowed us to know more, but then I realized the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less. ...

It sounded similar to my confession to Dianne: that I no longer worry about memorizing things, because it's somewhere on the network: sometimes my blog, sometimes my Gmail account, sometimes my laptop or cell phone, sometimes my Twitter account, sometimes my hard drive, which I can access remotely and search with Google Desktop. I find myself blogging things that I know I'll want to access at a later date.

We're overwhelmed with data, with news, with information coming at us from all directions. Who has time to process it all? Information retrieval today is about access to the network.

I think this is a hallmark of the Digital Generation. If you're 25 or under, you can probably identify with this more so than the boomer generation can.

October 28, 2007 at 12:46 AM in Web/Tech, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

17-year-old girl who built a million-dollar website

Via Doshdosh: Case study of a teenage millionaire: Ashley Qualls and WhateverLife.com.

A 17-year-old high school dropout. Made more than $1 million. Earns as much as $70K a month. Owns a website that attracts more than 7 million monthly visitors and 60 million page views.

Her first Adsense paycheck was $2,790 and she has already rejected a $1.5 million buyout offer. I’m referring to Ashley Qualls, the founder of Whateverlife.com, a free MySpace layouts website.

Fastcompany recently published a fascinating feature article on Ashley, a teenage entrepreneur from Detroit who has made a substantial amount of money online by targeting a niche market (girls on Myspace/social networks) and fulfilling their needs.

Ashley is evidence of the meritocracy on the Internet that allows even companies run by neophyte entrepreneurs to compete, regardless of funding, location, size, or experience–and she’s a reminder that ingenuity is ageless.

She has taken in more than $1 million, thanks to a now-familiar Web-friendly business model. Her MySpace page layouts are available for the bargain price of…nothing. They’re free for the taking. Her only significant source of revenue so far is advertising.

Like other high traffic websites, Whateverlife.com runs CPM ads by Casale Media and Value Click, alongside Google Adsense and Nabbr, a revenue sharing video widget. The integration for each ad type is relatively well done and not too intrusive. The main problem is that Ashley doesn’t seem to be selling ads directly, which is a huge loss considering the amount of traffic she gets.

Currently, a site like Techcrunch makes $10K per 125 x 125 ad block and that’s with 4.0 million page views per month. Whateverlife gets 15 times more page views ...

According to the article, Whateverlife.com has a larger audience than the combined circulation of magazines like Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and CosmoGirl!. This is something remarkable.

Doshdosh has a few suggestions for Ashley to monetize her amazing traffic numbers.

Here's FastCompany's multimedia slide show on Ashley. And here's Ashley's response.

September 2, 2007 at 01:02 AM in Business use, Web/Tech, Weblogs, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (4)

Faces of Faith in America

Students from the UC Berkeley, Northwestern, Columbia and USC journalism programs have been working on a remarkable series in this summer's News21 Initiative project. This year theme was Faces of Faith in America, and it includes a wide range of eye-grabbing and heart-tugging multimedia production.

A few highlights:

Data "road trip"

A map mashup of note.

Magical mystery tour

Well done!

August 3, 2007 at 04:23 PM in Current Affairs, New media, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Student's MySpace rant is protected speech, court rules

TechNewsWorld: Student's MySpace Rant Is Protected Speech, Says Court. An Indiana teen's probation has been lifted after the state's appellate court ruled that "A.B.'s" criticism of her principal on MySpace, though vulgarly expressed, is political speech and not libelous, since it addresses her school's policies.

They got it right.

April 11, 2007 at 11:38 PM in Social networks, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

2007 Mashup coming to SF

PR Web: Youth media site Ypulse.com and conference producer Modern Media today announced the launch of the 2007 Mashup, a two-day event taking place July 16 -17, Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, CA, that targets marketers who want to reach today's totally wired generation.

April 2, 2007 at 11:11 PM in Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

PopteenUS: Social networking for teens

From Popteen:

A new website (PopteenUS.com) is zeroing in on the  growing popularity of user-generated content among teens. ... User-generated content and social networking sites are extremely popular with teens right now and are only growing in size and capability every day. 

Popteen is the number one teen media magazine in Japan (www.popteen.jp) and recently launched a US version of their website, PopteenUS.com. To meet user demands, this site is taking a  fresh approach to user-generated content by providing a means for teen girls to contribute their opinions, ideas, stories and own personal profiles; thus assigning the reader as the expert, writer, model and celebrity of the site.

February 2, 2007 at 01:31 AM in Social networks, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Webkinz: A Second Life/MySpace mashup for grade schoolers

BL Ochman: Webkinz: A Second Life/My Space Mashup for Grade Schoolers.

My soon-to-be-10-year-old nephew took me on a tour of Webkinz today -- the hottest thing since, well, the last hottest thing, for kids from 4 to 14. Webkinz combines the kid appeal of Neopets with a kid-friendly mashup of MySpace and Second Life.

Take a look at it and you'll begin to realize how soon the kindergarten through junior high generation will leapfrog over adults in their ability to use the Internet, their understanding of e-commerce, their acceptance of online community, and the idea that one's social life can be centered in a virtual world.

Publishers: this is how kids will learn instead of with already obsolete text books. Fashion, music, art and commerce online will be as natural a part of young digital natives' lives as TV was to baby boomers. The Internet has indeed changed everything. We sure live in interesting times. ...

February 1, 2007 at 11:16 PM in Games, Social networks, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

A new crop of kids: Generation We

A special CNET News.com feature: A new crop of kids: Generation We.

When Amy Jo Kim's son Gabriel says he wants to "watch videos," she knows he doesn't mean DVDs or television. He wants YouTube. ...

"He finds TV boring. So during Reading Rainbow we look up stuff on Wikipedia like side commentary. But I'm driving that," said Kim, a 40-something game designer and resident of Half Moon Bay, Calif. "His interest in TV has really declined, because it's just there, you can't customize it."

"What we're talking about is a generation that has the ability to be in touch with each other immediately at earlier and earlier ages," said Nancy Robinson, vice president and consumer strategist at Iconoculture, a Minneapolis company that tracks consumer trends for consumer giants like Nestle and Sony. "If you asked someone 10 years ago about the necessity of a cell phone for a 5-year-old, they would have laughed and walked away; now you can buy that at Target."

This generation hasn't rejected TV, but the way Generation We watches the tube has evolved from their parents' days. What's been called the "Tivo-ization" of households now give kids unprecedented freedom over the handling of their TV diet, so much so that young kids often don't understand the traditional way of watching shows with a set geography and time. And now that TV shows are migrating to portable devices and are streamed on demand from the Web, the experience for kids is even more interactive and community-based.

Jonathan Steuer, a researcher at Iconoculture, has a 5-year-old daughter who recently asked to watch one of her shows while they were visiting a friend's house. Because the friends didn't own a TiVo, "I had to explain to her the show wasn't on there," he said.

"You've got a generation of kids who've had an unprecedented amount of control of their media and they're not going to give it up," Steuer said. "It does put out a challenge--for anyone in the media busines--of how to keep attention in that media." ...

I want my MTV mix masher
Take what MTV Networks is doing with its teen-targeted digital cable channel, The N. It produces television shows that air on cable, but its audience can stream the shows via the Web through its broadband player, The Click. On the site, kids can use a so-called video mix masher to take a scene from a show, put a comment on it and add other scene asynchronously to create their program. Part of it is what The N calls "vomenting," or adding commentary to shows via text blurbs or audio, ala Mystery Science Theater."

Dixie Feldman, an editorial director at The N, which reaches about 50 million homes, said that group's audience is increasingly turning to the Net to watch shows and bond with their peers from all over.

"On the Net, geographic boundaries disappear--a teen can watch a scene in New York, and another teen in Nebraska can watch and comment on that same scene," and they can both create something new, she said. "The Net creates that community aspect."

January 23, 2007 at 11:29 PM in Digital life, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Teens are cautious online

San Jose Mercury News: A new study shows that teenagers are taking precautions online to protect their privacy.

January 8, 2007 at 08:38 PM in Privacy, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Convergence and cultural change

San Jose Mercury News: New culture enabling users to control entertainment. An interview with MIT's Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Excerpt:

If you want to create a fan frenzy around content and ultimately around a piece of hardware, you have to understand the audience, Jenkins said. Then you ``open up a playground for them to experiment with.'' ... If you crack down on fan creativity, you run the risk of losing them to more tolerant media/hardware owners. ...

The designers of the Xbox 360 at Microsoft anticipated that fans would want to take their own custom music lists and insert them into the soundtracks of video games as they played them. Chip maker Texas Instruments, far removed from the fans, anticipated that transcoding -- converting video from one format to another -- would be a key feature for its chips, said Greg Delagi, a vice president at TI's DSP division. Transcoding is now at the heart of what happens on popular social-networking sites such as YouTube as they simplify the process of converting video from one form to another.

Younger consumers have come to expect this kind of thinking about their needs. The music industry had its chance to understand them, Jenkins said, and blew it. They will watch content such as ``Lost'' on all sorts of devices, and they don't want to have to pay for that right more than once, if at all.

December 29, 2006 at 10:32 PM in Digital life, New media, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Young people's lives: 'self-directed media productions'

News.com: Teens' Lives: 'Self-Directed Media Productions'

Americans ages 13 to 18 spend more than 72 hours a week using electronic media -- the Internet, cellphones, television, music and video games, says a new study by the Harrison Group. So much technology makes teens feel they are playing a "starring role in their own reality TV show." Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer. Excerpt:

For 2006, one-third of teens reported owning an Apple Computer iPod, up from only 1 percent in 2003, according to the study. More than half said they also own and play Sony's PlayStation 2, and one-third said they own an original Microsoft Xbox game console. But as many as three quarters reported playing video games on a regular basis. ...

An estimated 68 percent of teens have created profiles on social networks like MySpace.com, Xanga or Facebook. More than a quarter of the population keeps in touch with friends online on a daily basis, either through instant messaging, e-mail, message boards or chat rooms. According to the study, the average teen chats via IM with 35 people for a total of three hours a week. But the average teen will only call or e-mail with seven people who are not on their IM list on a weekly basis.

December 9, 2006 at 12:02 AM in Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

Poll: Teens, adults separated by 'instant message gap'

Associated Press: Poll: Teens, adults separated by 'instant message gap.' Excerpt:

* Almost three-fourths of adults who do use instant messages still communicate with e-mail more often. Almost three-fourths of teens send instant messages more than e-mail.

* More than half of the teens who use instant messages send more than 25 a day, and one in five send more than 100. Three-fourths of adult users send fewer than 25 instant messages a day.

* Teen users (30 percent) are almost twice as likely as adults (17 percent) to say they can't imagine life without instant messaging.

* When keeping up with a friend who is far away, teens are most likely to use instant messaging, while adults turn first to e-mail.

December 9, 2006 at 12:00 AM in Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

Raya Ribbius on youth culture

A 7-minute video interview with Raya Ribbius, program officer of the European Cultural Foundation, about youth media. Conducted at the Participatory Media in Vaxjo, Sweden, September 2006.

I shot this video borrowing a high-definition video camera from Swedish public television, SVT. Unfortunately, the conversion from PAL to NTSC required me to compress the video twice to fix the frame dimensions. (Ourmedia page | watch video)

Cross-posted to  Real People Network

October 19, 2006 at 03:50 PM in New media, Podcasts & interviews, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

Julia Ralund on how the young approach media

Julia Ralund of Denmark's publish broadcasting network dr.dk discusses how young people interact with media in Europe. (Ourmedia page | watch video)

Cross-posted to  Real People Network

October 19, 2006 at 03:40 PM in New media, Podcasts & interviews, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

Using the new online video editing sites

I spent a couple of hours today experimenting with the new breed of online video editing websites. I figured this would be a good way for me to post the video clips I've been taking with my Nokia N-90 smart phone.

Alas, the experience wasn't what I had hoped for. (Disclaimer: I know — and like — the people who run all three of these sites.)

My first stop was at VideoEgg. Their partnership with TypePad — the home of all three of my blogs — makes them a perfect candidate. Unfortunately, my video interview clocked in at 6 minutes 30 seconds, and VideoEgg still imposes a 5-minute maximum for all videos. I would have been happy to cut it down to 5 minutes, but couldn't upload the video in the first place to do so.

Next, I returned to a site I like a lot: Eyespot. This week they released version 2.2 of the online software, with great options such as stats, comments, tags, ratings, embedded codes, hi-res downloads, contextual browsing and the like.

I uploaded my video successfully. I wanted to trim a few seconds just from the beginning and the end, but didn't at first glance see the option for trimming a clip. (It's there, but I missed it.) Instead, I opted for beginning and ending transitions and hit mix. The average time for others today was 23 seconds. Mine was a longer video, but after 15 minutes, I just gave up.

On to Jumpcut. Yahoo! bought them a few months ago, and I could see why. Nice, simple interface (as with the other two), and commands (like Slice and Delete) that were plain and simple. I successfully trimmed the video, but couldn't figure out how to add a title to the beginning of the clip (my original attempt overlaid the title over the entire clip, blackening it out).

I published the final work, and a few seconds later, voila! There's my interview with Jonna Anderson. (See above.) I intensely dislike the fact that the site gives the media creator no option to let users download the video instead of just stream it. It's the YouTube phenomenon.

I'll probably return and use all three sites at various times. But not for my everyday videoblogging. I'll continue to use Ourmedia to host my videos.

October 19, 2006 at 02:56 PM in New media, Podcasts & interviews, Video, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

Teens turn away from e-mail

Today's San Jose Mercury News: Teens turn away from e-mail. Sites like MySpace offering instant social scene, fast messaging attract young users, study shows. Excerpt:

New statistics show that, for the first time, teen e-mail use is dropping -- apparently in favor of more ``instant'' alternatives. ...

Since February, teen e-mail use nationwide has been dropping compared with a year earlier. In April, it was down 8 percent -- 11.8 million users compared with 12.8 million users in April 2005, according to comScore Media Metrix. Even though the average time spent online by teens increased 11.6 percent from April 2005, to 22.5 hours a month, time on Web mail declined 9 percent.

By contrast, general e-mail users are increasing, growing 6 percent in April over a year earlier.

Even instant messaging, while popular, is slowing, comScore's surveys show. Total IM users increased only 1 percent, while the number of teen users declined 8 percent -- in part, some experts say, because of the rise of MySpace, which allows users to send comments and messages to each other.

June 13, 2006 at 10:09 PM in Web/Tech, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Teens star at Earth Day Film Festival

Today's San Jose Mercury News: Films go green.

Admit that the word educational makes you cringe and you'll understand why the Greenlight Earth Day Film Festival is happening tonight. When it comes to getting a message across, the old saw is right: a picture is worth a thousand words.

In the hands of talented student filmmakers, this Palo Alto festival's program is a lot of fun, too.

From ``Bin There?'' to ``A Can's Life,'' the 46 entries go for the quick hit. Only four of the films are longer than 20 minutes and most fall into the less than five minutes time frame.

With most of the filmmakers still in their teens, the whole event may accomplish the intent of its organizers -- to reach an audience of young people who normally don't pay attention to Earth Day events.

``We've done festivals before,'' said committee member Kim Brown, who brainstormed new ideas with a consortium of local environmental agencies and media non-profits. ``What better way to have them tell us what they think about the environment?''

The entries came mostly from students in middle and high school, with one category for adults. The festival winners will be sharing $5,000 in prizes -- with recycled trophies donated by Palo Alto city employees.

The filmmakers took advantage of the most modern equipment and let their creativity roll. ...

Here are six QuickTime movies of festival entries.

April 22, 2006 at 10:41 PM in Video, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Young people don't just use cell phones for calls

Associated Press: Poll: Americans using cell phones for more than just calls

People from age 18 to 29 are more likely to use their phones as personal computers, digital music players, cameras and more, an AP-AOL-Pew poll found.

``We've got everything on my phone,'' said Mark Madsen, a 24-year-old college student from Chattanooga, Tenn. ``I use it mostly for the phone, but I also play video games and use the MP3 player. I pretty much use it all the time.''

Almost two-thirds of young adults use their phones to send text messages. More than half use them to take pictures and almost half to play games. They use these features, as well as Internet connections, about twice as often as cell phone users overall.

Members of minority groups were far more likely than whites to use the phones to take pictures, send text messages and use the Internet, though the minority rates were influenced by enthusiasm among Hispanics, who tend to be a younger population, the poll found.

``We think of them as mobile phones, but the personal computer, mobile phone and the Internet are merging into some new medium like the personal computer in the 1980s or the Internet in the 1990s,'' said Howard Rheingold, an author who has taught at Stanford University and written extensively about the effects of technology. ...

April 4, 2006 at 11:56 PM in Web/Tech, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Youths have no room for news

Sacramento News (registration required): No room for news. Today's tech-savvy youths lack an appetite for traditional media. Excerpt:

Reaching younger news consumers - people just like Krongos - is widely seen as the biggest challenge for media today. Study after study shows that young people (teens and 20-somethings) are ignoring the news in alarming numbers.

But alarming to whom?

Well, the news organizations, of course. But it also should be a societal concern, says David T. Z. Mindich, a former CNN producer and author of "Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News" (Oxford University Press, $20, 192 pages).

Mindich's argument: Our very democracy hinges upon an informed citizenry plugged in to current events. ...

when two dozen local college students were interviewed for this story, many said they felt they were talked down to by mainstream media.

"It's more interesting for me to log on to (Internet) forum boards and see what other people ... are saying about current events than listen to a report on the news for two minutes that isn't very informative at all," says Taylor Wang, a 23-year-old senior at UC Davis.

Avi Ehrlich, a senior journalism major at CSUS, put it more bluntly: "We get exactly what we want when we want it instead of somebody deciding for us what we need." ...

Kevin Krim, manager of the blog Livejournal, which has more than 2 million users, says [this]: "These kids are a hyper-connected, multitasking crowd with five IM windows open at once, the TV going, a video streaming on their laptop and their homework book open. How do you compete with that?"

February 21, 2006 at 08:52 PM in Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

The day Gen X grew up

My friend Kevin Smokler in the Baltimore Sun: The day that Gen X grew up.

It was 20 years ago this week that my generation, the Xers of slacking, hip-hop and dot-com foolery, stopped being children. .