From Next Great Thing:

Kids aren't dumb - duh - I get where Allison's going with this, but there's no denying that the onslaught of marketing on multiple screens has made kids savvier, that filesharing made getting music for free a whole lot easier, or that it has taken young people some time to realize they should be locking their "online" diaries if they don't want adults in authority over them to be reading.

From LightSpeed Venture Partners:

Increased innovation in online marketing is driving up costs - "Often advertisers and agencies don't have the in-house capabilities to even do the creative for the 'something new' that they want in new media. At the Ypulse Teen Mashup conference last week, Craig Sherman (CEO of Gaia) spoke about Gaia's recent immersive campaign for Scion which will allow Gaia users to buy Scions, trick them out and race them. It's an exciting embedded advertising campaign, but a significant custom integration effort on Gaia's part."

And Dory over at Yahoo! Tech blogged CNET's coverage of the Teen Superstar Panel where the asserting was made that email is dead. The post has over 800 comments! Many of them from teens either agreeing or disagreeing.

Update: A very positive post and thank you from the folks at Kaleidoscope.

Another update: Nice recap from Web Thinker.

And yet another update: This time from the Young Adult Library Services Association blog.

Posted by anastasia at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Check out the latest coverage of the Ypulse Mashup:

On CNET
HarperCollins, MySpace to solicit teen writing

On Boston.com (The Boston Globe)
Facebook replaces email

On AdRants
Memories of Youth, Age Elitism Factors in Effective Youth Marketing
Cause Branding is Cool, Just Don't Forget the Cause
The 'Teen Life' Category: a Tribute to Marketers' Ability to Swallow its Own Hype
YPulse Drops Hard Knocks from the New School
In CommunicationsTechnology, Size Matters, Says Microsoft
YPulse: Authenticity Starts with Us, Stupid

On Yodel Anecdotal
Finding the teen gene

On NEXTGREATTHING
Ypulse Mashup: Online Convergence
Is Email Really Dead?

On PSFK
Hip Hop Chess
New Mobile Ad Model

On Net Family News
How Teens Use Technology

On justashbo
Ypulse California MASHUP! 2007! & Secondhand Serenade!!!

On Emo Girl Talk
Ypulse panel mentioned in episode 90

On derek baird
Schwab Learning: Helping Kids With Learning Difficulties

And former Ypulse contributing editor Jennifer Waits post on YouthCultopia.

More feedback:

"You did an awesome job with this conference. The sessions were interesting, the panelists were knowledgeable, the teens were smart, and I met a lot of great people." - Diane Dohm, Viz

"It was my first time to one of these conferences and I just wanted to say how much I truly loved it. It was perfectly planned, and it's great to have a HUGE room of people who are all interested in the same ideas and the same market. I just wanted to thank you again for the opporunity of speaking. I really want to attend the tween mashup in NYC in September; it should be just as wonderful. I loved meeting all of the attendees and discussing tons of potential business ideas and partnerships (seriously, how cool!)- if I can ever speak at an event of yours again I would be honored; so much fun." - Ashley Qualls, Whateverlife

"The event was AWESOME! As a newbie in marketing at Snapvine, I learned a lot and met lots of cooool people. Thanks so much for putting this together!" - Ranee

"You really did a fantastic job with the conference. I greatly enjoyed learning about disciplines that I rarely get to experience. I am also very thankful for the recognition that you and the other provided for Ben. But I was also quite impressed with the stars that you collected for the Ypulse meeting, I am a much better person for interfacing with you and the Totally Wired Crowd. Although I am not totally wired I do oversee the Cleveland Clinic Heartcenter website and have a significant interest in medical informatics." - Bruce Wilkoff, father of Ben Wilkoff, our Totally Wired teacher

"I want to tell you how fabulous the conference was. You did an awesome job putting it all together. You managed to get together such smart, interesting people doing great things in the teen world. Besides the great speakers, there was really a chance to talk to and meet everyone, which I thought was one of the best things about the conference. People were extremely open about sharing contacts, info, and ideas on working together, and that was so great. I made great contacts which I hope will be able to help Zest Books grow and get the word out there, as well as a chance to collaborate with great people on future projects." - Hallie Warshaw

"It was the first conference I've been to in a LONG time where I felt like I was a part of community of people who wanted to support each other's work and passions. And we were all personally 1-degree of separation from "our friend Anastasia" so the networking was organic and fun--not painful or awkward:)" - Courtney Macavinta

"I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed the Mashup. I thought the give and take of the panels was much more interesting that the usual parade of powerpoints (although I did enjoy the straight presentations that were on the agenda, especially Nike and Jones). I also liked the mix of academia, media, social change organizers, social networkers, and straight marketers. It added a lot of balance and context to all the information that was presented. The speakers themselves were all very strong. The teen panel was fun to see on Monday and those superstar teens on Tuesday were just so impressive. I also felt that Peter Van Stolk did such a great job of letting his passion for what he does come shining through and loved his no-nonsense style. Finally, all the housekeeping stuff was well-oiled and unobtrusive - very nice for your first go-round. I am definitely looking forward to Mashup 2.0 next year! Oh, and I can't forget it was so nice to meet you in person. Your blog and your conference are already having an impact on our plans for the coming year. I'm glad you were smiling to the Mortified end…" - Mike Sledge

"Thank you for organizing an awesome conference - it was equally informative, productive, and fun! You did an amazing job of creating an atmosphere and forum for true collaboration: it was quite refreshing to see people sharing ideas and working together! The panels rocked! See you in NYC at the Tween Mashup." - Ceca, DayZLoop

"This conference is by far the BEST conference I've been to in years. I've had a dozen people come up to me to network and ask about doing work with us and that was only after doing the panel yesterday. Overall, the attendees and the speakers, and the networking opportunities at this conference are GREAT!" - Jacquie Lane, C&R Research

Keep the feedback coming!

Posted by anastasia at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow. I've never been so tired in my life -- it's a happy tired though. The first major Ypulse conference happened here in San Francisco Monday and Tuesday. I don't know the final numbers on attendees yet, but it felt very full -- you can check out the Photobucket album online here as well as a few shots on Flickr. The blog coverage is beginning to show up as well -- check out CNET's coverage here, PBS's Mediashift coverage here and AdRants coverage here.

As Ypulse events like this become a bigger part of the growing Ypulse brand, I think it's important to have a clear vision about what makes a Ypulse conference different than other youth marketing conferences. I think we realized a lot of this at the event this year -- some of it I definitely want to work on improving even more for future events.

1. The primary audience for a Ypulse event is the Ypulse reader. Everyone else welcome. When I planned the agenda for this first conference, I planned it for Ypulse readers -- marketing professionals, media professionals and non-profit professionals who are all trying to reach youth. The assumption was that my audience is steeped in a lot of this stuff already, enough to have a basic fluency in all things teen. So while I think the agenda is definitely accessible to any professional working on a youth oriented account or project, the agenda was not created for the "Teens 101" crowd. My ultimate goal is to build a stronger Ypulse community -- online and off.

2. It's not just about marketing. My background is in writing and journalism, not marketing. Whatever marketing insights I have just sort of evolved over time from working in the space and blogging or come from an intuitive place. So when I approach the content piece of a Ypulse event, it's from this perspective. I believe one of the reasons marketers love Ypulse, is because it's not written in marketing speak, yet it covers a variety of information relevant to marketers that helps you do your job better. And, as we learned on the social change panel yesterday, everyone has a brand (even if you're a non-profit), a message and an audience to reach -- and that, my friends, is marketing.

3. It's about having a real conversation. My favorite panels yesterday were the ones where the moderators engaged both the panelists and the audience right away. We did ban Power Point slides from the panels to make this happen more quickly. I loved when Karl Carter had people text him questions for the social change panel on stage (people did it!). My goal for next time is to find even more creative ways for the audience to interact with the speakers. In the PBS coverage of the event, Mark Glaser noted the presence of sponsors on panels. I was as transparent as possible about this in the posts leading up to the event, i.e. that we did include speaking as part of one of the sponsorship levels. For future events, we plan to only include sponsored case studies and clearly label them as such. Any speaker on a panel, who happens to also be a sponsor, will have been invited to speak first. The two tracks will be kept separate.

4. It's about making lasting connections. This was the best part of the positive feedback I was receiving at the event. People kept raving about the crowd and said they were finding new business opportunities, potential partnerships and discovering new companies and organizations -- this means it was the right mix of people, the right level of being relaxed enough for people to network, and enough time and space for the hallway chats that are the real reason people attend events. We did not share everyone's contact information for privacy reasons, but I know there are ways either online or in print to allow people to opt in to having their information shared with other attendees and to possibly connect online before the event. It's on my list to explore for future events.

5. Teens and youth media are active participants. Teen panels are common at youth marketing events (and always a hit). At the Mashup, we had two teen panels, teens join small working groups, teen mic runners from Bay Area Video Coalition who helped with audience questions, and a youth media showcase, which included teen oriented non-profits like YouthNoise, Girls for a Change and Sparktop. Part of the Ypulse mission, and by extension, the Ypulse events mission is to facilitate connection and cooperation between non-profit youth media and commercial media and marketers. This is why we have a reasonable non-profit attendee rate. It's also why we gave free exhibit space to local youth media organizations. We will always include young people in our events in meaningful ways.

- The mixed tape discussion at the Music Mashup - I now know what it means to "add a drop," that mixed tapes are no longer tapes but include video, and that if you produce them, you better know which type of hip hop is popular in the region your producing for. I also learned about the Hip Hop Chess Federation, which pairs urban youth with chess mentors. How cool is that?

- Secondhand Serenade - he made me swoon like a teen girl.

- Henry Jenkins and danah boyd talking about Harry Potter fandom.

- The Teen Superstar panel. I was completely inspired -- I don't even want to tell you what I was doing at their age.

- The Old School to New School panel. I give these guys props for both adapting and changing while continuing to be profitable.

- The Totally Wired Social Change panel. Important .orgs doing important work -- youth homelessness, the war in Northern Uganda, youth voting and choosing to work in the non-profit space. Plus the audience texting their questions.

- The Totally Wired Teacher Award. Yay Ben! And his dad (we sat next to each other for most of the day).

- Peter van Stolk's closing keynote. A socially conscious soda company? You bet. More on that in a separate post.

- "Mortified" - especially the diarist who read her teen "letters to Steve" (Steve Clark was an original Def Leppard band member)

We will be posting video of the Music Mashup and all of Tuesday's sessions over the coming weeks as it is edited by Gorilla Soapbox for "virtual attendees." We could not have pulled this off without all of our sponsors, especially Yahoo! and our amazing volunteers (Rob, Michael, Jennifer, Michelle, Colleen, Kelly, Kate and Enrique). Be sure to get on our mailing list for future events like the Ypulse Tween Mashup happening on September 28th in NYC. We'll be sending out a feedback survey to all attendees soon -- in the meantime, feel free to post your feedback in the comments!

Posted by anastasia at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're waiting to buy your ticket, do it today. We literally have a handful of space left for the main conference on the 17th. Both pre-conferences are now fully sold out.

In other conference news, you can check out the nearly complete list of lunchtime roundtable discussions here (we're waiting on one more sponsor). Read the official press release about the first Totally Wired Teacher Award here.

And, if you're in town over the weekend, check out our exhibitor GOOD Magazine's San Francisco Block Party -- looks like a very GOOD time. More details below:

Choose GOOD Block Party
Sunday, July 15th, at 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm
111 Minna Street, San Francisco, CA

Join GOOD magazine at the 111 Minna Gallery for an explosion of booth vendors, an outdoor stage and a unique combination of San Francisco's best! Performances by A-Trak, Diplo, Kid Sister, Vin Sol, Squeak E Clean, Richie Panic, Blake Miller of the Moving Units, Bedtime For Toys and more. This event is open to subscribers of GOOD magazine, so subscribe today at www.goodmagazine.com. Your $20 subscription will go to support our 12 nonprofit partners!

Posted by anastasia at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I was trying to figure out how to make a Ypulse conference happen, a few people told me not to do it. "Conferences are hard," they said. "They don't make money in their first year." Then I was lucky enough to have had lunch with Guy Kawasaki during that period. He just smiled and told me there would always be people who would tell me NOT to do whatever I wanted to do. His encouragement was part of what kept the vision for next week's Mashup alive even before I received an email from my conference partner Modern Media asking, "Do you want to launch a conference?"

I had an opportunity to interview Guy recently about his latest venture, a site called Truemors, where users can post a "rumor" and people can vote it up or down Digg-style. While it's not specifically for teens, you can see the appeal for a younger generation who grew up consuming news and information much differently than we did.

Ypulse: What inspired you to launch Truemors?

Guy Kawasaki: I saw how successful PlentyofFish and HotorNot were starting from nothing. I'm also a big believer in the democratization of information. We've gone from royalty having scribes to Gutenberg to desktop publishing to websites to blogs. Truemors is one more step in this direction because anyone can post a truemor who has a phone or computer. You don't even need to own a site or blog.

YP: Why do you think we as a culture love gossip?

GK: Gossip is judgmental personal information, usually when the person isn't present. Rumors arise in the context of uncertainty, ambiguity, and danger in order to help people make sense of the situation. We're Truemors not Trussip.

However, gossip does serve social purposes. For example, it enables people to bond together--to distinguish those inside the "tribe" and outside the "tribe." It also communicates values: "Did you know that that scumbag Joe pads his expense reports?" signals that such behavior is not acceptable.

YP: Describe who you envision as a typical Truemors poster.

GK: One kind of hardcore Truemors poster is an information junkie. He or she is the type of person who can always carry on a fascinating conversation across a broad spectrum of topics from sports to sex to science. This person wants to enlighten the world with the facts that she uncovers.

A second kind of hardcore Truemors poster is a subject expert -- let's say politics. This person wants to foster greater understanding what really happens in, say, Washington DC. This applies to cars, science, even entertainment: Is Lindsay Lohan's mother a drug abuser?

The casual poster comes across things from time to time and just wants to spread the word. In all cases, the serious truemorist is trying to democratize information.

Continue reading "Who's Coming: Guy Kawasaki" »

Posted by anastasia at 06:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We're doing it again -- east coast style. This time it will be a smaller event zeroing in on tweens and technology, and we will be holding it in conjunction with Ziff Davis's Digital Life event at the Javitz Center. We plan to end the Tween Mashup with drinks somewhere cool in Chelsea (feel free to send me venue recommendations). There has been so much buzz about what tweens are doing online and with cellphones as well as companies springing up in this space, we decided to make this the focus of this 3/4 day event on September 27. We'll talk virtual worlds, mobile, COPPA and media literacy. We're beginning speaker and sponsor outreach now. If you're interested in sponsoring, email Charles Pelton at Modern Media. We should have the site up in a couple of weeks.

Don't forget, there are only four weeks left to register for the July Mashup. We anticipate being full, so don't wait until the last minute.

Posted by anastasia at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I wanted to let Ypulse readers know about just one of the many cool things we're doing at the Mashup in July. We're going to recognize a "Totally Wired Teacher." The "we" being Yahoo! Teachers (Yahoo! is the founding sponsor of the event) and The George Lucas Educational Foundation/Edutopia.

You may ask, why are you giving an award to a teacher at a "marketing conference"? To which I say (and regular readers know), the Ypulse brand is about much more than just marketing. It's about understanding teens today and all of the forces shaping their lives. With this Mashup, it's technology (social media, mobile), with a future Mashup it will be gaming (just dropped a hint about one of our next events). Since young people spend most of their days in school where more often than not, teachers are struggling just to teach to the test, I wanted to honor a teacher who is pushing the envelope and is actually using social media in the classroom as an educational tool. Derek Baird from Yahoo! Teachers posted an eloquent blog about what we're doing, so I'm going to repost it here:

This July at the 2007 Ypulse Mashup in San Francisco, Yahoo! Teachers and the George Lucas Educational Foundation will honor a teacher who has successfully used social media (blogs, wikis, social networking, photo/video sharing or audio groups) in the classroom.

The winner of the Totally Wired Teacher Award will have successfully navigated their school ecosystem and overcome challenges from parents and administrators in order to use technology, but because they understand how students use social media outside of school, they have persevered and worked collaboratively with students, ultimately sharing their insight and knowledge with the larger teaching community.

If you, or a teacher you know is Totally Wired, you can nominate them by sending and email along with why you feel they are deserving to: Jim Daly at Edutopia.

P.S. One of our speakers emailed me this morning to say: "When Jay Frank from Yahoo! asked me to speak at your conference, I didn’t know anything about it. I have since been getting emails from some of the top people in the entertainment field asking me about the conference and if they should attend...."

You don't want to miss this one. Register today.

Posted by anastasia at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been wanting to do a Music Mashup for some time, so I'm really excited that we're doing a Music Mashup as a pre-conference before the big Mashup this summer in San Francisco July 16-17. Personally, I've been in a sad state of musical affairs since my CDs were stolen from my car. My husband bought me an iPod Mini (yes, it's the one they don't make anymore), and I have erased it twice so far accidentally. Rebuilding my own music collection has just felt too daunting to attempt, at least not while I've been so slammed. The CDs I miss the most? Outkast, Missy, Stevie Wonder, and true confession: the other Stevie, Nicks that is. My own musical malaise aside, I was really excited when Jay Frank, who heads up programming at Yahoo! Music and is on the 2007 Mashup advisory board, raised his hand and offered to program the Music Mashup pre conference.

He has done an amazing job pulling together speakers who will be addressing how the combined forces of youth and technology are transforming how we all listen to and consume music. Here's what Jay has lined up so far:

A keynote from Eric Garland, CEO, BigChampagne Online Media Measurement, who will break out the genres that teens are actually listening to and give a better idea of what sounds work for marketers. Eric will also offer analysis on how much is being consumed illegally vs. legally along with the methods by which young people obtain this music.

The music and social media panel featuring J Scavo, President, MySpace Records, Larry Weintraub, CEO, Fanscape, and David Hyman, founder of MOG. You'll be able to hear from our music and social networking insiders about how music actually is discovered and the techniques that work and what doesn’t to reach youth through music.

We're also working on another keynote as well as a panel called Mixtapes: The Unsung Music Marketing Tool, which will feature Steve Rifkind, Chairman, SRC Records. Finally we'll wrap the Music Mashup up with a case study and live performance from a just about to break artist to be announced soon. This will all lead into our opening night reception, which we hope to have DJ'd by one of San Francisco's "mashup" DJs.

So help spread the word -- we're looking for some cool music trade/media partners as well as sponsors for this special pre-conference event. If you have ideas, contacts or suggestions just email me. Register now for the early adopter discount!

Posted by anastasia at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember this blog post on Ypulse? Even if you're not a regular Ypulse reader yet, I think it's important to note in the first post on the official 2007 Mashup website that this event was born out of almost three years of blogging and building a diverse community of media and marketing professionals who all have something in common: an empathy for youth and a passion for reaching them in an authentic way -- whether that's through a marketing campaign, editorial content, a website or other technology product or face to face. If I've learned anything over the past couple of years blogging about this audience, it's that, yes, they are "totally wired." It's not that they write code or can take apart a computer (although some can), it's that this generation has grown up with the internet and cell phones and has integrated technology into their lives as naturally as the air they breath -- they're hyper connected, multi-tasking and incredibly marketing savvy.

For anyone who has attended one of the smaller Mashups (in NYC, San Diego or L.A.), you know the vibe tends to be casual and conversational, and that I always try to include a pro-social element to my events. That's the tone I hope to strike at this bigger Mashup -- yes, there might be a Power Point slide or two, but blogs are about conversations, and this conference is meant to be a conversation about how Gen Y is using technology and to explore different ways of reaching them. We've put a lot of thought into the panels and speakers with the goal of being as holistic as possible -- creating a program that would appeal to the Ypulse audience. Our amazing advisory board has been incredibly helpful in suggesting speakers and giving us feedback.

We know we can't include every great company and cover every topic you want to explore, which is why we are planning a "user generated" lunch. When you register, you can suggest a topic and volunteer to moderate a lunch discussion about that topic. Before the conference, we'll post topics and moderators and let attendees sign up. The number of signups for each topic will determine which discussions will happen.

I want to give a big thank you to our early sponsors - Photobucket, Swivel and DayZLoop for taking a leap of faith and signing on before we even launched our site. We're still confirming speakers and sponsors, so check back for updates. And feel free to post your keynote and other speaker suggestions in the comments as we're still on the lookout for our big keynote speaker. And, if you're interested in sponsoring, please contact Charles Pelton at Modern Media.

Posted by anastasia at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)