Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Weekly Wrap: Ning Goes Bust, Seacrest Speaks, Breakfast Club Turns 25, The 'Digital Natives' Myth, Growing Up Gaga, Poking is Not A Media Plan & More!

Axe Falls on Ning: It has just announced that it is killing off its free product, forcing existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere. Related: Posterous commits to building a Ning blog importer. [TechCrunch] [Posterous]

Seacrest Speaks: So what’s going on with TV’s leading multitasker? Is he overwhelmed? More like overjoyed. After nine years of hosting America’s most popular singing competition, he still love his job -- correction: jobs – though he is contemplating letting one of them go. [LA TIMES]

Sesame Street Video Helps Military Kids Cope with Loss: Elmo and a slew of other Sesame Street characters arrived at the Pentagon Tuesday to help debut a military-themed episode of its series called "When Families Grieve." [CNN]

The Breakfast Club Turns 25: This week in Critics’ Picks, A. O. Scott looks at the 1985 film “The Breakfast Club,” an exploration of suburban teen angst — and detention — directed by John Hughes, who died last year. Related: NPR Podcast > The 'Brat Pack' Grows Up [NYT Video] [Barking Robot via NPR]

The Myth of the Digital Native: One of the monsters is the "digital native" – the term, not the child. Coined by author Marc Prensky in 2001, the phrase has its usefulness in helping us adults grasp the major media shift we're experiencing and embrace young people's openness to it.

But two leading new-media thinkers – Sonia Livingstone of the London School of Economics and Henry Jenkins at the University of Southern California – both have concerns about the phrase becoming too definitive. [NetFamilyNews]

Is Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Making Kids Smarter?: According to a recent story in The Guardian, Oliver's Feed Me Better campaign, which he launched in 2004, has helped cut the number of absences typically attributed to illness by 15 percent in an area of southeast London. It also improved the number of students who reached proficiency on English standardized tests by 4.5 percent. [Good]

Poking and Tweeting Are Not A Media Plan: Social networking is more than setting up an online presence, and social media is more than just blasting out press releases. Until brands understand how to authentically join, rather than crash, the conversation, they will continue to throw their money away. [AdAge]

Producers Guild of America Adds Transmedia Producer Credit: This is a modest but important step toward officially recognizing where the entertainment business has been heading for some time. The major blockbusters across all media — film, television, gaming, music, and the rest — have been transmedia affairs, though the term transmedia has not necessarily been used. [Chris Rettstatt]

Gen Y Celebrates Diversity: Embrace our acceptance of diversity by showing Gen Y that your brand is diverse.  Brands and products that once only fit into a certain group or niche have now spread into many groups and niches. We will take your brand and make it our own. Take advantage of this and engage a larger group of the 20 somethings and teens. [Premise]

Why You Have to Understand Video Games to Understand Gen Y: Gen Yers love to keep score. They’ve been keeping score their whole lives. They keep score in their personal relationships, in the workplace, and even with the companies that advertise to them. It all started with video games. If there were no scores, nobody would have ever kept playing them. [GY Joe]

Growing Up Gaga: The self-invented, manufactured, accidental, totally on-purpose New York creation of the world’s biggest pop star. [New York Magazine]

Pixels Attack!

New York invasion by 8-bits creatures! PIXELS is Patrick Jean' latest short film, shot on location in New York. This is a cool mashup of old skool video game culture.

Big hat tip to Mike Schmid for the heads up on this awesome little film!

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. - Discover more animation and arts videos.   

2010 Digital Hollywood Content Summit

Digital Hollywood has evolved into the definitive technology and brand / advertising conference for the digital era during the past 15 years.

Held bi-annually in the Los Angeles area, Digital Hollywood has become a fixture on everyone’s annual conference schedule in the entertainment  industry. The Digital Hollywood Content Summit is the latest addition to the program.

Some additions this time around include a Filmmakers Lounge for all four days which means we own our space for the entire conference. There will be a hospitality area that can be used for recruitment and presentations and some sponsors are very interested to utilize this space for monitors.

You can learn more about the event over on the Digital Hollywood Content Summit website.

Social TV Watch: In a Bold Bid to Woo Gen Y, PBS Goes to Facebook Before TV

Here's another social media first in 2010: Facebook is going to debut a 102-minute documentary from PBS before, well, PBS.

The "American Experience" documentary about the history of the U.S. environmental movement, titled "Earth Days," will be presented on Facebook on April 11, according to the New York Times, eight days before its TV broadcast on April 19 -- marking the first time a full-length documentary has appeared on the site before TV.

In addition to just being nifty, the decision to generate buzz with a Facebook debut ahead of broadcast TV is obviously a strategic move targeting a younger audience which is interested in environmental issues, but might not be big TV-watchers.

via www.mediapost.com

Weekly Wrap: Miley's 'The Last Song" Webcast, AOL's BeboFAIL, Oscars Score Nielsen Win, TEDxTeen, Books in the Age of the iPad, Wizard of OZ Remake, Twitter Backchannels, 11 Step Content Strategy & More!

Miley's "Last Song" Webcast: Miley Cyrus, Greg Kinnear and Liam Hemsworth, stars of the upcoming film "The Last Song", will host a live chat on UStream Saturday, March 13 @4pm Eastern/1pm Pacific.  [Ustream]

3/13/10 Update: Here's the recording of the webcast with Miley Cyrus and the cast of "The Last Song." [Facebook]

AOL Could Make More Abandoning Bebo Than Selling It: As AOL continues to explore the sale of some of its non-core assets, TechCrunch speculated that the company may fair better financially if it were simply to abandon social network Bebo, rather than sell it. Related: AOL Launches AOL Lifestream [DML Wire]

Oscars Pull Biggest Audience in Five Years: The Oscars were watched by 41.3 million viewers, improving 13 percent over last year's audience and posting significant gains for the second year in a row, according to Nielsen estimates. Looks like that Oscars youth strategy paid off after all! Related: Social Media Played Big Role in Driving Oscar Interest [LA TIMES] [Radixhound] [Clickz]

Why iPad is the Children's Toy of the Year: While nobody was looking, the iPhone became a universally understood part of children's culture. And hundreds of companies have responded by creating child-specific apps, which makes the device even more compelling to kids. Sorta Related: Hard Bound Books will be Finished by 2016 [Computer World] [Wired] [Collaborative Creativity]

A "Wizard of Oz" remake? Say it ain't so!: Fresh off Disney's massive success with Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," Warner Bros. wants to remake another childhood classic. Like, really classic. The studio is examining two existing "Wizard of Oz" projects, with an eye toward giving one of them a modern gloss and moving it toward the screen. [LA TIMES]

Rapid Rise of Children with Cellphones: Though girls still have more cellphones than boys — 21.8 percent of girls have them, compared with 18.3 percent of boys — that gap is about half as large as it was in 2005. Most of the children surveyed who had cellphones were 10 or 11 years old; Mediamark reported that 36.1 percent of children in that age range had phones. [NYT]

TEDxTeen has curated a lineup of international youth (sprinkled with some compelling adults who made big waves as teens) who are tackling the big questions and big problems with passion and action. What are teens across the globe doing to make a difference? You might be surprised! [TEDxTeen]

Peeved Facebook Might Sue Brit Tabloid Over '14-Year-Old Girl' Headline Chaser: The story focuses on the dangers of pedophiles and teens co-mingling on social networking sites, and its original title specifically read "I Posed as a Girl of 14 on Facebook." The problem? The statement was a blatant lie. [YourVersion]

Who Wants an iPad? The Young, the Social & the Pop-Culture Addicts: The prospective iPad buyers on Facebook are young - much younger than the overall Facebook population, in fact. They're also fairly social, with nearly a third of the fans having over 300 friends. And finally, iPad fans are also very interested in other pop culture activities and themes including various celebs, brands and internet memes. Related: Books in the Age of the iPad. [RRW]

11 Steps Toward A Content Strategy: IBM recently published research showing that about 80 percent of those who begin a corporate blog never post more than five entries. And that's just blogging. The Internet is littered with near-tweetless Twitter accounts, expressionless Facebook pages, no-one-home YouTube channels. In the rush to adopt social media as a tactic, too many marketers leave strategy in the dust. [eConsultancy]

Five Ways to Use Twitter to Avoid a Backchannel Disaster: What do you do when you’re giving a presentation, and notice that your audience is looking down, busily typing on their laptops and smartphones? And what about when you get the sense that they are turning against you? To short-circuit a possible disaster, keep in mind these five things you can do to prepare and engage the backchannel. [Mashable]

Insurge Pictures: Using Social Media to Engage Millennial Moviegoers in the Filmmaking Process

After effectively abandoning specialty films, Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures is expected to officially unveil a new division for micro-budget movies today.

Dubbed Insurge Pictures, the unit has one million dollars fueling its films. 10 movies are on tap in the first year at a budget of just $100,000 each.

Rather than scouring for finished films at festivals like South by Southwest, which opens tomorrow in Austin, Insurge is currently scouting for filmmaking teams to produce a slate of projects for Paramount.

The studio will develop an online community to fuel the initiative and is expected to support their goals with additional elements that are still to be announced. Horror films, comedies and animated movies are among the projects the division is aiming to produce, according to a source, targeting moviegoers in the 13 - 34 year old age range.

“We want to build a community online to engage people in the filmmaking process,” explained an insider connected to the division. For example, fans may help cast a role in a film or vote on a film’s one sheet. “We want to open it up, engaging [fans] in the process and keeping them involved.”

via www.indiewire.com

Sorta Related: Student Filmmakers & the Great Recession: Telling the "We Story"

Youth Strategy: Four Things the Oscars Can Do to Connect with Youth

The folks over at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) made it pretty clear that 2010 was the year that they were going to pull out all the stops to try and woo younger viewers to watch the 2010 Oscars.

The 2010 Oscar youth strategy included a revamped and more social media friendly website, the inclusion of teen friendly stars like Miley Cyrus, Zac Effron and Taylor Lautner as presenters, two original Oscars web series (Behind the Dress & The Road to the Oscars), extra video features and live streaming of the Red Carpet arrivals.

And while the strategy paid off with a 14% boost to Oscar TV ratings among 18-49 year olds, I believe there are additional measures they can take to reach out to younger viewers. Big kudos to Adam Shankman (the youth guru and creative powerhouse behind 17 Again, The Last Song, Step Up and So You Think You Can Dance), producer of the Oscars, for creating a more youth friendly and inclusive show.

Adopt a 365 Strategy

Remember when you were a kid and how awkward it was when that relative showed up at Thanksgiving and you had no idea who the hell he was? That's how Millennials feel when their 82 year old "Uncle Oscar" shows up once a year and suddenly wants to be their BFF. It's creepy. Stop.

If the AMPAS wants to develop a long term relationship with younger generations and ensure the ongoing legacy of the Oscars, they need to build a relationship of trust and make their outreach efforts a year round event, not just on Oscar night.

If you want to use social media, you have to actually use it. There isn't any excuse for not leveraging your Facebook presence to stir up buzz before, during and after the Oscars telecast. And if you're going to use Twitter, you need to actually Tweet. You've just alienated 2,900 viewers by ignoring them and shown them that Uncle Oscar isn't that hip after all.

Your social media strategy, like your youth strategy, should be a year round endeavor. The worst thing you can do is set up outposts on the social web and then not use them.

Youth Outreach

The Academy has an amazing set of lesson plans and "how to" guides on all aspects of student filmmaking available on their website. The downside is that right now, they live in their own little silo.

You need to get these into the hands of more educators by slapping a Creative Commons license on each one of these guides and then distribute them through social publishing platforms (like Scribd), Open Education Repositories (like LearnHub), social networking sites (Facebook) and attendance at education technology conferences (like ISTE).

In addition, it's vital that you enter strategic partnerships with technology companies and youth filmmaking programs, like Apple, BAYCAT and Adobe Youth Voices, who work in the trenches with youth filmmakers. And why not hold a student film contest and show the top films on the Oscar.com website?

Media Literacy Program

The AMPAS has a bi-annual Media Literacy Program that is designed to "help students become aware of media messages encountered daily, improve analytical skills to evaluate those messages, and encourage provocative and thoughtful interaction with the media."

This is a great way to reach out to students and deliver a pro-social message. The problem is that it's only open to students who live in Los Angeles.

Why not broaden your impact by live streaming the event via Ustream, Livestream or Facebook to schools around the world? Find new avenues to distribute the Media Literacy curriculum so that it can be used by teachers and non-profits working with kids. Film the proceedings and distribute it in smaller video segments that can be used in the classroom, Girl Scout or PTA meetings.

Open Film Repository & Oscarpedia

Help young filmmakers by providing them with a repository of open copyright audio, video clips, images and sound effects. Provide students with listing of free and open source filmmaking technologies, film editing tools and software needed to help them create their own films.

Get the studios to pitch in and donate to this repository. Throw a couple contests a year and give away Flip cams from Cisco and/or Kodak. The key is to find ways to get young people excited about being active participants in the filmmaking process. 

Help younger generations feel more connected to the rich history of Hollywood by creating an online encyclopedia and repository of film history. This "Oscarpedia" would become the place for students and movie fans alike to come to learn more about the history of cinema. Build a repository of images using Flickr and Creative Commons that students can use in school reports, sideshows and other creative ways.

Relationships, Like Filmmaking, Are a Collaborative Process

So back to Uncle Oscar. At first, he's that weird old guy at the Thanksgiving table. But here's the thing, once you get to know him better you find out that he really isn't that weird. He has some really interesting stories.

Like how Hollywood helped fight WWII. You're amazed to find out that he was at the Academy Awards when Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to receive an Oscar. And who knew he was an expert on the origins of animation?

My point is that if the Oscars want to woo younger viewers they don't need tween stars on the Red Carpet or handing out awards. That's nice on Oscar night, but it's not a long term strategy that will keep them engaged.

Right now the Oscars are something their parents and grandparents watch. You know. Old people. Millennials don't have a seat at the grown up table with Uncle Oscar. They are still at the little kids table.

A better approach is to provide as many ways as possible for them learn more about the many disciplines of filmmaking. In doing so you are empowering them with the skills to use film as the medium to share their own stories, engage in authentic practice of digital storytelling and creating an inclusive environment that allows them to feel like they are part of a community of practice.

Call for Participation: The Shortie Awards: Student Film and News Festival

via www.shortie.org

The Shortie Awards: Film & News Festival is the premiere film festival for students ages 7 to 18 and their teachers!

Established in 2001, The Shortie Awards: Student Film and News Festival recognizes original digital media productions created by student filmmakers, ages 7-18, and their teachers. The Shortie Awards focuses on nurturing imagination and choice making in students.

The Shortie Awards is part of MHz Networks' Education Department. The event grew out of the Department's EAT (Education Arts and Technology) program for young filmmakers in the Washington D.C. area and has since blossomed into a national and even international event, featuring submissions from all over the world.

Last years competition received nearly 400 entries, created by close to 3,000 student filmmakers, from 23 states throughout the U.S. and 13 countries including: Canada, Cuba, Spain, Italy, Finland, Denmark, UK, UAE, India, Poland, France and Kenya. 

Many more of the Shortie Awards videos are also now available to view on YouTube.  You can watch past winners and finalists, filmmaking tips and tricks, the best broadcast news programs, and much more.

Global Youth: For Kenyan children, a small act has a huge impact

Jennifer Arnold's highly acclaimed documentary, A Small Act, tells the story of Chris Mburu, a Kenyan man whose early education was sponsored by Hilde Back--a woman from Sweden whom he had never met. 

via festival.sundance.org

By donating roughly $15 a month to an education fund, her small contribution paid off: Chris made it all the way to Harvard Law School and then started his own scholarship program, which now sponsors new generations of Kenyan students who would otherwise not have the opportunity to go to school.

In a recent Sundance Film newsletter, Jennifer shared how her film motivated people get involved and do what they could to help Chris provide an education for Kenyan children.

"After Festival screenings, I kept hearing from people how the film empowered them to make a difference. Audience members started handing us unsolicited donations—from twenty dollar bills to thousand dollar checks.

By the time the Festival was finished, $90,000 had been donated to an education fund, which means that more Kenyan children will go to school."

Sometimes we look at all the problems in the world and think that we can't do anything about it. We think that the problems are too complex, too far away, the problems unsolvable. But as Jennifer and Chris demonstrate, sometimes all it takes is a small act to change the course of a child's life.

Update: Jennifer Arnold's documentary film "A Small Act" is now showing on HBO!

Global Youth: What Youth Think | 2010 Youth Trends Report

Partnering with youth marketers, culture and trend experts from around the world, Graham Brown (the force behind mobileYouth) have crowd-sourced an impressive amount of research on global youth trends and shared his findings in a series of three presentations.

What Youth Think: 2010 Youth Trends Report presentations are a must see for youth marketers, media planners, educators, youth pastors and anyone else who works in the youth space.

So sit back, take notes and enjoy. Then let's all meet up at the Carrot Mob!

2010 Youth Trends Report Part 1

View more presentations from Graham Brown.

2010 Youth Trends Report Part 2

View more presentations from Graham Brown.

2010 Youth Trends Report Part 3

View more presentations from Graham Brown.

Weekly Wrap: Slacktivism, Open Source Social Innovation, Boomers & Social Media, Helping Google Get Social, Sundance 2010 Round-Up, Texting Party in the USA, Steve Jobs' Wardrobe & More!

A Time and Place for 'Slacktivism': Slacktivism; (v.) action 4 social change w/o much effort beyond a click/text. Known causes: social media, cellphones. [Ypulse]

Baby Boomers Get Connected with Social Media: Boomers are turning to social media, where they keep up their offline social connections and make new ones. Online marketing messages that help them build on their connections—and foster other online relationships—will get their interest. [eMarketer]

Lady GaGa's Lessons for the Music Business: Underneath Gaga's haystack wigs is a case study of what it takes to succeed in the music business today. Gaga, 23 years old, has made shrewd use of new digital platforms, while still leveraging the clout of a major label, an institution deemed obsolete by many proponents of DIY culture (Thanks Ypulse!). [WSJ]

Conan O'Brien's Fate a Sign of the Times: While the "Tonight Show" ratings fell under O'Brien's tenure as a whole, ratings amongst the younger demographics were better than those of Jay Leno's "Tonight Show." According to the New York Times, the median age of "Tonight Show" viewers fell by 10 years, from 55 to 45, in O'Brien's first month alone. [Colorado Daily]

Social Media Marketing, How Pepsi Got it Right: Social media marketing campaigns are proving to be goldmines rich with customer engagement and insight that companies wouldn’t likely have otherwise. Companies like PepsiCo are going to extensive lengths to foster this type of collaboration with fans, and the payoff has been big. [Mashable]

Will Creating a SWAT Team Help Google Get Social?: As successful as Google has been with plenty of other things — including a little thing called search-related advertising — it has struck out big-time in virtually every attempt at the social side of the web. [GigaOM]

Reflections from the Sundance Film Festival: Lois Vossen, ITVS vice president and Independent Lens series producer, shares her reflections on this year’s festival, which wraps up this weekend. [Beyond the Box]

College Students Hate Email: In fact, the student joked that she only uses her email to “communicate with her boss and adults.” She uses Facebook as her preferred method of peer-to-peer communication – she has had a Facebook thread running between the three of them for three years now. [Off Campus Media]

Tweet O' the Week: Can someone please buy Steve Jobs a new outfit! The man has more money than God and Oprah! A simple button down will do!" (via Scott Nevins) [Twitter]

Americans Sending 4 Times as Many Texts as Brits:There was a turning point a couple of years ago when it was suddenly undeniable: It was either text message or be left behind. If you were paying for it by the message, you suddenly had to find a plan, because you started having more and more friends that wouldn't talk any other way. Well, we're wondering if it has finally reached that point in the U.K. - or if it's yet to come. [ReadWriteWeb]

Teen Drinking May Cause Irreversible Brain Damage: For teenagers, the effects of a drunken night out may linger long after the hangover wears off. A recent study led by neuroscientist Susan Tapert of the University of California, San Diego compared the brain scans of teens who drink heavily with the scans of teens who don't. [NPR]

Open Source Social Innovation: Last week Bill Gates entered the digital publishing world by establishing the Gates Notes - an online evolution of his now annual January letter sharing his thoughts on the progress of the issues central to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It’s interesting and symbolic that the next chapter of his life story would include an “open source” platform for sharing IP on social innovation. [Cheskin]

Global Youth: Student Filmmakers Document the Earthquake in Haiti

 The Ciné Institute is Haiti's only film school and home of an innovative program that trains Haitian youth in all aspects of filmmaking (creative, technical, business skills) necessary to grow local digital media industries in Haiti that can provide jobs and spur economic growth needed to improve their lives and the lives of others in their community.

Despite having their school reduced to rubble and losing most of their film equipment, these young filmmakers have been tirelessly been documenting the aftermath of the quake that has devastated Haiti.

Luckily they were able to salvage some of their equipment and since then have been sharing the "we story" of their community by uploading on-the-ground reports via Twitter, their website and their Vimeo page.

These filmmakers have put together some eyewitness reports, filming, editing and uploading for as long as they have enough fuel to run the generator, showing both the physical destruction of the buildings, as well as human suffering that is now all too commonplace in post quake Haiti. 

“I was afraid, I was afraid. After finishing our short movie, I went to help my friend Bougon because he was shooting in our neighborhood when this terrible catastrophe happened, which has put my city, the city of Jacmel, in mourning.

Despite my fears, I went to help friends, people I didn’t even know. We felt powerless, we could have saved more people. The city of Jacmel needs you really badly.”

~ Joel Pierre Louis, January 13, 2010

The stories and images captured by the students' are heartbreaking and hard to watch: families having the bodies of their relatives being held hostage by greedy morticians, valiant doctors doing their best to treat patients without the barest of medical supplies, residents seeking equipment to gather the bodies trapped under the collapsed buildings and the overwhelming task of trying to find space in the local cemetery to bury the dead.

"Les Handicaps" by Vadim Janvier from Ciné Institute on Vimeo.

"Priere" (Prayer) by Manassena Cesar from Ciné Institute on Vimeo.

"We were a film school until yesterday. Our new mission is to do recovery stories," writes Annie Nocenti, one of Ciné Institute's instructors. "Hopefully, stories of Haitians rebuilding."

Connect with Cine Institute

• Ciné Institute
  
• Vimeo
• Twitter
• Facebook
  

Weekly Wrap: Mobile Donations, Neglecting Gen X, Facebook Marketing, Gen Y Goes GaGa, More Kids Go Mobile, Social TV, Google's China "Problem" & More!

Mobile Donations Make Giving Easier: Text message donations to Haiti are in the millions. Katya Andresen, chief operating officer at Network for Good, talks with American Public Media's Kai Ryssdal about why this type of giving is growing in popularity and how big of a role it will have in helping Haiti. [American Public Media]

10 Musts for Marketing to Women on Facebook: There are over 56 million women using Facebook in the United States, and for marketers this means one very important thing –- if you have a brand, product or company that targets women, Facebook is the place to be. [Mashable]

Why Millennials Are Going Gaga for Lady GaGa: She’s funky. She’s weird. She’s different. She’s who we all are on the inside. Unless you were a cheerleader (a thin one) or a mildly attractive quarterback, chances are you felt out of place in high school.

Whether you were called a freak, a basket case, a fag, or a fat ass to your face or behind your back, secondary education, and everything leading up to it, is a playground for ostracizing as many of your peers as possible. [Next Great Generation] Related: 10 Things Brands Can Learn From Lady GaGa

Spot411: A social TV platform that tells you what and when your friends and family are watching. Hmm. Looks interesting. Anyone tried this? [Spot411]

Google's Social Media Plans for 2010: Google plans to expose and elicit more of the social network built into the tools that many of us already use — Gmail, Google Talk, etc. If you use Google products, the company already knows who your most important contacts are, what your core interests are, and where your default locations are. [GigaOm]

I'll Tumblr for Ya: Do you use Tumblr? Be sure to check out the new Tumblr backup mac desktop app! Speaking of Tumblr, be sure to check out MiniRobot! [Tumblr] 

Couch Potatoes May Have Shorter Life Spans: The researchers suggest this link between TV-time and early death could be partly due to the fact that sitting in front of the tube may take away from time a person might otherwise spend moving about, engaging in light activity, which has been shown to reduce the risk of developing certain biological indicators of cardiovascular disease. [Yahoo! News]

Why No One Cares About Gen X: Financial institutions are falling all over each other trying to attract Gen-Y consumers. But what about Gen X? It doesn’t seem like financial institutions care all that much about Gen X. Why is that? Here’s the explanation. [The Financial Brand]

Are American Kids Crazy or What?: American teenagers are rebellious thrill-seekers who revel in immediate gratification and relinquish autonomy to peer pressure. But is it just the devil of biology that makes them do it? Or is American culture an accessory to the fact? [Miller McCune]

Why Google Wasn't Winning China Anyway: Google's decision to pull out of China unless the authorities will allow uncensored search results -- an unlikely outcome -- probably does stem from moral outrage over the government's heavy-handed tactics. But it could be a face-saving way to exit a market where Google has made surprisingly little progress. [AdAge]

Hallmark Launches Augmented Reality Cards: Hallmark Cards has announced the release of webcam greetings, new cards that use augmented reality technology to bring the card to life on a computer screen. [Shopping Blog]

Child Mobile Ownership Up: More than one-third of 10-to-11-year-olds in the US owned a mobile phone in 2009, compared with 20% in 2005. Ownership among kids ages 6 to 11 rose from 11.9% to 20% over the same time period. Thanks Graham! [eMarketer]

Meet the NEXT: Get the low-down on this new section that embraces a down-and-dirty style of filmmaking. If a filmmaker wants to create his or her own idiosyncratic vision, it’s often not worth looking around for a big budget, waiting for others to say it’s ok to make it. [Sundance Film Festival 2010]

Global Youth: UK Teens Get Unplugged, Raw & Real

The Teens’ Speech was an open invitation to British teenagers to address the nation. It gave young people the chance to speak out on a range of profoundly important issues and provide the rest of us with an extraordinary opportunity to see the future through their eyes.

 

The Teens' Speech project culminated with this powerful film highlighting the thoughts and opinions of teenagers in the UK. Teenage Britain face many issues and here we see a snapshot of what its like for young people today.

This is a fantastic film that provides a rare glimpse at what teens really think about their lives, school, teen stereotypes, youth culture as well as their relationships with their parents, peers, teachers and government.

A big thanks to Three Billion for sharing this 17 minutes of golden research.

Weekly Wrap: Saving Our Web-Addled Brains, Augmented Reality Marketing, TV's Decade, Mobile App Boom, Kindle's Killer Holiday, Texting In The USA, Social Media 2010, Brightkite AR & More!

10 Reasons This Was TV's Decade: Ten years ago this month, there was almost no reality television, and the networks still had a near-stranglehold on quality scripted content. People generally watched TV using that quaint device, a television set — and for most people, watching a show anytime other than in its regular time slot meant hauling out a VHS tape.

It's an understatement to say that, as we edge our way toward the second decade of the century, a lot has changed. Here are 10 of the things that have changed the most. [NPR]

The Novel Can Save Our Web-Addled Brains: The idea is that stories can do for us what they’ve always done—allow us to understand something that we can’t yet see, to experience something that might be geographically distant.

And if the stories break through our fog of information and self-absorption to shock us into awareness of what’s happening to the planet, then maybe we can do something about it. Maybe stories, with their narrative progressions, their beginnings, middles, and ends, their heroes, can save us from ourselves. [Double X]

10 Awesome Uses of Augmented Reality Marketing: Visuals are an important part of advertising, so it’s not surprising that so many companies have jumped on the augmented reality bandwagon, offering tools that visualize their products in a magical and memorable way. [Mashable]

Kindle's Killer Holiday: On Christmas day, Amazon customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books. [Amazon News Release]

Mobile Application Downloads to Hit Five Billion in 2014: The iPhone’s share of the app market will contract from its 2010 level during the latter part of the forecast period, but it will remain the leading platform for applications…The big beneficiary will be Android, which will see its market share of total application downloads increase from 11% of the market in 2009 to 23% in 2014. [ABI Research]

Vancouver 2010 and Young People: We also built stronger connections to young Olympic supporters with new initiatives on social media. Those efforts will increase as we near the opening of the first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in August 2010. Related: Olympics Must Embrace Social Media or Lose Youth Audience [Olympic.org] [Barking Robot]

Six Social Media Trends for 2010: So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that's my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year? [Harvard Business Review]

Why Embeddable Virtual Worlds are the Future: Why are so many users migrating to graphically simple in-browser virtual worlds like Metaplace? Pixels and Policy looks at why increasing graphical capability is no longer the biggest deal in online gaming. Related: Game Over For Metaplace [Pixels & Policy] [Yahoo! Finance]

Teens Pump Up Texting Trend: Americans fired off 110 billion text messages in December 2008, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau. In the same month of 2007, they sent 48 billion. Related: Generation Text [Chicago Tribune] [Barking Robot]

Brightkite Launches AR Advertising: In addition to photos and posts from friends, users of the Brightkite layer can receive up-to-date and relevant location based advertising in an AR format simply by opening the application and pointing their phone at a participating business. [Android Guys]

Why Indie Directors Give Away Movies Free Online: Vuorensola took matters into his own hands: he used a Finnish social networking site to build up an online fan base who contributed to the storyline, made props and even offered their acting skills.

In return for the help, Vuorensola released Star Wreck in 2005 online for free. Seven hundred thousand copies were downloaded in the first week alone; to date, the total has now reached 9 million. [TIME]