I've recently partnered with Facebook and co-authors Linda Phillips and Dr. BJ Fogg to write the Facebook for Educators Guide!
The guide is also available in Spanish, Portuguese and German.
It is no secret that Facebook is a social media juggernaut. But not until you spend a little time with the stats like how many people use Facebook, who they are and how often they use it, do you get an idea of its reach and potential to change almost everything - marketing, media and yes, music.
via Kera Scene Music | View Large
Earlier this week my interview with musician Mike Schmid was published on Ypulse.com!
Mike is a talented singer-songwriter and highly sought-after musician who has worked with some of the biggest acts in the music business.
In addition to playing keyboards and touring with Miley Cyrus, Mike has played with the Jonas Brothers, Billy Ray Cyrus, Sheryl Crow, Kenna, Chantal Kreviazuk, Ed King, Jeffrey Steele, Van Hunt, Aly & AJ and the Corrs as well as many independent singer/songwriters, such as Connie Kim, Right the Stars and Rob Giles.
His songs have been featured on the TV shows “So You Think You Can Dance,” “Flashpoint,” “The Real World,” “All My Children,” “The Bad Girls Club,” “Felicity,” “The Black Donnellys” and others.
His new album, ‘Let it Out’ is all about expressing yourself in every possible way: dancing, dreaming, painting, singing. The album is for the kids (and kids-at-heart). It is about being yourself in every situation, a message that is resonant to children and adults alike.
via pewinternet.org
The primary adult data in this report come from a Pew Internet Project survey conducted from April 29 to May 30, 2010.
For more information on these and other surveys cited in this report, including survey dates of all activities cited, please see the Methodology section at the end of the "Generations 2010" report.
Mike Schmid is a talented and accomplished indie singer-songwriter. His songs have been played on "So You Think You Can Dance," "The Real World," "All My Children," "The Bad Girls Club," "Felicity," "The Black Donnellys" and more.
He is currently working on a new album of children's songs.
In addition to playing keyboard and touring with Miley Cyrus, he has played with the Jonas Brothers, Sheryl Crow, the Corrs as well as many independent singer/songwriters, such as Connie Kim, Right the Stars and Renee Stahl.
In 2006 Mike recorded a Christmas EP titled 'Snow Day." The album features some original new holiday tunes and covers of some traditional Christmas tunes. Here, have a listen...
So light up the fireplace, grab some nog, download a copy of 'Snow Day' (or one of his other albums), support indie music (Santa will put you on the "Nice" list if you do!) and get in the holiday spirit!
Get to Know Mike Schmid
Yes, like cropped tops and high-waisted Levis, vinyl records are making a comeback.
Why, when we have such lightweight, simple technology at the tip of our fingers, are teenagers fascinated by these oversized, nearly obsolete discs?
Perhaps it is the fact that most of us, used to having all our music stored in iPods that fit in the palm of our hands, completely missed out on the tangibility of records.
Even “vintage” music is becoming popular again. Shows such as “Glee,” in which the characters perform songs from every genre and era, are drumming up interest by teenagers in songs from America’s yesterdays
In this digital age kids are growing up in, songs skip around and change with the simple click of a button. Young people never physically see the music playing, and it doesn’t matter, so long as they hear what they want. But, there is a certain wonder to watching a record spin on a turntable and maneuvering the long, fragile needle.
Another possibility, of course, is that today’s teens are in awe of the amazing art displayed on the album covers. Sure, CD cases show interesting pictures, and occasionally album covers are displayed on iTunes, but there seems to be no comparison to looking at a 12-by-12 picture that adds a certain depth to the music.
Read more over on www.buffalonews.com
The largest ever global research project into people’s online activities and behaviour – Digital Life – was launched earlier this week by TNS, the world’s biggest custom research company.
Covering nearly 90 per cent of the world’s online population through 50,000 interviews with consumers in 46 countries, the study reveals major changes in the world’s online behaviour.
Among the key findings of the study are:
TNS Digital Life: Drivers of Online Behaviour
TNS Digital Life: The North American Digital Landscape
NBC Turns Television into a Social Media Game: The endeavor is a network-wide initiative designed to leverage the
presence of show fans on social networks and incentivize them with
points for engaging with content — i.e. watching videos on NBC.com, Liking
shows, chatting and recruiting friends.
Points can be redeemed for goodies like NBC merchandise, show previews, virtual goods, badges and sweepstakes entries. [Mashable]
Creating a Content Driven Community: When you create a content-driven community, don't forget to set measurable goals, establish meaningful benchmarks, evaluate results, and document what moves the needle for the business. Every business already has an organic community: its employees, partners, and, depending on its degree of involvement, its customers. [Conversation Agent]
Will.I.Am: "The Music Industry is Gone": “The band of the future is not going to be a singer, a guitarist and a bass player. It will be a singer, a guitarist, a bass player and a code writer – the guy who does apps, computer animation. That is a group. It is going to be about self-contained content-providers.” [Harlem Loves]Guide to Google TV's Ecosystem [TechCrunch] | What We Know So Far About Google TV [Search Engine Land]| Google TV Has Arrived [Mashable] | Here's What Google TV Looks Like [BI] | Google TV Explained [Logitech]
Overwhelmed? Welcome the Age of Curation: Still don’t believe we live in the Age of Curation, of which the iPad is just a recent manifestation? Go save everything you run across to read later using Instapaper, even from your Twitter and newsreader feeds (themselves forms of curation), which you can then read on the functionality-curating iPad and Kindle devices. Related: Trend Watch | Content Computing [Video] [Wired] [Barking Robot]
Study: Facebook Is a Major Influence on Girls: A study of eight to 15-year-olds for National Family Week found 40% of girls identified Facebook as one of the most important things in their lives - compared with 6% of boys.
Parents were found to underestimate the significance of technology. Asked to name the three most important things in their lives, the most popular choices for girls were friends, family and then Facebook and MSN. [BBC]
Connecting with Generation Z: Meet Generation Z, otherwise known as The Naturals. Give them any label you like, but you better make sure your business understands this powerful new generation of consumers that has never known life without the internet. Related: Those Digital Natives? Not So Savvy. [nineMSN] [BarkingRobot]Why Twitter Radically Reworked Its Trending Topics Algorithm: How to keep Twitter from seeming like "an inane playground for hormonally cracked-out tweens." Related: Blocking Justin Bieber > New Tweetdeck version allows you to block all Justin Bieber related Tweets. [AdAge] [Mashable]
According
to research conducted by BlogHer and iVillage “2010 Social
Media Matters Study,” co-sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Ketchum, social sites
are now a frequent destination for nearly three-quarters of Internet
users.
Respondents’ top daily media activities were social as well. Watching television is still on top, but Facebook was the next most common media destination visited every day.
The study found similar rates of usage among men and women, and pegged the percentage of weekly social media users at 73% of the online population.
Here are some of the other key findings in the 2010 Social Media Matters Study:
Have you ever wondered what teens were really using their mobile phones for? A recent study released by Pew Internet Research has shed light on average mobile phone use among American teens.
This study includes not only information regarding how much teens use their mobile phones, but what they are using them for as well, such as: to go online, text, listen to music, sharing pictures and accessing social networking sites.
Perhaps not surprisingly, average mobile use varies greatly by age, and sexting, while limited (according to Pew only 4% of teen admit sending a nude photo of themselves to someone via text) seems to becoming more of an issue.
View Large on www.flowtown.com
Love her or hate her, there' no denying that Lady Gaga is a cultural force who resonates with many, many young people. Perhaps no other creative genius since the late (great) John Hughes has been able to effectively express the inner turmoil and feelings of disenfranchisement that are part of modern teenage life.
For many young people, Lady Gaga ("Mother Monster") has been able to tap into the global zeitgeist of a generation of "Little Monsters" and empowered them through her music to speak up share their voice.
Project Gaga 2010 is a user-generated fan project that collected over 268 pictures of mostly teenage fans from across the globe all "with the same message: thank you, mother monster, for giving us all a voice."
Teenage fan behavior patterns haven't changed that much in the last 50 years or so. What has changed are the ways in which they express their devotion as a fan to their favorite movie, music or TV star.
Today's teens, unlike previous generations, have many more digital tools that allow them to self-organize via social networking sites, coordinate the collection of this photos from around the world, use free web-based tools to produce a video and free distribution on YouTube.
And oh, a tweet of approval from
"Mother Monster" is a pretty good way to market your tribute.
Now for some of us who are a wee bit past those awkward crazy teenage years this "Mother Monster" tribute stuff may seem a little bizarre.
But before you dismiss it, consider the idea that if previous generations had the same bounty of free digital and self-publishing tools, the web would be full of similar tributes to Madonna, Michael Jackson, Elvis, Frank Sinatra or Al Jolson.
Related: Lady Gaga Joins Forces with Virgin Mobile to Fight Teen Homelessness
Facebook’s New Social
Plugins: 50,000+ Websites in One Week: Phase one of Facebook’s strategy for
world domination: complete. Facebook announced
that more than 50,000 websites have integrated Facebook’s new social
plugins in just one week. The plugins are a core component of the
company’s new Open Graph
initiative. [Mashable]
Apple To Shut Down Lala: In a brief message that was just posted on the Lala.com website, Apple has announced that the service will be shut down on May 31st, 2010. Does this mean we can start raising our hopes for iTunes in the cloud? [TechCrunch]
What is Facebook Saying About You?: Yee’s tool shows you exactly what data a developer would get when it asks Facebook for info via the API, such as your name, birth date, location, etc. and also any public information such as your “likes”, your photos and so on. [GigaOm]
Summer Music Watch: Jennifer Lopez Does a Cover of Donna Summer's "On The Radio" [Ryan Seacrest]
The Future Of
The Web is HTML 5: Did we mention that 2010 would be a
big year
for HTML5? Apple and Google are pushing it big time, and now so is
Microsoft. When Internet
Explorer 9 comes out, it will
support HTML5 and help make it more common across the Web. [TechCrunch]
Millennials: This generation is diverse, educated and plugged-in: Gio
Acosta says that on any given day there are only two hours in which he
is not texting, doing something on his cell phone, or on Facebook, or
playing games on his laptop or PS3. Acosta is exactly what Kaiser Family
Foundation recently found in a study: That to say today's young people
are wired is an understatement. It’s an integral part of their daily
lives. [PennLive.com] [Barking Robot]
Edelman Digital Social Metrics Tools: Last week Suzanne shared a few tools to help you find new folks to follow on Twitter to kick-off a new focus on tools and resources for online engagement. I wanted to continue this trend by introducing you to a few blog analytics tools! [Edelman Digital]
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Teen Driver Program: NHTSA has developed a multi-tiered strategy to prevent motor vehicle-related deaths and injuries among teen drivers: increasing seat belt use, implementing graduated driver licensing, reducing teens' access to alcohol, and parental responsibility. Related: Get the 'No Phone Zone' Lesson Plan [NSTSA] [Barking Robot]
Guide to Creating Foursquare Events: There are some reasonable and relatively simple ways to incorporate Foursquare and encourage audience participation at your next event. [Tradeshow Insight]
Texting Poetry Inspires Kids: Once considered a disturbance in the classroom, cell phones, texting devices and other wireless technology are being embraced by some of the very same people who used to malign them: teachers. [Record Online]
End Bullying Now: Here's the link to the Josh Shipp & Brooks Gibbs 'End Bullying Now' Teleseminar! [Barking Robot]
2010 Totally Wired Teacher Award: After listening to feedback from our friends in the educator community, we've made some important changes to this year's Totally Wired Teacher Award provided by Dell. Please help us spread the word to any public school teachers you are in contact with. [Ypulse]
Russian rap reportedly has a new hero -- President Putin. The man who
proudly touts his education on the streets of St. Petersburg was
nominated for the first annual "Russian Street Awards" - honoring the
best in Russian hip hop.
Putin recently appeared on “Fight for Respect: Start today!” a show in which he expressed his support to rap and break dancing. Prime Minister Putin took part by giving awards to the winners and expressing his support for rap music and breakdancing.
During the show street dancers, graffiti artists and rappers from all regions of Russia demonstrated their talents trying to prove that hip-hop and healthy lifestyle are compatible.
After the show was televised, Putin was heavily criticized for his desire to market himself to young crowd. Yet, during a live call-in show Putin explained that he participated in the TV show in order to attract attention to the issues of young people.
According to Putin, rap is filled with social meaning, and speaks about social and issues that are important to use. Graffiti is becoming a form of art, and breakdancing is compatible with a healthy lifestyle since it is hard to imagine that dancing can be compatible with drugs and alcohol use.
Putin’s meeting with the rappers impressed the community, and the organizational committee of Russian Street Awards decided the performance was worthy enough to be nominated as “Event of the Year.”
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]
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Header Artwork by BT Livermore
Social Icons Courtesy of Davide Di Cillo
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