Derek E. Baird, M.Ed.

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]

Weekly Wrap: Females Prolific Social Media Users, Facebook Billions, Lonely Planet AR Guides, Reinventing TV, 2010 Media Trends, Esquire iPhone Issue & More!

Survey: Females and Teens Most Prolific– and Regretful – Social Media Users: Three times as many females as males surveyed call social media like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace their "favorite leisure activity" and almost twice as many females over age 21 "believe they spend far too much time on online social media", according to a survey of social media users conducted by Crowd Science with its advanced research platform for online audience measurement. [Crowd Science]

Lonely Planet & Mobilizy Launch Android Mobile AR Travel Guides: Looking for the ultimate guidebook? One you can slip in your pocket? Lonely Planet’s Augmented Reality (AR) Compass Guides for Android give you interactive, personalized and fully searchable mobile access to Lonely Planet’s best-selling travel content.

Currently there are 10 Lonely Planet Compass Guides enhanced with Wikitude AR available for the Android market in the US: Boston, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle and Washington D.C. [Mobilizy]

Get Kids Doing Social Justice Projects: Often the most difficult part of getting your child to get involved in a social justice project is knowing where to begin. Here are a few ideas passed on from other parents on how to start kids doing projects of their choice. My take–the earlier you start the better. And there’s no time better than during the holidays. [Michele Borba]

YouTube Shows What Friends Share on Facebook: YouTube is pushing its Facebook Connect integration further by allowing its users to see the videos that their friends share on Facebook. YouTube users had previously been able to find their Facebook friends on YouTube as well as update their Facebook profile with their various actions from the site. [CNET]

Facebook to Generate Over $1 Billion Next Year?: If a new report from TBI Research is accurate, Facebook “is about to hit a $1 billion annual revenue run-rate”. We have been expecting Facebook to blast through their previously stated $500 million projection for this year, and surpass all the publicly available projected numbers for next year. If all goes well, Facebook could easily surpass $1 billion in revenue next year as the site grows beyond 500 million users. [All Facebook]

Television Dives Into Digital, Musical Offshoot to Secure Viewers: A TV show isn't just a TV show. These days, programming for the tube is a multi-platform endeavour, encompassing online, gaming, music, DVDs, toys and tours in a bid to keep budgets in the black and eyeballs glued to the small screen. Related: Survey Finds Local Appeal for Mobile TV [The Canadian Press] [Barking Robot]

You Can Take It With You | Future Trends in Media: While still in the early stages of a digital media revolution, the consumer has entered an age of enlightenment with expanded options for devices, content, and schedule. The consumer has responded with expanded use of those media options. But changes in technology, regulation, pricing, content distribution deals, etc., will complicate predicting the future growth (and future winners). [Nielsen Wire]

8 Companies That Are Reinventing TV: Web television has matured significantly in 2009; we’ve seen the introduction of the Streamy Awards, Dr. Horrible seized control of the Emmys, and the launch of more internet TV-related start-ups than we can count.

TV-over-IP is starting to hit television sets thanks to set-top-boxes, TVs, and disc players with built-in streaming capabilities, and like print media before it, traditional broadcast television is beginning to grapple with the inevitability of an Internet-driven future. [Mashable]

Act Now AU: ActNow knows that the more you understand about an issue the more you’ll feel empowered to do something about it. Use ActNow to find information on social, political, environmental, lifestyle and topical issues for a non-judgemental and factual snapshot of the bigger picture. All the content you find on ActNow is written by ActNow members who are young people just like you. [ActNow]

Esquire Rolls Out $2.99 iPhone "Issue": There was the perforated cover, featuring 27 different cover combinations (while not technically digital technology, the magazine was at least willing to experiment with the print medium on what has long been considered sacred editorial real estate: the cover). Then there was the “augmented reality issue” in December. Now comes a slick $2.99 iPhone application that contains its January issue. [The Wrap]

Weekly Wrap: BBC Digital Revolution, Creating Word of Mouth Buzz, 2010 Online Community Predictions, Perpetual Beta, Robots Attack & More!

5 Triggers for Creating Online Word of Mouth: Word of Mouth is clearly one of the fastest growing sectors in marketing. PQ Media’s recent study has it growing 14.2% in 2008 to $1.54B and expects it to reach $3B by 2013.

Powering that growth are social technologies that have made it increasingly easier for individuals to grow their sphere of influence and quickly spread content to their expanded social networks online. [WOMMA]

BBC Digital Revolution: Digital Revolution (working title) is an open source documentary, due for transmission on BBC Two in 2010, that will take stock of 20 years of change brought about by the World Wide Web. Sorta Related: Oprah's Film Club. [BBC] [Barking Robot]

13 Year Old Runs Up 22K Cell Phone Bill: A father is hoping his cell-phone service provider will cut him a break after receiving a bill for nearly $22,000 in charges made by his teenage son. [KTLA]

Streaming Will Never Stop Downloading: Far from being a cure for the industry's woes, substituting streams for downloads wastes bandwidth, reduces privacy and slows innovation. [Guardian UK]

Listen Without Prejudice: Dan Coates from Ypluse.com shares how to use the power of music to connect youth with the emotions that they feel as they discover themselves and the world around them. Also Related: For Gen Y, Music is Oxygen. [MediaPost: Engage Gen Y] [Barking Robot]

2010 Community Management Predictions: What will online communities look like in 2010? What will community managers be talking about? What legal changes are bubbling away? We asked some fantastic community managers for their 2010 predictions, and if their thinking comes true, 2010 is going to be a very exciting year. [Fresh Networks]

Beware the Youth--They May Think Your Marketing is 'Evil': The youth today is savvy; intelligent; and importantly, powerful. Powerful? Yes. Looking at demographics; purchasing power; and the extent of influence to set trends, this is a group to be admired; respected (yes, they ain’t no fools); and targeted intelligently. [MediaUpdate]

Facebook is Here to Stay: Facebook is not only the overwhelming favorite social networking site (SNS) among college students; it may rapidly become the only SNS that matters, according to research by Anderson Analytics. [Yahoo! News]

Perpetual Beta | The Communications Pro of the Future: The Communications pro of the future must be a master of three important disciplines: Radical Listening, Social Influence, and Perpetual Beta. Within each are new practical skills that will define the true PR master – the next generation trusted advisor. [Digital Influence Project]

Unknown Filmmaker Gets $30m for Robot Movie: Fede Alvarez, an unknown filmmaker from Uruguay, has been given $30m by Hollywood studio bosses - to turn his $500 YouTube video of a giant robot invasion into a movie. [NewsLite]

Augmented Reality Makes Money: Augmented reality start-up AcrossAir, which makes apps that help you find nearby subway stops and restaurants, turned profitable last month and is launching a bar finder this week. Also Related: Augmented reality glasses have been developed, projecting real-time language translation directly into people's eyes, Terminator style. [Venture Beat] [Brand Republic]

Weekly Wrap: 10 Social Media Commandments, 'Glee' Obsession, Life Without Facebook, Digital Content is the Future, PS3 Social Upgrade, Life After Oprah, Pakistani Youth & More!

Ryan Murphy full of 'Glee': Thanks to his breakout Fox hit "Glee," Ryan Murphy not only has his finger on the pulse of the youth market -- he has it firmly by the throat, so to speak. The exuberant song-and-dance comedy averages 8 million viewers a week (most in the highly desirable 18-49 demo) and has quickly gone from cult obsession to national phenom. [Variety | 2009 Youth Impact Report]

Ten Commandments of Social Media: There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to social media. People seem to think that every day standards and decency get tossed out the window because of the anonymity of the Internet.

There are Ten Commandments of Social Media that you should always try to follow. They will not only make you a better person but they will make your followers that much more appreciative of what you have to say. [Noupe.com]

Life After Oprah: As the Queen of Talk Prepares to Depart for Cable, Clues as to How She'll Fill 24 Hours of Airtime, and More. Related: Here's What to Expect on Oprah's OWN cable network. (Check out the OWN promo video! Pretty cool, but not optimized for social sharing.) [AdAge] [USA Today]

Comcast-NBC Deal Shows Future is in Digital Content: While Comcast seems to be taking a different approach — marrying entertainment content with the largest cable TV system in the nation — it and Time Warner have arrived at the same conclusion: The future is in content, and the pipes that carry it matter less.

But the larger motivation is that Comcast wants more programming — particularly from NBC Universal's cable channels — to deliver to its subscribers and to sell to other distributors. [Yahoo! News]

Sesame Street Heads to Nigeria: Sesame Workshop is developing a new version of the long-running children's series Sesame Street to bring messages about staying in school, girl’s empowerment and HIV/AIDS to Nigeria. [AWN]

Hearst Plans Digital Service: Publisher Hearst Corp. plans to launch next year a service called Skiff to sell digital versions of newspapers and magazines on electronic readers and other devices, in a system it believes will be more visually appealing to readers and more lucrative for media companies. [WSJ]

NYU Student Goes A Week Without Facebook, Becomes Bored: Kelly had initially set out to go Amish and abandon all forms of technology, but pressure from her teacher to not create the suggestion that she had possibly died combined with an unawareness of just how many things constitute as technology prevented her from doing so. [NYU Local]

Designing Websites for Kids: Websites designed for children have been largely overlooked in web design articles and design roundups, but there are many beautiful and interesting design elements and layouts presented on children’s websites that are worthy of discussion and analysis.

There are also a number of best practices that are exclusive to web design for children’s sites — practices that should usually not be attempted on a typical website. [Smashing Magazine]

PS3 to Enhance Online Social Experience: The next firmware update will enable PlayStation 3 system gamers to share their gaming experiences with friends on Facebook, Including Trophies Won In-Game, PlayStation Network Game Purchases, and Game Events. [Sony]

Most Young Pakistanis See Nation Going in Wrong Direction: Despair among the young generation is rooted in the condition of their lives, the report found. Only a fifth of those interviewed had permanent full-time jobs. Half said they did not have sufficient skills to enter the workplace.

And one in four could not read or write, a legacy of the country’s abysmal public education system, in which less than 40% of children are enrolled in school, far below the South Asian average of 58%. [NYT]

Weekly Wrap: Parenting Backlash, Twitter Christmas, Google & OpenID, BBC BullyProof, Africa & Web 2.0, Xbox Live Gets Social, Virgin Mobile, Homeless Teens & Lady GaGa

Backlash Against Helicopter Parents: The insanity crept up on us slowly; we just wanted what was best for our kids. We were so obsessed with our kids' success that parenting turned into a form of product development. Parents demanded that nursery schools offer Mandarin, since it's never too soon to prepare for the competition of a global economy. [TIME]

America’s first Twitter Christmas: America’s first Twitter Christmas got under way in earnest on Friday. Across the land,retailers and their customers used the social networking site to talk to one another about bargains, problems, purchases and shopping strategies. [NYT]

Tweet O' the Week: "I am too tired to play video games. I must be 35." via @smbeaverson

Google Profiles Turn into OpenID: As part of its push to go more social, Google has been attempting to unify its various account profiles into one Google Profile. What this means is that you can sign into any site that accepts OpenID simply by using your Google Profile domain. [TechCrunch]

Youth Judge Brands Like Peers: The clever thing is, understanding which factors earned a brand ‘aspirational’ status enables us to enlighten brands to where they must invest time and effort if they are to succeed in repositioning their brand as they so wish for it to be viewed by the consumer. [MTV Sticky]

BBC BullyProof: The BBC has launched a new campaign targeting online bullying. As part of BBC Radio 1 anti-bullying initiative, Bebo, Facebook, Habbo, MSN, MySpace and YouTube are joining forces for the first time to try and tackle the increasingly serious issue of online bullying by putting in special measures and advice on their sites. [BBC]

Assume Your Personal & Social Media Life Have Merged: Los Angeles Times employees have been advised to watch what they post on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or any online social space. In other words: Privacy Is Dead. [LA Times]

Nintendo Dominating US Female Gaming: Nintendo says 35% of "primary players" of consoles are women, 80% of whom own a Nintendo (11% XBOX, 9% PS3) [EDGE]

Human Rights Groups Warn Against In-Game War Crimes:The study attempted to determine if the acts gamers engage in while they play violent titles would "lead to violations of rules of international law, in particular International Humanitarian Law (IHL), basic norms of International Human Rights Law (IHRL), or International Criminal Law (ICL)." [CNET]

African Trends of Mobile Web & Web 2.0: The relative price for ICT services is highest in Africa, the region with the lowest income levels, yet that households in Kenya are willing to spend up to 50% of their income for mobile phones. (Thanks Dayna!) [Web 2.0 for Dev]

Millions Using Social Media on Xbox Live: First-week figures show that at least 2 million Xbox Live users have logged into Facebook, and that one million Last.fm accounts were created in the first 24 hours of availability. [CNET] [Mashable]

Virgin Mobile USA Monster Ball with Lady GaGa: For the first time, Virgin Mobile USA will extend its innovative "Free I.P." program to a national tour, offering fans who volunteer their time to homeless youth organizations access to free show tickets. Virgin Mobile has been a very active advocate for homeless teens. [CNN Money]

Alternate Reality Games Flourish At the Grassroots: Over the years, the games have become a favorite marketing tool of large companies like Microsoft, which has commissioned huge ARGs, as they're known, for the launches of things like the video game Halo 2. [CNET]

Weekly Wrap: Shoppers Hit Social Networks, Future of TV, John Mayer & Internet Rule 17, InStyle Augmented Reality Issue, Entertainment Subscriptions Hold Up & More!

Mobile Will Become the Hub of Multichannel Consumer Relationship: Marketers seeking to sprint out of the recession need to become multichannel-friendly and completely consumer-focused, and get over themselves.

The need to construct data-rich profiles of customers, personalize responses to their needs and smartly play in their social, mobile digital sandbox are themes that resonated in the opening-day keynote addresses and discussions at Forrester Research's annual Consumer Forum in Chicago Tuesday. [MediaPost]

Making the Connection Between Social and Mobile: A recent study by eMarketer predicts the number of mobile users accessing social networks from their mobile devices will reach 607.5 million worldwide by 2013, representing 43% of global mobile Internet users. In the US, mobile users accessing social networks will total 56.2 million by 2013, accounting for 45% of the mobile Internet user population. [VisInsights]

Holiday Web Shoppers Hit Social Networks: Sixty percent of consumers who plan to use social media in their holiday shopping will be looking for discounts, coupons and sales, according to Deloitte, while just over one-half will research gift ideas and check out friends’ and family members’ wish lists. [eMarketer]

InStyle Tries Augmented Reality Too: Fresh off the heals of the Esquire augmented reality experiment, InStyle Magazine has decided to also give it a go. Can augmented reality save traditional publishing? Doubtful, but it sure is fun! [Fishbowl NY]

Despite Economy, Entertainment Subscriptions Hold Up: While fewer Americans subscribe to newspapers and magazines, the subscription model continues to either maintain popularity or grow in areas including television, music, games and mobile services, according to a report from market research firm NPD Group. [Digital Media Wire]

Future is TV-shaped, says Intel: By 2015 more than 12 billion devices will be capable of connecting to 500 billion hours of TV and video content, says chip giant Intel. It said its vision of TV everywhere will be more personal, social, ubiquitous and informative. [BBC]

Sundance Announces 2010 New Frontier Artists: A fully immersive media lounge environment will present a collection of digital art, film screenings, multimedia performances, site-specific installations and video presentations. [The Wrap]

Gossip Girl: A Real NYU Student Grades This Season: This season on "Gossip Girl," Blair, Vanessa, and Dan began their college careers at New York University. But from the very moment Queen Waldorf stepped into her dorm room, something felt a little off. As a seasoned (and current) student of school, I like to think that I know a little more about NYU than the TV producer. So let's review the truth behind the gossip. [Yahoo! TV]

Twitter, John Mayer & The Importance Of Internet Rule 17:  On my Facebook wall this week, a friend posted what, in my opinion, was probably the most pertinent album review I’ve ever read. The final line: Merely by existing, “Battle Studies” violates Internet Rule 17: Never let your Twitter account be more interesting than you are. [Ypulse.com]

Weekly Wrap: BBC's Project Canvas, Gen Y Travel, Comcast Woos NBC, Clicker TV, ABC Goes Social, Disney Parks Go Mobile, Facebook Marketing, Mobile Social Networking & More!

Mobile + Social = Opportunity: Social networking is one of the fastest-growing activities among mobile users around the world. And as one of the primary ways mobile users communicate with one another, it is proving a significant driver of Internet usage on mobile devices. [eMarketer]

Three Things YouTube Has Learned From Pre-Roll Advertising: Once upon a time, YouTube was a site that didn't believe in pre-roll. My how times have changed. [AdWeek]

Why 70% of Facebook 'Fans' Don't Want Marketing: Among our findings was that 70% of consumers who visit Facebook at least once a month and are a "fan" of at least one company or brand don't believe they have given those companies permission to market to them. [MarketingProfs]

ABC Adding Social Commentary to Online Episodes: Fans can then log in through Facebook Connect and add their own comments. Although there are already many fan message boards for most television series, this is the first one in which fans will be interacting with people that are part of the show. [Examiner]

First Disney Parks Mobile App Now Available: Mobile Magic is bringing FASTPASS return times, attraction wait times for the park you are in, extensive information on character locations and more for Walt Disney World and Disneyland theme parks to your Verizon Wireless phone. [Disney Parks Blog]

Clicker Launches with Premium TV Content: Positioning itself as a “TV Guide for television content online,” Clicker has indexed over 400,000 episodes from 7000 television shows, making it a veritable one stop shop for finding legally-available TV shows online. [Mashable] 

Current Media Shifts to Outsourced Content: Current TV will shift away from short-form and daily in-house production to "proven 30-60 minute formats from a multitude of sources, including acquisitions, co-productions, outside studios, as well as Current developed and produced content. [Digital Media Wire]

How Experiences Are Becoming the New Advertising: Conventional wisdom holds that traditional media's grip on consumers continues to slip as they increasingly turn to the internet and their peers for entertainment and purchasing recommendations. [AdWeek]

Gen Y's Main Reason for Traveling? Bragging Rights: Generation Y and baby boomer travelers looking for a holiday "brag factor" are influencing a new shift towards weird and wonderful tourism experiences, a conference has heard. [The Age]

Five Reasons to Develop Computer Game Based Learning: There is a lot of debate particularly in the media about the pros and cons about computer use with children.  I believe that there are some fantastic potential benefits in developing computer games to teach children. [Dr. Jonathan Reed]

Why Comcast is Acquiring NBC-Universal: It's not just about those trendy cable network assets: Comcast's plan to acquire 51% of NBC Universal also is about seemingly boring things, including Video On Demand (VOD) and changing business models. [The Live Feed]

BBC Shows Off Project Canvas: BBC Future Media & Technology director Erik Huggers gave a sneak preview of the work-in-progress user interface that could power the Project Canvas open IPTV standard in all its interactive, cross-platform, content-sharing. [paidContent:UK]

Oprah's 'Say You're One of Them' Webcast: Earlier this week Oprah Winfrey partnered with Anderson Cooper and CNN for her first world-wide Book Club Webcast to discuss Uwem Akpan's collection of short stories "Say You're One of Them." I can honestly say, without equivocation, that this was one of the most inspiring and uplifting presentations I've seen in a very long time.

Even if you haven't read the book, this was a really phenomenal event and I urge you to take some time and experience it for yourself. [Barking Robot]

Weekly Wrap: Privacy is Dead, Guide to Social Media and Kids, Yahoo Music Video Search, Millennial TV Stereotypes & More!

Privacy is Dead: Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Twitter, Fitbit and the SenseCam give us a simple choice: participate or fade into a lonely obscurity. The last method, the SenseCam, can be worn around your neck, and takes a photo of your life every 30 seconds. This post gives an in depth explanation as to how the high price of not capturing and sharing every moment of our lives will soon dwarf the cost to our privacy. [CNN]

Pocket Guide to Social Media & Kids: When is a phone not a phone? In the hands of children and tweens, today’s cell phones are primarily used as text messaging devices, cameras, gaming consoles, video viewers, MP3 players, and incidentally, as mobile phones via the speaker capability so their friends can chime in on the call. Parents are getting dialed in to the social media phenomenon and beginning to understand—and limit—how children use new media. [Nielsen Wire]

Times Publisher Compares Print Media to Iceberg: NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. responds to the question of what advice he has for people going into journalism. His response, comparing to the Titanic, is not what you think. He reminds people that the airplane was actually invented 12 years before the Titanic set sail. See how he compares that to journalism and the future of newspapers. [NY Magazine]

Suicidal Teen Saved by Facebook: A teen who posted a Facebook suicide note was saved after a frantic international race-against-time rescue. [Star]

New Blackberry Bold Targeting Gen Y: The flagship BlackBerry Bold 9700 was today launched in Sydney, with the manufacturer, Research in Motion, targeting the nascent Y Generation as a key new demographic. (Thanks to YPulse for the heads up!) [Current]

Yahoo! Adds Music Video Search: Starting today, you can easily dive into albums and songs by your favorite music artist in Yahoo! Video Search. We have hooked into the “Web of Things” to intelligently extract the most popular albums and songs for artist or band queries. This feature lets you explore music artists intuitively and easily. [Yahoo! Search Blog]

Defying Labels Millennials Are Leaving Their Mark on TV: That simplistic kind of presentation of youth on TV has shown its limits over the decades; easy-to-read stereotypes no longer seem credible. It’s archaic to define young TV characters at a glance, to merely stamp them with shorthand labels such as “popular kid’’ or “jock.’’ [Boston Globe]

Electronic Arts Introduces Flip e-books for DS: Electronic Arts is confident that its new Flips range of e-books for kids can not only be a sales success – but actually widen the audience of Nintendo’s DS. (Thanks Matthew!) [MCV]

Forests Cleared to Make Children's Books: New report reveals that a significant amount of deforestation in Asia's tropical forests is caused by the production of kid's books. (Hat Tip @Michael Pinto) [Mother Nature Network]

Queen Rania|Stop Ignoring the Girls!: Global leaders are overlooking one of their most valuable weapons in the fight against everything from climate change to economic turmoil. [Daily Beast]

Social Web Tips for Teens: Today part of parenting is learning about all the technology our kids are using.  This is not an easy task and for many of us that didn't grow up in "cyberspace" it can be daunting. Related: Amy James on technology and your kids. [Examiner] [Knowledge Essentials]

Weekly Wrap: Social Telly, UK Mashup Legalization, Moms on Facebook, Content Curation, Zombies + Gen Y, eBooks on OLPC & More!

How Moms Use Their iPhones: According to a new survey by mobile advertising network Greystripe, mothers with iPhones regularly let their children use their phones, download games specifically for their children and often use their phones at grocery stores to compare prices and check their grocery lists. [ReadWriteWeb]

UK Will Urge Legalization of Mashups: Lord Mandelson’s three-strikes proposal may have gobbled all the headlines. But a parallel package published Wednesday, aimed at liberalising copyright, may prove just as important for some creators. [paidContentUK]

What Do Teens Want? Their Moms Off Facebook: The problem with Facebook? Moms. "My mom uses it to plan dinner" was the sound bite complaint. One #w2s hashtag user remarked that he would pay his mom money to get OFF Facebook. [SF Chronicle]

Social Telly--A Round Up of Social Viewing: Television has always been a social thing. Whether it’s because you’re watching it with family and friends at home, watching football in the pub, chatting at school or work with friends about that programme that you all love the night before, television is about much more than a broadcast. [Roo Reynolds | What's Next?]

Industry panel warns media companies Must Embrace Social Media: As social networking becomes more prevalent among consumers of all ages, media companies will have to learn how to navigate the various social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to reach out and market to their customers, according to a panel of media executives speaking at a CTAM Summit ’09 panel session Monday. [MultiChannelNews]

Internet Archive Opens 1.6 Million E-Books on OLPC Laptops: The Internet Archive operates 20 scanning centers in five countries, where hundreds of workers are manually scanning books from public and university libraries, mostly public-domain works for which the copyright term has expired. It collects these books at its Open Access Text Archive. [Xconomy]

Curation| The End of Content Aggregation: In an age where anyone can be a publisher, it is now up to the editor to curate the best of the massive amounts of content now available in a way that is easily digestible. The role of the journalist is much like a museum curator whittling down, say, 19th century Neo-Classicism, into a single, walkable hallway. [eMedia]

OMG, Senators Target Texting: The senate, the Department of Transportation and the FCC want you to stop texting while driving, and on Wednesday, they all but declared a war on texting, promising education campaigns and laws to convince you to put your phone down — at least while you are piloting a two-ton SUV going 70 mph. [Wired]

Tweet O' The Week: "Customers are people first and they do not care about your ROI." via @kyleplacy / Kyle Lacy

Mobile Augmented Reality: There’s some momentum building in the mobile-based augmented reality space in Oz. Related: Second Use for Google Wave Discovered: Role Playing Games. [TechNation Australia] [Gizmodo]

Zombie Walk & Gen Y: The political classes are also acutely aware of some realities of demographics, and this has lead them to target Gen Y more heavily. Generation Y are going to inherit the working world, and remain in charge of it for many years to come. [Crazy Epic]

Weekly Wrap: Madonna & Glee, Social Media Shakeout, H1N1 Parents Guide, Google Music, Social Media ROI, Zynga's Cafe World & More!

Madonna Grants Music Rights to Glee: The Material Girl has given the Fox series the rights to her catalog for an all-Madonna-themed episode in the works for early next year, according to Entertainment Weekly. [TV Guide]

Time for a Social Networking Shakeout? What's unclear is where social networking goes from here. Experts at Wharton say there's still a lot of growth left in the sector, but a round of consolidation, reinvention and restructuring is likely in the not-too-distant future. [Forbes]

Virtual Goods Sales Could Increase 150%: We have spoken with several casual online game publishers, social networks, and companies that facilitate virtual good transactions in the past week. Based on these conversations, we estimate that virtual goods sales could grow as much as 100% to 150% this year in America and Western Europe. [SAI]

Why Charging for Online Content (Mostly) Won't Work: Content is really good at attracting audiences -- but it's not so great at directly generating revenue through gated-content subscriptions. Sorry, but you just need to get over it. Most people can get most content one way or another and circumventing the gated-content model is not that hard for users. [AdAge]

Yahoo! & WPP Announce Branded Content Partnership: Under this deal GroupM will create the content while Yahoo! will provide the distribution. In some cases this will involve creating micro-sites for the webisodes. [SAI]

Zinkia Takes Pocoyo Online: Aimed primarily at 3 to 8 year olds, the virtual world is currently available in English and Spanish, with other language versions to be rolled out over the coming months. [Global License]

Teens Might Be Surprised by What They Find in the Library: Librarians need to realize and accept that reading is not just limited to books, but includes magazines, graphic novels, social networking and text messaging. They need to expand their view of literature. [Lufkin Daily News]

College Kids Are the Digital Demo: College students are the most connected demographic group in the US. They own multiple electronic devices and are a prime audience for online video. [eMarketer]

New Google Music Service Launch Imminent: Google will soon launch a music service, we’ve heard from multiple sources, and the company has spent the last several weeks securing content for the launch of the service from the major music labels. [TechCrunch]

The Final Word on Social Media ROI: Right now people seem to be fretting far too much over ROI and social media. Right now the camps seem to be polarized and split into two very outspoken groups. [Shuaism]

Louisiana Targets Student-Teacher Communication: Beginning next month, Louisiana public schools will be required to document all electronic communication that occurs between teachers and students. The new law will even require tracking exchanges initiated by students to teachers via personal devices the schools don't own. [eSchool News]

The Making of Zynga's Cafe World: Cafe World has topped 15 million users and it has helped boost Zynga’s presence on Facebook to more than 148 million monthly active users. It’s clear that Zynga is now reaching a mass market through Facebook. [GamesBeat]

What Parents Need to Know About H1N1: There is so much information about this year's flu and H1N1 (Swine Flu) that most parents don't know who to believe. We asked the Infection Control department at Phoenix Children's Hospital to give us the facts about H1N1. Related: Get H1N1 updates on your mobile phone. [Phoenix Children's Hospital] [Barking Robot]

Weekly Wrap: Bing Rocket Contest, School Bake Sale Ban, iPhone & Teens, Brands, Content & Youth, Mobile Augmented Reality, Tween Summit Wrap Up, South African Youth Trends & More!

Interest in iPhone High as iPod & iTunes Dominate Teen Market: The of the 18th bi-annual Piper Jaffray teen survey shows that Apple's share among teen consumers continues to grow. Apple's smallest market among teens -- the iPhone -- is poised to greatly expand. While 15 percent of those surveyed currently own an iPhone, 22 percent intend to purchase one in the next six months. [Apple Insider]

Brands Must Accept Young People Expect Control Over Online Content: A lot of marketers are really just wrapping up the old-fashioned method of control and broadcast and making it look young. What teens want is to be given something and allowed to do anything with it, which is particularly hard for corporate marketers to grasp. [New Media Age]

Mobile Augmented Reality Booming in Australia: There’s some momentum building in the mobile-based augmented reality space in Oz. [TechNation Australia]

2009 Tween National Summit Wrap Up: Amy Jussel and Debra Moffitt (aka @pinklockermom) have put together a great round up of the first ever National Tween Summit to see what’s on the minds of preteen girls. Lot's of great info and insight here folks! [ShapingYouth]

Do Good!: Nominate Mr. Youth for Best Social Media Agency in Mashable's 2009 Open Web Awards!

Pepsi, Stay The Hell Away From My Daughter (and my niece too!): Any sweet-talking kid who thinks he will outsmart this girl with a stupid iPhone app could find himself on the mean end of a double-sided axe. [Mobile Insider]

Social Media as Content Gateway: In a nutshell, there is a segment of the online population that uses social media as a core navigation and information discovery tool — roughly 18 percent of users see it as core to finding new information. While still a smaller percentage than those who use search engines or portals like Yahoo! or MSN, it is a significant figure. [Nielsen Wire]

Laptop for Every Student in Uruguay: This is not simply the handing out of laptops or an education programme. It is a programme which seeks to reduce the gap between the digital world and the world of knowledge. Hat tip @SarahNewton [BBC] [Gen Y Guide]

Schools 'Ban' Bake Sales: Say What?!: The New York City Board of Education has implemented a new policy banning bake sales in all of their schools. Well, mostly. [MomLogic]

Bing Launches 10,000 Rockets: Bing is asking 10,000 students to submit the rocket design of the future. They’re assembling a pretty cool panel of scientists from across the nation to help them judge which of these designs best exemplifies how space travel might evolve. [Bing]

Twitter Adds 100 Million Potential New Users: Twitter, in an extensive announcement detailing its vision for making a global impact, announced that it had secured an SMS deal with India’s largest mobile operator, Bharti Airtel. This opens the service to 110 million new people can tweet via SMS, all from the second-most populous nation in the world. [Mashable]

Speed Round: Vodafone has a parents' guide to help you protect your family on mobile phones, Instant Grass has a new report on South African youth trends, Josh Shipp kicked off a new contest to win 1 of 5 FREE COPIES of "Josh in a box" and a $500 scholarship, UK-based Indie Screenings partners with film creators to allow anyone to buy a license to screen their films, several cult shows get a boost from recorded viewing and finally......Yo Television, Meet Twitter! [Vodafone] [Instant Grass] [Josh Shipp] [Indie Screenings] [The Wrap]

Weekly Wrap: MySpace vs Facebook, Mobile Social Networking, Habbo on Teen Tribes, JSYK, Miley & Twitter, Microsoft FUSE & More!

MySpace is Crowded & Trashy; Facebook is Clean & Trustworthy: According to S. Craig Watkins recently published book The Young and The Digital, college students tend to describe MySpace with the following words: crowded, trashy, creepy, uneducated, immature, predators and crazy.

On the other hand, they love Facebook so much that it  was described as selective, clean, trustworthy, educated and authentic. [TechXav]

Mobile Social Networking Explodes: The dominant mobile social networking platform used by students is Facebook Mobile. Among the 58% of student mobile social network users, nearly all of them (96%) say they use Facebook Mobile most often.

Not surprisingly, the most commonly performed mobile social networking activity was status updates followed by picture uploads/sharing, and page search. [GenDigital]

Habbo Research on Teen Tribes: Apparently now teens pledge allegiance to a number of different groups simultaneously and 61% don’t feel bound to the same tribes online as they do in real-life while half of teens believe that you can belong to more than one tribe online and offline. [MarketingWeek]

Gamers Use Word of Mouth for Purchases: Word of mouth among friends is the most significant factor in video game buying decisions. According to a study by NPD, 41% of gamers in the United States claimed they made purchases based on word of mouth, and 31% said they chose their games based on hands-on experiences with games owned by friends and family. [GamaSutra]

Hulu For Publishers: Hulu Labs, the product incubation department at Hulu, has introduced a Hulu Publisher Tools designed to help bloggers, publishers and website editors to quickly find embeddable videos hosted on Hulu or more than 100 third party sites. [Cynopsis Digital]

Microsoft FUSE: Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie has decided that "social" is the way of Microsoft’s software future, announcing the creation of Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs, which will focus on the creation of social applications and services. By the way, you know who else tried the FUSE strategy? Yep, Yahoo! [eWeek]

Virtual Olympics: For the first time in the history of Olympic Congresses, the general public was given the opportunity to have their say on the topics that were discussed at the XIII Olympic Congress in Copenhagen from 3 to 5 October.

This is a good start, but if the IOC wants the "youth of the world" to be engaged in the games, they need to embrace digital and social media. [IOC] [Barking Robot]

Speed Round: AOL launches JSYK.com (Just So You Know) its new tween/teen 9-15 targeted culture centric blog, interactive books are getting more boys to start reading, Rolling Stone Magazine rolls out their Twitter team, Miley Cyrus gives Twitter the boot, Ignore the Cougars & other tips for monetizing social gaming sites, Facebook and Twitter head to the Xbox 360 and finally Google Wave Is Easier To Understand Than…

Weekly Wrap: Augmented Reality 101, Social Gaming Monetization, Gossip Girl vs. NYU, Facebook Bullies, Media Literacy Resources, DARE the Movie & More!

Explaining the Hype Around Augmented Reality: Tech circles are abuzz about augmented reality and the future of mobile utility and marketing. AR, as it's called, marries real-time video and digital information. On phones, it uses GPS coordinates and the mobile camera to activate additional text, photos or hyperlinks relevant to a location. [Ad Age]

Gossip Girl Makes NYU Look Like a State School: All in all, NYU officially owns Gossip Girl, and the show will now only drive up the rate of bratty midwestern teens lusting after an NYU degree because they think it means glitz and glamour instead of $200,000 of debt. [NYU Local]

How age impacts social-gaming monetization: New data released by Gambit, a micro-transaction platform provider, illustrates the complexity of both customer targeting and analyzing micro-transaction buying patterns. The major takeaway: older players seem like a good target market until you dig in to find out that they don't spend a whole lot. [CNET]

Social Sites & Video Games Can Raise IQ: After two months in the program, a group of "slow-learning" students aged 11-14 in the Durham area "saw 10 point improvements in IQ, literacy, and numeracy tests," and some who were at the bottom of their class at the beginning finished the program near the top, according to The Telegraph. [NetFamilyNews]

A Virtual Revolution is Brewing for Colleges: Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing information enabled by the Internet. The business model that sustained private U.S. colleges cannot survive. [Washington Post]

Tweet O' The Week: "Zombie community leader angrily denies Twitter reports of zombie attacks during the #SydneyDustStorm". via @darrylmason

Americans Serious About Casual Game Play: Solitaire may be as sticky as World of Warcraft. While users of casual electronic games (card games, puzzles, etc.) spend less time per session playing them than those playing non-casual games (role playing games, shooter games, etc.) they are just as likely to return to them months later. Read the Executive Summary. [Nielsen Wire]

Back to school with RIAA-funded copyright curriculum: With a new school year in full swing, Ars takes a look at the RIAA’s newly updated copyright curriculum. Your kids could be learning from it—so what does it say? (This is a total #FAIL) [ArsTechnia]

E-Reader Wars Heating Up: We believe that Apple will be in an excellent position to capture these younger customers due to its overwhelming success in capturing this market with their IPod and other products. Not only is Apple a Generation Y (and to some extent Gen. X) brand of choice, but many of these younger potential e-readers will be disdainful of Amazon’s proprietary, or “closed,” format (thanks Ypulse!). Also related: A Kindle in Every Backpack. [Seeking Alpha] [Barking Robot]

MySpace Beats Facebook with Twitter Sync: MySpace began rolling out new functionality today that allows users to sync their MySpace status updates with a Twitter feed. [HypeBot]

Speed Round: The DARE movie trailer debuts on Access Hollywood, BullyingUK offers tips for teens being bullied on Facebook, stats on mobile phone coupon usage in Japan, there's a new version of the Journalists Guide to to Multimedia Proficiency, media literacy tips for parents from Knowledge Essentials, parents & school leaders who are uneasy about youth and online spaces really need to listen to danah boyd (mp3) and finally....which augmented reality start-ups are most ready for market?

Weekly Wrap: Coca-Cola's Teen Mobile Marketing Strategy, Social Media Statute of Limitations, Facebook Privacy, Youth in Revolt & More!!

Coca-Cola Targeting Teens with Mobile Marketing Strategy: Millennial's are using their handsets to communicate, consume media and befriend brands more than at any point in the past and as a result Coca-Cola is increasingly turning towards mobile marketing to reach the teenage and young-adult generations. [mViews]

At-Risk Students Make Multimedia: A team of college professors and K-12 teachers discovers how building video games can elevate student performance. [Edutopia]

Games lessons: Since the beginning of mass education, schools have relied on what is known in educational circles as “chalk and talk”. Abandoning it, though, is what Katie Salen hopes to do. It sounds like a cop-out, but the future of schooling may lie with video games. [Economist]

Blog, poke, twitter and be damned: We need a 'statute of limitations on stupidity' for our youthful online indiscretions – otherwise only the drones will thrive. (AMEN!) [Guardian]

(List) What the Internet is Killing: The article is hardly surprising given the massive shifts the Internet brings to society, but it does raise a debate about what will be missed from a bygone era and what will be rightly forgotten. [PSFK]

U.S. Universities Plan Course to Navigate the Mobile Learning Curve: It is imperative that colleges and universities around the country include mobile as part of their marketing communications strategy if they want to continue to attract, retain and satisfy students and school supporters.

Platogo: user-generated content comes to browser gaming: It's a fascinating endeavour, and there seems to be a real emphasis on quality rather than quantity - the UGC stuff is also nicely implemented in the games I've played. [Guardian]

Tweet O' the Week: "I really have become addicted to Klondike bars for breakfast... they're like square frozen bowls of cereal --- they're practically vitamins." (via @DougCoupland)

Youth in Revolt: The plot of this teen film feels episodic, but not in a bad way, with Arteta squeezing an impressive number of set pieces into 90 minutes. Well-placed animated sequences -- a mix of stop-motion and CGI -- keep things moving along at a perky clip. [Variety]

10 Tips to Safeguard Your Privacy on Facebook: Facebook statistics show that it has 250 million active users each with an average 120 friends. More than 1 billion photos are uploaded every month by its users, over 70% of whom use applications like games and quizzes in Facebook. This guide will show what you can (and cannot) do to safeguard your Facebook privacy. [MakeUseOf.com]

Speed Round: Ypulse posted this hillarious list of 'Random Thoughts of People Our Age', TechFlash wonders if New Google is the Old Microsoft, Mike Schmid--one of the talented musician's who backs up  Miley Cyrus on her tour has a List of Rules for all you tweens and finally....in the UK Boy Scouts have been forbidden to Carry Pen Knives! [BangItOut.com] [TechFlash] [It's All True] [Free Range Kids]

Weekly Wrap: Nokia, Facebook & MoSoSo, iPhone Powered Future, MXit, Brand Perception & Social Media, Free Social Buttons & More!

Nokia, Facebook Link GPS & Social Networking: For more than a year Nokia execs have been forecasting that the GPS capability of high-end mobile phones would mesh with social networks. Now the Finnish handset maker is trying to get out in front of the trend, announcing an agreement with Facebook that will let users broadcast their locations to friends. [Business Week]

STATS: Average Twitter User is a Teen Girl: Yet another Twitter demographic analysis seems to suggest that contrary to popular belief, teens do tweet… perhaps even while they’re sexting. According to the data, the average Twitter user is female and in her late teens. [Mashable]

Tweet O' the Week: "I think I wasted 3 years at University as Twitter is proving more informative." [via @Fanboy30 aka: Matthew Parsons]

Social Media Dad Sees an iPhone Powered Future: Whether iPhone or its mobile brethren, we're finally gravitating to that once overhyped vision: the all-in-one device. We're also gravitating to a principle I dub SNAP: Simple, Now, Accessible, and Practical. Let's dissect what I mean here. (Turns out mom's are on the same page.) [AdAge] [Barking Robot]

Characteristics of Hispanic Millennials: As a market segment, Millennials are shaking the foundations of advertising and media. Enabled by technology, their lifestyle is characterized by instant text messaging, mobile media, and virtual social networking. (Also related) [Target Latino] [Barking Robot]

MXit Mixes Mobile Networks with Social Networking: The South Africa-based wireless service is gaining millions of developing-world users by emphasizing social change, not just music and games. [Business Week]

SocNets Have Tiny Effect on Brand Perception: Though many big brands are diving headfirst into social networks with hopes of enhancing their image, an overwhelming 96% of employed consumers say their opinion of a product brand does not change if that brand has no presence on a social networking site. [Marketing Charts]

What Social Buttons Should Go on Your Site? The short answer is that there is no standard answer for each site … but scaling down what should not have buttons can help you find the right answer for your site. (Designer Davide di Cillo has created a free set of social buttons for your website. Thanks Davide!) [10e20] [Davide di Cillo]

Speed Round: Two-thirds of Gen Y want to connect online but NOT to be your friend, Nokia showed off "Lifecasting with Ovi" that integrates its phones with Facebook , teens are three times more receptive to mobile advertising than adults, at Xoddo .com, kids can design their own plush monster toy creation and have it shipped.....and finally Staples (with some help from Mr. Youth) helps teens fill needy student backpacks! [Talent Insights] [WSJ] [MediaPost] [Xoddo] [Cause Marketing]