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Saturday SXSW '08

What Teens Want Online & On Their Phones

Saturday, March 8th 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Moderator: Anastasia Goodstein Publisher, Ypulse

Seven kids aged 12-17 answered questions about how they use the internet, mobile phones, and new media.

What are you favorite sites?
goodreads.com – find new books and book reviews
purevideo.com
myspace – like custom design and all friends are on it, used to communicate
facebook – use this more than myspace (this kid was looking at colleges and his friends were moving to facebook and away from myspace)
digg.com – finding news and game sites
mixmatters – find mix tapes and new music
17.com – find makeup and hairstyles, didn’t like that they didn’t show yo how to create the hairstyles
hipster.com
runescape – ORPG

*several of the kids admitted that they lied about their age on myspace because they were too young. They all had a myspace account, but only two (the older ones) had facebook. Those that had facebook said they liked it better and it seemed to be a maturity thing.

What annoys you about websites?
Ads and pop-ups!
NBA.com shows Miller ads in the videos
A friend’s myspace account was invaded and they got inappropriate videos
Additional crap loading on a site slowing it down when it isn’t necessary

How do you use MySpace?
It really hasn’t changed that much to make it better – facebook adds new things and has cool games and addons
All friends are on myspace, which is why it is used
Myspace gets used like e-mail for communication

Do you still use email?
only use email to register for things (created to get a myspace sign-in)
Use it to contact teachers
Email gets used more for professional contact (jobs or schools or college apps)
*none of them really use IM “we did when we were younger”

What phone do you have and how do you use it?
LG music phone – unlimited txt don’t use data because it is too expensive
Just got Blackberry Pearl – used for email SAT questions, play pac-man – data is too expensive
Trackphone – only for emergency – usually don’t have it charged
Older Sprint phone – call and txt – some games
Sony – listen to music – voice – no txt – some games
Verizon LG Camera phone 500 txt (not enough) – $3 ringtones – camera – no data too expensive
*they could all live w/out their phones

Do you use virtual worlds?
xbox live
zwinky (?)
yahoo avatars

Questions:

Would you take a photo/video for an ad campaign?
for youtube some of them have created content but not really for ads

Do you consume news content – where?
-digg.com, google news – nobody used news agencies (cnn, nyt, etc)

Can you make changes from the web (PETA)
-not really, or not interested

Do you watch TV/movies online?
-vimeo to find cool stuff to watch
-watch missed shows on nbc.com or other network sites
-daily show
-DVR use is high

*All of the kids knew how to get around content blocking proxies etc.