social networking

Over the last few years, publications like Mother Jones and the New York Times magazine both have exposed us to the sugar daddy/baby phenomenon. Wealthy older men -- some married, some not -- plop their money down to entice young women to spend time with them, often with expectations of sexual activity.

However, as our economy has spiraled even further out of control, this activity is picking up steam. This past week we learned from the Huffington Post that the phenomenon has overlapped with the student debt crisis. The story describes several relationships borne out of economic strife and the desperation that accompanies the racking up of large amounts of debt to finance one's education. It also reveals that the increasing popularity of matchmaking sites like seekingarrangement.com have aided the sugar daddy/baby boom.

The Huffington Post piece spurred Bill Maher and his panel to discuss the issue last night.

The first thing that strikes me about this conversation is that it happened. We are so often saturated with positive portrayals of capitalism and what that economic system does for us (that whole American Dream thing) that when we hear personal accounts of the desperation it's wrought, our society -- particularly the establishment -- acts like it's some curious, extraordinary event. Now that the street economy is impacting elite college students, it's suddenly real and they are taken aback.

The second thing I am thinking about is the whole notion that American youth -- and Bourdain specifically mentions this at 5:15 -- just don't want to do jobs that they perceive as being below them. This narrative has been around a while, and it might be true of a certain demographic. But we're forgetting that most youth are in such a poor economic position right now that they simply can't live or survive on these jobs because they don't pay enough. And when there is a small number of other, barely better-paying jobs with benefits that are available, youth will hold out for those, even if they appear as a mirage on the horizon. And especially if they have the student debt that is simply no match for the low wage, no-health care jobs.

So, actually, the question Bourdain poses is unfair. "Why won't young people take jobs that are below them," should be rephrased: "Why won't young people take jobs that don't pay them enough?"

The question answers itself.

The sugar daddy/sugar baby phenomenon goes back to the need for (and absence of) well-paying jobs for young people. Imagine that.

There's a lot going on today - and some columnist Hollywood type is being disparaging to young people... ug... not again!?

• Undecided - is a new book by Barbara Kelley and retails for $16.95 at your online bookseller of choice.

  "is a breezy, stimulating read, a career book for young women that focuses on the particular problems in making critical life and job choices that affect those born between 1977 and 1994."

• FM writer Kevin Bondelli posts a new It Gets Better video done by members of the US Senate. I love this project - warms my heart.
• Creating demand and jobs by reducing student debt burdens. Genius idea! Yesterday a friend of mine - a young elected official - proposed debt forgiveness for young people who are elected to office since its a public service. It would be another way of encouraging more young people they can run and not worry about the financial hardship.
• Public Servants must have a strategy for social networking (yeah no kidding). At the federal level I know the caucuses have pushed members to get on board the train of online media before they get run over by it - and new GOP members came in having used it in their campaigns so this is starting to change. But at the state level sometimes its hard to convince local elected officials that transparency through online media is a good thing... Especially lawyers because they're afraid of everything.
• Stat of the Day: 68% of Millennials ask their friends before choosing a restaurant
• Social Media gets respect from C-Suite asks if CEO's are exploiting SM for work ... um... who isn't?
• Does Tech in the classroom offer shortcut or solution?
• Young voters can turn Baltimore politics on its head. SWEET! Go young voters of Baltimore!
• Karl Rove's How the GOP Can Blow it in 2012
  

  "The first such mistake would be forgetting that the target voters are those ready to swing away from Mr. Obama (independents, Hispanics, college educated and young voters) and those whose opposition to Mr. Obama has deepened since 2008 (seniors and working-class voters)."

  I couldn't agree more. The GOP should go after young voters just as the Democratic Party should go after young voters. I have faith that the message of the GOP won't resonate with the GOP but if you have the GOP going after youth in a hard way my hope is that the Dems will freak out and do it more.

• Connecting with Gen Y on Facebook - lots of social media news today it seems. While everyone is on Facebook these days - young people still dominate the general pool of users and consistent users. And here's how they're using it.
  
• Are Young People in their 20's Too Stupid to Realize They're being Ripped Off?. Name calling - now that's mature. Writer Rob Long basically copy and paste's Ted Nugents ideas and makes them his own. So here's Kevin Bondelli's response to Ted and we invite you to get a clue. And this isn't his first time to smack-talk young people. But what can you expect from an old Hollywood hasbeen. I mean... here's a good idea - learn who the marketing "power demographic" is and maybe you can get something on the WB. Just sayin'. What a Jackass......
• Young people would rather be Einstein than Jordan. New survey suggests that the instant fame of reality TV is no longer attractive. Was it ever? To whom was it attractive - because the only attractive reality TV is the kind where you can win stuff and money. Getting famous off of reality TV is kind of like Rob Long trying to be a real political commentator in the LA Times.... (see what I did there? full circle my friends)
• Industry urged to welcome young
  

  "The Government has urged companies to throw open their doors to young people in a drive to break the “bottleneck” of a lack of skilled workers and make industry more attractive to new recruits."

  If its a job its attractive. Someone on a Reddit post I did yesterday said that the best Millennial Marketing strategy is to post a job opening to trick young people to clicking on it.

• I'm sure we already know this but evidently - Kids sure have it tough these days. This writer is a parent who has seen his kids struggle in the summer job market.
• Going along with the sad summer job prospects a new Study reveals young people are worried about future debt problems.
  

  "The research, which was commissioned by the Personal Finance Education Group (PFEG) to coincide with My Money Week, questioned a total of 1,000 young people on the subjects of money and debt management.

  It was found that over half (57 per cent) of youths aged 12 to 16 expected to find it difficult to manage their finances when they were older. 62 per cent admitted that they had concerns about not having enough money, whilst 30 per cent said they were worried about racking up debt problems in the future."

  How the economy is impacting a generation. We're going to end up like our grandparents hoarding seeds and bottled water for the depression.

• And the job news just keeps getting happier - Brain Drain: Young Teachers Have Dreary Outlook for Job Prospects.
• But - there's hope if you've been to prison because there is a Job Training grant to assist young ex-cons
• California Tea Party hoping for conservative success
  

  "More footwork will be involved, as activists walk to precincts. In addition, state tea party groups have been working to win over young voters, and Deniston has seen an increase in support."

  Good for them! I wish them luck with that. In yesterday's response from Cryn Johannsen on Spark Action we learned

  When it comes to their take on abortion and other social issues, Tea Party folks generally have more conservative views. That does not tend to be true for Millennials, however. For example, a recent study suggests why Millennials do not identify with the values of the Tea Party:

  • Overall, they have a more progressive view on politics.
  • They are also quite diverse. That diversity lends itself to more progressive politics.
  • Those Millennials who are white are even more progressive than their minority counterparts.

And that's it - now go take on the day!

Yesterday on Mashable there was an article titled "Why Social Media Means Big Opportunities for Women". The article brings up some very compelling points as to why social media is opening more doors for women in many ways.

Women have firmly established their presence on the social web, and account for the majority of users on many popular social media sites. But what does this mean for the future of women in social media?

One word: Opportunity.

Companies looking to reach women — whether as consumers, entrepreneurs, employees, or advocates — have an unprecedented opportunity through social media to engage them. For women, social media presents abundant opportunities to lead, effect change, innovate, and build relationships across sectors, locally, nationally, and globally.

Not to take away from the point being made but I believe the arguments provided can apply to youth in general. The article argues that companies, through the usage of social media, are gathering real time feedback from female consumers about products, ideas, marketing, etc. Companies are starting to use social media to do their product testing and aiming directly at women (and youth).

Conversations between companies and female consumers are moving beyond “what do you want?” types of questions. Companies are starting to use social media to secure real-time feedback from women on products, services, and marketing campaigns—sometimes before they go to market.

Unilever used social media to launch their new Pond’s Age Miracle moisturizer in China, recruiting bloggers to try the product and share their findings. The strategy was risky because of the heavy usage of social media there, but it came with a huge upside: If the bloggers liked the product, word of mouth could lead to major success. If not, the poor publicity from blogs would make the launch difficult to salvage. The risk paid off and the moisturizer was a hit, leading to the adoption of social media strategies by other Unilever offices in Asia.

If companies use targeting like Unilever did they can be just as successful, regardless if they are targeting and gathering feedback from women or youth. However women are dominating the usage of social media sites, and they are gaining the lead in mobile web usage too.

A significant opportunity exists for companies to connect with women using mobile technologies. Women comprise 47% of current mobile web users, and between 2008 and 2009, the number of women using the mobile web increased by 43%, compared with a 26% increase in the number of men.

While women's influence is growing in the world of social networking and technology the article does provide some insight to where it isn't exactly the most inclusive.

not all conferences are women-friendly. At some, sexualized images of women are still included in presentations. Others feature scantily clad women as props or for entertainment. Stone, Page, and Jardins observed that “the organizers of many conferences, especially tech conferences, don’t seem to appreciate that women don’t want to sit through presentations — PowerPoint, video and otherwise — that depict women as porn stars and/or sex objects.”

However there is optimism that it will change, as women continue to become even more influential in the world of social media we will hopefully see a move that way.

The number of women programmers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, consultants, community managers, and social media users continues to grow. It’s only a matter of time before these numbers translate into greater visibility and influence in the social space.

Trapani, too, is optimistic: “Ladies, now is not the time to be timid. Step up, take chances, push yourself beyond your comfort zone, use your powers and influence for good, and let your expertise shine.”

Pew's study on Social Media and Young Adults has some really interesting findings: teens don't blog or tweet. According to the study, 14% of online teens blog. This is down from around 28% just a few years ago. As for Twitter, only 8% of people 12-17 use the service.

The study also found that 93% of young adults go online, with 63% of those using the internet daily. This is comparable to only 38% for those over the age of 65.

So what does this mean? We know that teens use the internet, regularly. We know they are active on social networks - they post comments (83% of online teens say they've posted comments on a friends' pictures), they communicate (although less teens now say they use social networking to contact friends), and more. They do not, however, create that much content.

Only 38% of teens share content in general, 21% remix content, and once again - only 14% blog. For adults, the numbers are even worse. The difference comes in the fact that the numbers for adults have come up in recent years. Teens, on the other hand, created more just a few years ago.

Some, such as Ben Parr, have come to the conclusion that teens just don't have the life experiences needed to create quality content. They are simply consuming. Even though I am a teen, I tend to agree with this rather negative view...Most teens are not interested in creating content. Instead, they are simply consuming.

Members of my generation are consuming more information in a day than one might have come across in a lifetime in centuries past. They're reading, watching, and listening. The number of teens who simply USE the internet (93%) are huge. These young people will be heading into college and jobs with a new and unique outlook, gained by exposure to such huge amounts of information.

Overall, the study is interesting, but there isn't much to feel bad about if you're a teen. The fact we're able to consume so much more content than previous generations means we will be creating much more high quality content of our own in the future.

It's no secret that the Republican party as a whole has been behind the curve on the use of Social Networking. We saw it the most during the 2008 election and now they are struggling to catch up. The Democratic party has become a powerhouse of youth and new media.

As the Democratic Party thrived on the new media frontier, the Republican Party stayed behind. The McCain campaign didn't hire a resident blogger until June 2008.
The McCain campaign was based on old-media approaches to politics -- which made sense on one level, since its candidate was in his 70s. Few Republicans knew how to use social media to the party's advantage. The danger was that a GOP mired in old ways of communication would become obsolete.

But then Sarah Palin came along. Palin's encounter with the old media was a disaster. Her interview with Katie Couric went badly. Tina Fey's impression reduced Palin to a cartoon. Palin needed a way out.
By necessity, she's found a way for the Republicans to adopt social media. She has more followers on Facebook than any politician except President Obama.

Could it be that Sarah Palin is going to be the one to go rogue on the GOP and bring them into the 2.0 age? Strangely enough it could be. Sarah Palin may be a terrible candidate but the 2008 election skyrocketed her to pop culture stardom. During the campaign she didn't stand a chance with old media, mainly because they asked questions that were logical, but on Facebook and Twitter she could say as much as she wanted no matter how wrong, off base, or false it was. She quickly found a domain where the people couldn't interrupt what she had to say, and if she didn't like something said on her post she could delete it and block them. Life was good.

These platforms allow her to speak directly to her supporters. Palin's experience with old media during the campaign soured her on the old ways of doing things. As she put it in her debate with Joe Biden, she wants to speak to the American people without the "filter" of the mainstream media.

And it seems to be working. In August, in a single Facebook post, Palin did more to shape the debate on health care than any other Republican politician. (I'm referring, of course, to her charge that the Democratic health care bills eventually could lead to government rationing of medical care through "death panels.")

Then, in October, Palin led the way in national Republican support for the insurgent candidacy of Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate in November's special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District. One Facebook post from Palin endorsing Hoffman started a cascade effect in donations and support that resulted in liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava's withdrawal from the race and Hoffman's razor-thin loss to Democrat Bill Owens.

Meanwhile, Facebook allows Palin to burnish her policy credentials with foot-noted, op-ed length essays on health care, cap-and-trade, government spending and much else. Step by step, Palin is showing other conservatives how to use new media and social networks to their advantage. And no one seems to care.

Scary isn't it? Could the former Alaskan Governor and VP candidate made world famous by Tina Fey on SNL really revolutionize the GOP? Could the party of 'No' become the party of 'ya betcha'? Probably not but one thing is for sure, no matter how far behind the GOP falls on social media Sarah Palin will be there, oddly enough, showing them all up.

CNN Article quoted.

One of our biggest battles in reporting on youth progressive politics is pushing back against the faulty view that the use of technology/social networking among youth keeps them from practicing successful activism. Thankfully, we have yet another package of data noting the opposite -- those youth who participate in online social networking opportunities tend to be more engaged and involved in their communities offline.

From the National Conference on Citizenship's 2009 Civic Health Index report:

This year’s survey allowed us to explore the relationships between online forms of engagement and community-based civic activities. We selected a group of Millennials who use social networking sites to promote civic causes, express their opinions on issues, and gather information related to civics, and compared their levels of engagement to that of their peers. We found that Millennials who use social networking sites for civic purposes are far more likely to actively engage in their own communities in each of the activities we measured.

Although we cannot conclude that belonging to social networking sites promotes civic engagement in their community, it is encouraging that civic use of social networking sites cut across income and educational gaps, meaning that low-income youth and youth without college experience were nearly as likely to use social networking sites for civic purposes as youth who had higher income or college experience. As we found in 2008, the civic engagement gap appears to be smaller among young people who engage online, and this year, we found that young Americans who are highly engaged online come from diverse economic and educational background, and are also highly engaged off-line.

Emphasis is mine.

It's understandably very tempting for elder generations to dismiss peer-to-peer internet-based activism. Even though Boomer and Xer parents continue to join Facebook, they do so for novelty's sake. The link between technology and youth activism can't be seen every day, and so, for many, it doesn't exist.

This report is one more reminder that the connection is there -- youth who use social networking sites online are doing more than changing their avatars. They do get involved/engaged in their local communities and make a difference.

A great website was started as a means of connecting progressives on Twitter called TweetProgress. According to the site the plan

"was hatched up by @jgilliam, @myrnatheminx, @jdp23 and @ginacooper to bring more progressives on Twitter, and better connect the ones who are."

A while back we did a quick hit about how Twitter is old ... er .. more middle aged... people who live in urban areas. And Politico did a piece about how more GOP elected officials are on Twitter. This is sad.

So the Folks at TweetProgress decided to fix it. Tracy - aka @myrnatheminx - was the co-founder (along with Jon Pincus) of the hashtag #p2 which basically stands for progressive 2.0 and simply serves as a much shorter tag than something like #topprog or even #tcot but helps us keep tabs on progressive tweets that should be retweeted. The website is a catalogs of all progressive tweeters who might want to be linked to other progressives.

"We want to help progressives find each other on Twitter and coalesce around progressive issues and actions," TweetProgress co-founder Tracy Viselli told The Hill. "There is a huge pool of progressives out there doing very cool stuff already on Twitter, but not everyone knows about what they are doing. We hope to use TweetProgress to do that."

The site went live just in the last couple days–against the intentions of Viselli and the site's co-founders. . .

"I think we've always seen ourselves as different from conservatives on Twitter," Viselli said. "First, TweetProgress is not built around there being an elite like [#]TCOT is. We want everyone to join the progressive fold and help us get our message across."

As you can see the real goal of TweetProgress is to allow newbie twitter folks to join and find mentors who are already established twitter'ers and can help them learn the ropes of progressive tweeting. Another goal is for #p2 folks to reach out to other progressives who don't know about all of the great work that is being done on Twitter to help progressive activism.

While more GOP elected officials might be more prominent or more noisy on Twitter, TweetProgress is banking on the millions of other users who just don't know the impact they can have if they join the cause.

I think this is a great opportunity to also bring more young people to twitter. While so many young people prefer facebook or myspace as a means of updating their status, you can download apps to your iPhone for Twitter and you can sync your twitter account to your Facebook account so it feeds directly into your status update. That way you don't have to navigate that detailed interface while going 80mph down the highway... ... not .. that I've done that..... .... ....

If you work with a cause, an organization, or candidate I wrote a few weeks ago about some of the most successful tweeting campaigns I've been grateful to worked with. And Kevin Bondelli's All Inclusive Guide to Twitter can be found here too. And if that isn't enough of a ringing endorsement of why you should join Twitter or join TweetProgress... then the coolest thing is that Al Gore signed up for it.

This past weekend, many activists from around the state gathered in Wichita to attend the Democracy for America Campaign Academy. At the two day campaign training we learned about many aspects of running a campaign. There were sessions on everything from canvassing to budgeting to GOTV efforts; needless to say this weekend was extremely valuable to us all. This weekend we also saw an unexpected flex of the power of social networking. As many of you may know, on Saturday Kansas State Rep. Raj Goyle (D) made the announcement that he intends to run for U.S. Congress in 2010, in House District KS-04. This announcement was to be released the next day in the paper. As Rep. Goyle announced, there were multiple people at the training who immediately sent the exciting news out on Twitter (I am proud to say I was the 3rd person to tweet it). As a result of all of our tweets and all the people retweeting what we said, multiple media sources picked up the story and released it only hours after the announcement was made to us.

Read more about Rep. Goyle''s annoucement in P.J. Pohly's post.

What we saw this weekend is not an isolated incident of social networking changing the way we communicate and the way information travels in our society. The true power of social networking sites like Twitter was shown when Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN in the race to 1 million followers; Ashton won. His point was to show that any person can be just as powerful as one of the biggest news networks out there.

Social networking is changing the way our world works and thinks. It enables us to communicate quicker, outreach to people we would never be able to before, and it gives a voice to people who, without blogs, would not be able to advocate for their issue or write about their experience (i.e. with out Everyday Citizen you would not be reading anything I write).

I believe that social networking has a huge number of benefits, especially when used in the political world. Now politicians can respond to events or stories personally without having to count on a reporter to paint the picture they want, or to publicize an event without having to worry about it being covered. Sites like Twitter and Facebook allow candidates to connect with their constituents and people all around the world on a daily basis. These sites also allow people to get to know their candidate better and for the candidate to be more transparent.

Social networking has become huge part of our society, a testament to that is the live blogging coverage happening now at the Sotomayor confirmation hearing. What used to be a room full of reporters who would write down everything then a day later publish it so that everyone could read it, has become a room full of bloggers giving us the run down as it happens. Social networking will only continue to play an important role in our society and continue to grow and change the power of media as we know it.

I encourage everyone to join Twitter and experience it for themselves. I especially encourage politicians to join Twitter and be apart of the media change that is happening now.

Originally posted at www.everydaycitizen.com

You've got to love young conservatives. Stick them in front of a computer and hilarity ensues. Whether it's gangsta raps about Ayn Rand, or this latest missive from the College Republican National Committee (emphasis mine):

From: Zach Howell, College Republicans
Date: Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 1:49 PM
Subject: Closing STORM

One year and over 200,000 members later, I'm pleased to announce that STORM, the College Republican's social activism network has successfully served its purpose and has now been closed as scheduled.

STORM proved to be a successful utility to organize our membership, coordinate the Fall 2008 field program, and keep in communication with our 200,000 members.

You can rest assured that we'll continue to keep you in the loop on upcoming projects, as well as supply you with the tools you need to be an effective activist online and on campus.

In conjunction with the completion of STORM we surveyed nearly 2,000 College Republicans to better understand what drives YOU to connect online. Here's what you told us:

85% of survey respondents told us they're connected online at least four hours a day, with almost half saying they're “always” connected. For most, this includes using the Internet on a mobile device.

Almost 95% of College Republicans have accounts on Facebook, and a vast majority are active on multiple social networks. In addition, about three quarters of respondents spend at least one hour a day on social networking sites.

When asked what features you would like to see on a future College Republican network, the most popular responses included a job posting board, event sharing, integration with Facebook, and talking points on hot-button issues.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Sincerely,

Zach Howell
National Chairman
College Republicans

Riiiiiiight. Their proprietary social network was so "successful" that they decided to dismantle it. Because after the 2008 election, there would never be any need to quickly and efficiently organize "200,000" College Republicans. I know conservatives are fond of declaring the End of History, I didn't realize there was also an End of Organizing as well.

Or maybe things didn't go "as scheduled." Maybe this is in response to the fact that the system cost upwards of $300,000 and never actually worked, eliciting ridicule from the rank and file College Republicans. Maybe it's because so few people used the system that they got punked trying to run a contest during the RNC. Or maybe it's because if the system actually worked and was sustainable, they wouldn't be able to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars in welfare to conservative web development firms.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. There's nothing to be alarmed about here folks, everything is proceeding according to plan. This is our regularly scheduled programming.

Conservatives have a lot of work to do if they want to climb out of their demographic hole. Something tells me that Millennials aren't going to want to be involved in an organization that lies to its membership.

Last night, though Princeton University had a scary situation on its hands, we were able to see how our rapidly-developing social networking technology could be used during an emergency situation. Luckily the situation had the best ending possible, but the students' posting of information on Twitter, while a good idea in principle, is something to pay attention to for future, similar situations.

The school's public safety office issued a text message alert around 12:40 a.m. notifying students of someone who looked to be a "student-age male" carrying a weapon near a University building. A web alert was subsequently posted, reporting much of the same information.

Alex Flores, a masters student at Princeton, documented most of the communications by the school (on its website and a text message) on his blog, and wanted to do the same with students' reactions on Twitter. After the university's web alert, Flores searched Twitter to see what students were saying. I've provided the results.

[UPDATE @ 1:15AM] Maybe not so safe… Twitter is getting a little hectic. The true Public Safety Report is quoted below - specifically that someone is carrying a “weapon.” Leave it to undergrads to start exaggerating! First:

Reports of suspicious person with weapon at princeton near spelman, univ. says stay inside and lock doors

Then 15/20 minutes later:

Man with gun @ Princeton campus. All students asked to stay in their rooms.

Princeton is sending out a lot of alarming information about someone with a gun somewhere on the campus. Keep the doors locked, they say.

Unconfirmed gunman on Princeton campus.

State of emergency at Princeton?? Freaking out a little bit, not gonna lie

I'm sure there were many posts and status updates on Facebook regarding the incident, but if the tweeting is anything like what was being posted there, there were many who probably assumed this student had a gun. Which was not something, as Alex notes, that Princeton's public safety office had initially said.

One limitation with Twitter in a crisis situation is this embellishment piece. With it being so easy to provide information to others via this medium, the natural tendency is to exaggerate what is going on -- not intentionally, necessarily -- but enough that it could affect an illogical audience's internalization of the events.

Again, I'm happy that this event was isolated and yielded nothing harmful to the Princeton community, and I'm happy that people did make the effort to disseminate information on Twitter. But I think we should have more thought in the future about how best to filter good information from the erroneous stuff in these situations. Perhaps that's the price to pay, though, for our revolutionary technology.