It’s a big Internet out there, and we’re constantly searching in it. For parents who can't have their eyes everywhere at once, the lack of a filter continues to bring up concerns. The solution? Up for debate.

Some say the answer is systematic parental control. The latest version of Windows Vista, for instance, advertises, "a centralized location where [parents] can turn parental controls on and off; block or allow specific programs, games, and websites; and set controls for every aspect of [their] child's computer use." My question is: how do parents control the online activities that take place away from home? And what about those crafty kids that figure out a way to access the central panel and select the off options?

Another idea for keeping surfing safe online is to introduce a kid-friendly search engine like the recently re-launched visual search engine Quintura for Kids When I first went online not so many years ago, it was on AOL which prompted users to select settings by age (Kids, Teens, etc.) The restrictions seemed secondary to the enticing content that the welcome page had to offer me. Quintura's method is more akin to this positive approach of promising kid-centric content. Also, the approach doesn’t wed the kid to his or her home computer, but rather allows them to use their search engine of choice from anywhere on any machine or device. Of course, there’s no rule saying parents can’t employ both methods, but is there a limit to placing limits?

Political activism in the age of Facebook. Truly, an impressive thing to behold. Over the course of this election, I have seen friends use every tool in the site's ever-expanding toolbox– from groups to gifts to profile pictures– to get the vote out for their candidate. Interestingly, however, one of the most effective platforms for announcing solidarity has been the status update.

With teens and early twentysomethings slow to get aboard the Twitter train, statuses are the closest many come to microblogging. And for the past few months when answering the open-ended prompt ("What are you doing right now?"), it seems many have chosen to embrace the space as a virtual soapbox.

Of course, I bring this up on election day because the percentage of politic-centric statuses has significantly spiked. In fact, according to a story published yesterday in PC World many users (up to 1,215,555 as of this morning) have actually "donated" their statuses through the Causes Election Rally application. What does that mean exactly? From the article in PC World:

As part of the Causes Election Rally application on the social-networking site, users can pick to which candidate — either Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain — they would like to donate their status on Facebook. They also can donate their status simply to get out the vote.

Once users have done so, their status reflects their choice in this way: Elizabeth is the 470,111th person to donate her status to get out the vote for Barack Obama or John McCain, depending on which candidate the user chose.

The status update also includes a link to the application.

If a user changes his or her status after donating it, it will automatically be set to the "get out the vote" status at 12:01 a.m. local time on election day.

Lots happening in tween media land today including the Jonas Bros. making their leap to the big screen with a Farrelly brothers adaptation of the book series "Walter the Farting Dog." Lest the Olympics fade from our memories, the gymnastics stars are going on what looks like a very tween-friendly tour.

In online tween news, Miss O & Friends is teaming up with Albie Hecht’s Worldwide Biggies to develop a branded casual game based on the popular tween community. Tween site Shop Like Anna launches a celebrity section that "includes music, videos, and lyrics for users to sing along to, and members can follow the artists through direct updates and special interviews, releases, and performances." And Club Penguin celebrates its third anniversary in NYC with a big bash.

Finally, with the holidays around the corner and the financial news not getting much brighter, Campaign For A Commercial Free Childhood asks marketers to focus on parents (Media Post, reg. required) instead of kids this holiday season. And, a new organization with a mission I embrace: Parents For Ethical Marketing.

Today's Ypulse Youth Advisory Board feature is from Caroline Marques who will clue us in on how many teens are finding a new way to download their favorite music [for free]. Remember you can contact our board directly via email at youthadvisoryboard at ypulse.com.

Teens downloading music online is still alive and well thanks to this technique: tube converting. This time it’s not through Limewire, but through something closer to home: YouTube or any online video site. Since YouTube is where most teens watch music videos, it makes sense. Sites like http://file2hd.com, www.vconversion.com and www.vixy.net are programs where you just type a URL and save the song. With a small chance of getting viruses, and the enormous choice of songs, many teens feel this method is easier and safer.

Here's how it works. To listen to a song on YouTube, there needs to be a video. You take the URL of that video to one of the sites I mentioned above, and convert it into an mp4 (ipod file), for example. Of course, downloading illegal music isn’t good, but it’s also something I don't think teenagers (and many adults) will ever stop doing. Teens may hesitate on the issue of it being illegal, but then they rationalize what they're doing by thinking that they’re just taking it from YouTube, so it’s okay.

I have heard of lots of people switching from Limewire to tube converting because it doesn’t crash your computer. The only flaw [besides it being illegal and the sound quality not being that great] people have discovered right now is the speed; you need to find a good, fast site. But you can download anything to anywhere: your computer, ipod, cell phone or even PSP. Teenagers love this, you just need to copy, paste and save…

About Caroline Marques (aka "Caro")

Caroline is a high school student in Geneva, Switzerland. While Caroline lists sports, music and travelling as her hobbies, she also very much enjoys writing and reading. After being a teen adviser for NickMag, she thought Ypulse would be the perfect opportunity for a new start. While trying to keep up with the trends (or setting some of her own), dance classes, working on long papers and trying to master three new languages, she rarely has time to write the novel she wishes she could finish, though she is certain one day she will. Writing is never far from her thoughts.

Yesterday, I posted a link in Essentials about Twitter being the fastest growing social network according to Nielsen. Ypulse reader Stephanie who is in her early twenties and runs Sweet Designs, an online teen magazine, wrote in and said:

A few months ago when I signed up for Twitter, I sent a message to the teens on my staff to add me. Many of them replied with "What's Twitter?". Only one of them signed up to add me. The rest apparently didn't have one and didn't care to sign up.

I got bored with Twitter really fast. I've personally found Plurk to be a lot more fun and addicting. I Plurk everyday, but have signed into Twitter maybe twice since I started on Plurk. Twitter must be growing among business professionals from what I'm seeing (through LinkedIn, etc).

Plurk is still fairly new - June 2008, so I don't think many know about the site yet. It seems like I've been able to find teens and young adults on Plurk quite a bit easier than with Twitter (and IMO Plurk is a lot more fun). I see a LOT of bloggers and business professionals on both of these (more flooding to Twitter than Plurk).

I'm also curious about how many teens are on Tumblr (my guess would be more creative/artistic teens sharing photos, etc.). My sense is that it's more early twentysomethings who are in media or technology using these services vs. mainstream youth right now. If you think about it, since teens' social networks are mostly comprised of friends they know in real life, and the majority are teens they go to school with, they sort of already know what their friends are up to at any given moment - usually via text messaging or a status message within MySpace or Facebook. Not sure what Twitter or Plurk offer to teens that they don't already have in the tools they already use. For adults/professionals/brands, it's more about offering our adult "friends" a glimpse into our personal lives, thought processes or sharing interesting links. Thoughts?

Sorta Related:

College kids tweeting

Manish Chandra is the co-founder and CEO of Kaboodle, a fantastic social shopping community (now owned by Hearst) that allows users to discover, recommend and share their favorite products. In the past two years, Kaboodle has drawn in more than 550,000 registered users and over 7 million monthly visitors. Manish will be speaking on the "How to Reach Youth on Social Networks" panel at next month's Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup East in Boston.

Ypulse:What inspired you to start Kaboodle?

Manish Chandra: My wife and I were in the process of remodeling our home and we found that discovering new products, finding new brands and sharing any information online were all very difficult. There wasn’t any one place in which we could share and communicate about our shopping finds and keep track of all our favorite things. Kaboodle was born out of a personal need that turns out to be quite universal.

YP: What do you think teens or the younger generation demand from the online shopping experience?

MC: The shopping experience needs to be both fun and personal. Teens and the younger generation are very savvy online and have a strong sense of self-expression. These groups tend to gravitate towards interactive experiences. Using creative online shopping features, such the ability to create a Styleboard, and then share it with others, fosters interaction among these groups and is very important as it further integrates shopping into their broader online lives.

YP: What feature on Kaboodle is especially popular with young adults/why?

MC: The two features that really appeal to young adults are our Styleboards and Help Me Choose polls. Styleboards allow shoppers to combine a set of items from anywhere online and create a personalized display of their online finds. Styleboards allow users to creatively show off items in a variety of visually interesting ways much like a magazine spread. Our Help Me Choose polls allow users to take 2-3 items and ask their friends and the Kaboodle community which is the best or most appropriate item for them. Both these features enhance the social interaction among our community and provide tools so users can add their own personal touch.

YP: What new features or initiatives do you have planned for Kaboodle in 09?

MC: Kaboodle will be offering a broader platform for online contests that allows us to partner with brands and retailers more frequently and also gives our community more fun ways to interact with each other. We will also be offering support for integrating photos and products so people can tag photos with the products that are being used in the photo.

YP: Anything else you think Ypulse readers should know?

MC: While Kaboodle is all about making shopping social and fun, one of the simple but powerful things that we offer are the Kaboodle buttons. The buttons allows users to quickly add products from any retailer's website and organize their shopping effortlessly. No more book marks, saved pictures in folders or other painful ways of saving the products you want to look at or share. Kaboodle buttons make it real easy with a simple click to save anything from any retailer on the web.

Yesterday I linked to a press release highlighting results from Best Buy's @15 survey. I'm seeing headlines today that @15 is becoming a social network focused on political and community outreach for teenagers. Best Buy is not Wal-Mart but I worry that launching its own branded social network may meet the same fate, i.e. a collection of profiles without that much activity (the site is here). I know Best Buy is partnered with Youth Venture around funding youth-led projects, but why not partner or promote @15 on an existing social network already popular with youth (oops missed that they are on Facebook, YouTube, etc. - thanks Allison!)? Thoughts?

See also:

Thoughts on building branded communities

Today's Youth Advisory Board feature is from Bruna Bonguardo, who reminds us that the Urban Dictionary isn't just a place to look up various slang — it's also a glimpse into teen life illustrated by language. Remember you can contact our board directly via email at youthadvisoryboard at ypulse.com.

Best In Youth Media: UrbanDictionary.com

UrbanDictionary.com is one of the top 250 sites on the web. It was even nominated by the Time Magazine as one of the 50 best websites of 2008. So what is Urban Dictionary? It's a web-based dictionary of definitions of slang words, phrases, and even emoticons (like o_O, for example, which according to the Urban Dictionary means “confused, stunned or weirded out”).

It’s amazing how much teenagers like this successful website, and how helpful it can be for adults trying to understand and reach teens. Anyone can contribute to Urban Dictionary, even anonymous users.

On this website you can find definitions of a word like "cool," or even more complicated words to define, like "love." But the thing is that you don't necessarily have to agree with the definitions, you can simply vote them "up" or "down." There are some words with just one or two definitions, while other words have hundreds.

In October 2005 some Urban Dictionary's definitions were turned into a book called Urban Dictionary: Fularious Street Slang Defined. In October 2007, the second book was made available, the Mo' Urban Dictionary: Ridonkulous Street Slang Defined.

Some of the highest-rated definitions on Urban Dictionary are about the Urban Dictionary itself. They claim that it "is a place formerly used to find out about slang, and now a place that teens with no life use as a burn book," and the "coolest semi-fake dictionary ever made," or even "the result of millions of teenagers who have too much free time."

However its users define it, Urban Dictionary is definitely a very helpful website for offering a peek inside the teenage mind.

About Bruna Bonguardo
Bruna is a 16-year-old Brazilian teenager who moved to Israel in 2004. She can speak, read and write in four languages, and she loves learning about new cultures. Bruna always loved computers, and she wants to study computer science in college. She also loves webdesign and writing, and she had a blog for about two years. Now she's planning to start a new one again. Even though she loves writing, her passion is reading. She loves reading fiction books, but now she's starting to read autobiographies and non-fiction books. She is a senior in High School, where she successfully studies Software Engineering.

Full disclosure: myYearbook is a sponsor of Ypulse.com and our Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup events.

Our friends at myYearbook gave us an early heads up on a new feature they just launched called Causes (the release is scheduled to hit the wires tomorrow). We linked to a story in Essentials the other day about how in tight times, teens may spend more time and money in virtual worlds where they can buy virtual goods for a fraction of what it costs to buy these same products in real life (IRL). myYearbook may be capitalizing on this trend in a different way - by allowing its members to donate with virtual money.

With Causes, myYearbook users can choose from a number of causes like ending world hunger, fighting climate change, saving the rainforests or curing cancer. They donate with virtual money, i.e. $40 buys one grain of rice (expensive grain!), and then get a badge on their profile (status). As part of the process of getting the badge, users also get to choose which advertiser they want to show up on their profile (similar to what Conde Nast's Flip.com before it became a web app). The advertiser is linked to the donation/cause (looks good for them). And at the end of the month the company translates virtual donations into real cash for each of the chosen organizations. The money comes from the advertising dollars.

According to Geoff Cook, myYearbook's CEO:

We are on pace right now to donate $20,000 USD per month but that is increasing as the application gains in popularity with its addition to the toolbar.

Users on average have $50,000 in total Lunch Money balance to give. You can click here to see the Top Givers (be sure to change the filter from Friends to Everyone) to see that many users have given over 10M in Lunch Money.

In terms of donation sizes to date, here are a few:

46,626,931 grains of rice
1,775,100 ounces of CO2
1,775,100 ounces of CO2

Organizations receiving money from myYearbook are:

World Food Programme
CarbonFund.org
Conservation International (rainforest preservation)
The North Shore Animal League
Action Against Hunger (clean drinking water)
Alex's Lemonade Stand (cancer research)
Books for Africa
The Global Fund (HIV/AIDS prevention)
Save Darfur
Beyond Shelter's "Housing First" Program for Homeless Families
Child Help (child abuse prevention)

By combining a gaming model (you have to spend time and play games to earn virtual money, can only donate so much per day and receive badges to reflect your new status) with teens' desire to "do good" and advertisers' desire to reach teens while being associated with pro-social causes, you have to admit this is pretty smart cause marketing. It's a pretty nifty way for myYearbook to sell advertising as well. One pitfall to watch out for - when choosing an advertiser to go along with your cause, myYearbook will have to be careful the advertiser isn't somehow working against the cause (like a cosmetics company that tests on animals linked to animal welfare or a clothing brand that has violated child labor laws linked to child abuse)….

Today's Youth Advisory Board feature is from Michael Hayball, our resident computer geek from Michigan. In his opinion, Google Chrome makes the grade for our Best In Youth Media ongoing series where YAB members highlight what they and their friends are into. Remember you can contact our board directly via email at youthadvisoryboard at ypulse.com.

Best In Youth Media: Google Chrome

Google has become a part of our generation's daily lives. We use it to search for everything from politician’s views to celebrity news, then we email our links with Gmail, and sort our pictures with Picasa. It’s only natural that Google would come out with a web browser to tie in all these services.

Chrome is Google’s entry into the web browser competition between Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, with a bit of Opera and Safari thrown in for good measure. Chrome is exactly what the name infers — shiny and new. Chrome has a new homepage, displaying your most-accessed websites, and all of the relevant menus are thrown into two buttons on the side. All of Chrome is streamlined, even the underlying architecture. Google has made its browser into a mini operating system, complete with a task manager saying what tab is using the most memory!

More importantly, Chrome reflects the bigger trend of young adults wanting a choice between browsers, and who don’t want the default browser that IE is, or the memory hog that Firefox can be. They want a faster, lightweight browser with new ideas like helping them browse their MySpace faster (MySpace works with Chrome to index your messages.) Chrome is the proverbial hip new kid on the block, who has the cred to become popular and just needs time to do so.

About Michael Hayball

Michael lives a simple life in Allen Park, MI. When he is not attending Henry Ford Community College for his Associates, he can be seen chatting and socializing around campus and the local coffee shop. He enjoys a good iced caramel cappuccino, or a regular coca-cola. Michael loves what he calls “The Blog Music," and he was and still is raised on a steady diet of electronic music and old-school hip hop. Michael hopes to work for Spin magazine one day, and screams like a little girl every time a new issue comes to the local coffee shop.