On Saturday I had the pleasure of moderating another youth panel at this year's SXSW Interactive. For the second year in a row, and with the generous help of the women at OneSeventeen Media and the teachers at two local "new tech" high schools, we were able to offer attendees a glimpse of how teens are using the web and their phones. As with any youth panel or focus group, eight teenagers don't represent all teenagers, but what I heard on Saturday echoes a few big trends I've been noticing for awhile.

The MySpace and Facebook divide
danah boyd was one of the first folks to write about her observations of race/class divisions on MySpace and Facebook based on her ethnographic research. I also read S. Craig Watkin's manuscript for a book on youth and technology coming out soon that sheds even more light on how these two sites are perceived and the racial overtones around who is on which site. Even on our small panel, I heard one of the white female teens say Facebook while the African American and Hispanic teens all said MySpace. But it's not just that it breaks down by race/class — one of the Hispanic teens added that he creates music and shares/promotes it on MySpace and others mentioned they still like to design their pages. Another Hispanic female teen on the panel had given MySpace a rest for the past couple of years but was now thinking about joining Facebook. The fact that teens who were early adopters of social networking are giving it a rest is also noteworthy, and I would guess that time spent on both these sites is down from where it was two years ago for these teens. We also heard a bit about the ups and downs of adults being on these sites. Ups: You get to know your teachers as people, seeing different sides to them. Downs: Do I really want to know that much about mom and her friends?

IM/Chat
One of the attendees from Meebo asked the panelists about using IM and chat. Since our panelists were all 15-17, they all had phones (only one had an iPhone). What I found interesting is that phones and SMS basically replace chat for the most part as soon as tweens get a phone. The panelists mentioned being able to do IM on their phones as well. All of this makes sense as teens get older and become more mobile – they want to take their IM/chat with them. Still one teen did talk about using IM for "special" chats — when you couldn't really say what you needed in a MySpace message or comment, then chat becomes a place to have that conversation. It's almost as if chat is the step before you pick up the phone and talk.

Twitter
Two teens on our panel admitted they just learned about Twitter at the SXSW Tradeshow. One of our panelists heard about it on Deviant Art and through their teachers talking about it at school (remember these are "new tech" schools – so high technology use/collaborative, project based learning, etc.). Yes, Twitter is getting tons of press and buzz and is growing rapidly, but I still maintain it is not being embraced by teenagers. We also had an audience member ask about RSS and got a lot of blank stares. Another reminder that teenagers use a lot of tech but on the whole, aren't really "techies."

Brand sites
None of our panelists could really recall spending time on a brand site. I'm sure they may have ended up on one at some point searching for something they wanted (Apple, Nike, etc.), but the notion of going to one of these sites to hang out or watch videos, didn't seem like something they would do. When asked about friending brands, it seemed like a couple had, though one teen said he did it as kind of a joke (Wendy's – even though he likes Wendy's). They also talked about buying stuff online — it's still a multi-step process that involves parents. One of the panelists mentioned selling stuff on eBay (you're supposed to be 18 to sell on eBay, but I hear this from teens a lot). When asked about widgets/apps, almost all of them mentioned Mafia Wars.

Video
A few teens mentioned using Hulu to watch shows like "Heroes" or "Dollhouse" (our Deviant Art girl was also a Joss Whedon fan). They also mentioned YouTube, especially the guys, for watching viral videos or stuff where people fall down or run into things. When asked about video quality — it matters when the content matters, i.e. for sports or full length shows — not so much for people falling down. As for watching traditional TV? Not so much on this panel. I asked if they watched MTV…also negative. What was funny about that was one of the panelists talked about how it used to be more about music and now it's all these dumb shows. (I didn't think they remembered when it was more music videos!)

Games/virtual worlds
This group was more into console games and divided between XBox and Playstation. I heard Halo mentioned as well as Home on the Playstation as a virtual world one of the panelists visited (she said it's sort of like The Sims). Another panelist said he had an account on Habbo Hotel and would occasionally play games there. One of the panelists who played more casual games had a Wii and mentioned Addicting Games as a site to download those games.

Reading
This panel said they still loved to read for pleasure. Although, when I asked about recent books they'd read, the responses, Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby, sounded more like assignments than books they chose to read for fun. One of the girls also mentioned graphic novels (I think it was the Deviant Art girl, naturally). When asked if they would read eBooks – they were aware of the Kindle and one panelist said if it was a book I really wanted to read (and if it's a FREE .pdf), she would read it digitally.

Other tidbits
None of our panelists used IE (Firefox, Safari, Opera were all mentioned). And yes, they're still downloading music from sites like Pirate Bay, but most of them also raised their hands and said they paid for music…sometimes. None of the teens on this panel said they keep their profiles private (just for their friends) – danah was on an earlier panel about privacy and mentioned that for teens who feel very controlled/monitored/have less freedom at home, the internet actually feels like a private place in contrast (even though it's public). Wikipedia and Google still rule when it comes to doing research though they admitted their teachers weren't happy about Wikipedia. And causes or charity work for this group were more about fulfilling required community service hours (no real self-identified activists, though one teen had heard of a SocialVibe campaign that involved Hayden Panettiere and the whales).

For more coverage of youth marketing, go to the Ypulse Youth Marketing Channel sponsored by Youth Marketing Connection.

Categorized under: Web, Youth Marketing

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