Ypulse Essentials

Note from Chet: Hope everyone is having a great holiday. I'm just posting Essentials today.

Big youth viewership increase for World Cup (so far teen viewership is up 365 percent and two-to-11s are up 223 percent over 2002. The increase is due in part to better air times, but it looks like there is real audience growth. I'd be interested in seeing how much traffic the ESPN360 site has received for its game streams. It was reported the BBC site received 1.7 million viewers in the first two weeks) (Media Life)

- WWE 'shares the magic' (new magazine from World Wrestling Entertainment goes after young male wrestling fans who want both the latest on new razors and what it's like to be hit by a folding chair) (New York Times, reg. required)

- Adult style phone, restricted features for kids (last week Sprint came out with a new phone targeting parents buying phones for their kids. The Sanyo phone lets parents program who their kids can make and receive calls to and from, among other control features) (Kansas.com)

- Song of the summer? (so if last years song of the summer was "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani, what will be the song this year? The NY Post nominated a handful of likely songs, with Nelly Furtado’s hit "Promiscuous Girl" listed with the best odds. Like Scott at Stereogum, I’d put my money on Justin Timberlake) (Stereogum)

- Teens driving MP3 sales (a new Ipsos report shows that 54 percent of teens own an MP3 player, versus 30 percent of 18 to 34-year olds. On the whole, one in five Americans over the age of 12 own an MP3 player; an increase of one-third over last year) (Tech Trends)

- More on the 'real girl' advertising trend? (the Mudd clothing line for girls will be launching an ad campaign this fall titled "Mudds Girls Move the World." The ads supposedly feature six real-life young women chosen for their “inner beauty and aspirations to make a difference in the world.” The company will donate a total of $30,000 to the girls’ causes) (MSN)

- Changing the game (the "Games for Change" conference for social-change video games held last week brought together the community putting out games like "A Force More Powerful," that takes players through non-violent demonstration scenarios. MtvU announced they will issue 10 $25,000 grants to student game makers) (MTV News)

- Social networking for sneaker heads (Sneakerplay.com is a new social networking site that brings sneaker culture together, letting members create profiles, galleries of their collections, and enter into battles where the community votes of who’s got the best kicks)

- Girl-only schools might not provide an educational advantage (The Observer is reporting on a study that finds no evidence in an educational advantage to single-sex schools)

- YouTube to introduce advertising (there are doubts that its audience will embrace it, since they’ve grown quite used to the ad-free site) (MarketingVOX)

- Everybody's 'Watching' (Fans on YouTube may resuscitate the dead sitcom "Nobody's Watching") (New York Times, reg. required)

- Student.com radio (the student oriented social networking site has launched a commercial free online radio station with the content coming from its members) (PSFK)

- MTV Latin America launches social networking site (Lazona.com brings together bands and music lovers into a now typical social networking interface) (iMedia Connection)

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