YPULSE: Youth and Millennial Marketing

Originally posted on Special Project Library Action Team's blog, but I figured I'd share my thoughts here as well =D

I’m all about stealing other people’s great ideas (which is why Creative Commons is such a great idea for me hehe). Now my boss (the awesome Karen Yother) likes to refer to it as “not reinventing the wheel,” and others comment, “that everyone remixes used ideas.” Either way, this week’s post is thanks to (the also awesome) Nick Grove, who mentioned YPULSE to me at our last quarterly SPLAT meeting.

YPULSE offers a wide range of resources aimed at understanding the trends and attitudes of tweens, teens, and young adults. Through a Youth Advisory Board, an online research panel, and a mobile social Q&A network, YPULSE offers content, data, and insight on the next generation of consumers. Now this kind of market research doesn’t come cheap, which is why the silver and gold subscriptions will cost you a pretty penny per month. But, they also have a bronze subscription (which only costs you an email subscription) that gets you a couple of features worth mentioning.

One such feature is the Daily Email Newsletter, that sums up the latest youth marketing news. The YPULSE infographics, articles, and detailed data are kept hidden for silver and gold members. But, there are many articles that reference third party sources you can check out at your convenience, and a small synopsis of each of the YPULSE features are still included to give you an idea. The Email Update also shows the results of a daily poll featuring questions on social media, music, and movies, and you can even ask one question of your own per month.

Now I’ve only been getting the YPULSE newsletter for a couple weeks now, but there have already been a few tidbits I’ve found interesting. Did you know that Sup is a new app wanting to duke it out with Snapchat, Push for Pizza is an app that will order you a pizza with one push on your screen, and that a writer for Vulture thinks Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles takes itself too seriously? Obviously these things aren’t library breaking revelations. But offering events and services for this age group is integral to continued library success and if someone is offering some free tidbits, my question is where do I sign up (and if you have any ideas worth stealing, which I know you do, feel free to send them my way!).

Glogster: Create Interactive Posters

Once again, my SPLAT homies have put me onto a cool site for all of you =D They mentioned this site a couple months ago, but I forgot the name of it. Then, they mentioned it again this last time we had our quarterly meeting, so I figure I'll do a post on it so I don't forget again hehe.

The site is Glogster, and its another one of those social media like thingys. This network focuses on creating interactive posters called Glogs (Graphic Blogs), combining pictures, text, videos, and graphics into your own creation.

Like most of the social media entities, this does require creating a free account. Glogster seems to promote its connectivity to video and photo sites (like Youtube and Flickr), and then the sharing feature for all your other social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and the like).

For educators, there is also a Glogster EDU that has recently been launched to offer private classroom management of multiple Glogster accounts. Just so you know, these ones cost money.

So if you make a lot of posters, I thought that this might be a cool alternative to the traditional stuff. 

Netted By the Webbys: Cool Websites Sent to Your Email

So I think I heard about Netted By the Webbys from a SPLAT (Special Project Library Action Team) colleague, and I'm so glad she mentioned them!

Basically, dudes at Netted scour the online world for surprising sites, awesome apps, and useful URLs and then send you an email each morning to tell you what they found. The email you subscribe to has a really nice format, and only highlights one cool thing a day, making it really quick and easy to read.

They have a search engine on their website for archived posts, and I'm really impressed with the cool things they point out each day. A recent post mentioned JPEGmini, which shrinks the file size of a photo while retaining the original quality. Another one was StickyGram, that turns your Instagram photos into cool fridge magnets. Some of the finds may not apply to you personally, but they are cool to read about anyways, and when they do apply to you personally, they are really awesome!

Blekko: Slash the Web!

This isn't technically Techno Tuesdays anymore because this is Wednesday. But, because I couldn't post yesterday, I figured I'd still give you some awesome website action!

So once a quarter myself and other members of SPLAT (Special Project Library Action Team) get together and talk about cool websites, trends, and the future of libraries in Idaho and beyond. Blekko is something that has come up at a couple of meetings, so I wanted to share it with you :)

Blekko's primary elevator speech is that it is the spam free search engine. They use human editors to help eleminate low quality websites that fill other search engines. Who doesn't want a bunch of ads and lame sites when they are searching (insert hand raise here)?

Another big part of what Blekko does is slashtag searching. What is that? "It is a tool used to filter search results and helps you to search only high quality sites, without spam or content farms." A couple examples are /date /like /news and /gossip. Each one of these slashtags will limit your search term to that particular subject area. Pretty cool, no?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a big part of many company's search to be the top results on a search engine. The thinking behind SEO, is that search engines are based on computer programs, so if you know what they are looking for, your website could be higher on the list of results.

Blekko makes this easy by having information on inbound links to a website, when Blekko last crawled (a program that checks out new information on websites that are then used on the search engine results) the site, and how many pages are on that particular site. Just use the /seo slashtag, and you're on your way. You have to have a Blekko account to use this feature, but it is once again pretty cool.

Blekko also does a Grep once a day. What is that you may ask? They ask their users to submit things they want compared, and then Blekko does a report on it. One example was +1 button vs. FB like button vs. FB share button.

Sound interesting? Well you can easily compare Blekko with Bing and Google to see what you like the most. Just type in a search term and the slashtag /monte, and it will show you results from all three. May the search be with you!

Direct from Boise (a little late)

Airplanes killed the Web Log Post

Hello everyone!

So, it’s been a while since I’ve posted a weekly update. My Facebook page has been busy with links to blog posts and articles, but I haven’t actually written down what I’ve been doing because it’s been so busy. So, here we go.

The last two weeks began with a meeting with the Secondary School Librarians. It’s always great to find out what they are doing, and to inform them about our upcoming programs. School librarians are awesome!

In addition to meeting with the School Librarians, I also went into the schools to finish up the Atlas After School Academy. After creating slideshows on their partners, I had the guys split into two groups and create commercials. One group decided to do it on Beyblades (dueling tops basically) and the other group decided to do a comical commercial on Toxic Water and Toxic Band-Aids. I had a great time with the guys, and they seemed to have a great time as well. Getting the chance to be creative is always fun!

The end of that week caught me flying to Boise for the culmination of Teens and Technology 2011. It was my first time in an airplane, and it was my first time traveling for business. I thought that flying to Boise was a great way to break myself into traveling because it’s a short and easy flight. I find that I really enjoy flying (feels like a roller coaster), and the hotel was plenty nice.

The Idaho Commission for Libraries held regional workshops in February, and after we submitted our booktrailers and held our Teen Tech Week programs, we wanted to get together and discuss what worked and what didn’t work. In addition to brainstorming and discussing, there were also presentations from librarians. I presented on our Teen Film Festival and how we promoted it, another librarian spoke on adding videos to a card catalog, and another spoke on using a digital photo frame for promotion. The workshop was a lot of fun, and I find that I like business trips!

One of the reasons I didn’t put up a weekly update last week was because I had written a blog post for the Special Project Library Action Team. You can access it here. This was exciting because anyone can start their own blog, but it’s pretty cool to write for a collaboration blog read by people across the state.

After all my work with the ICfL, they wanted to feature me in their Youth Services newsletter, “The Scoop.” They had me fill out a profile and send in some pictures, and they wrote a cool article about me. You can read it here.

Sorry this is a little long, but it takes a while to write about two weeks. Hehe

Have a great week!

Augmented Reality

Last week, I mentioned my involvement with SPLAT (Special Project Library Action Team), and there is a really cool technology that SPLAT brought to my attention. It’s called augmented reality. Basically, a web cam and QR codes (a special barcode that is two-dimensional instead of one dimensional) allows a two-dimensional object in real space to become a three dimensional object on a computer monitor. It’s cool to say the least. You can check out a video demonstration here.

Speaking of cool stuff, I once again had the chance to do a Ka-Boom: Science Experiments program this past Monday. We had a great group of kids show up, and we had fun experimenting with magnets, static electricity and attraction (obviously, attraction is the principle behind magnetism and static electricity, but it also seemed so appropriate for Valentine’s day hehe).

I’ve been mentioning the Teens and Technology Course that I’m involved with, and this past week I fulfilled another one of the course requirements. As participants, we are going to create a booktrailer with a group of teens, and this past week I went down to a Canfield Middle School and met with their video production class. The class does a live video announcement broadcast several times a week, and they are considering doing booktrailers as a story. Originally, I thought we’d create a booktrailer at a special event, but having students create booktrailers as part of their school assignments works just as well for me. The teacher was also excited about doing booktrailers with some of her other classes, which is exciting for us. The whole idea of Teens and Technology is to encourage the use of technology and information about technology, so I’m really liking the way this partnership is shaping up.

In another school this week, I was helping out at a Geography club. Skyway Elementary is having a geography bee in late March, and Karen and I are helping to prepare the kids for the event. For the next few weeks, we’ll be playing games, looking at atlases, and asking questions to prepare kids for the local bee. The life of a librarian is a funny thing, because I know very little about Geography (as Karen can attest to) and yet I’m still able to help kids out through the information available to them. Should be a good time!

Last thing, you still have one more week to enter in our Library Teen Film Festival! Get your entry forms to a participating library, and get those videos posted to YouTube.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next week!

Excuse Free

Hey, hows it going?

Well, I could make excuses for the lack of Book Blurt this week, but that’s what it would be: excuses. I think there is a difference between explanations and excuses. Sometimes, there really is no way you could have gotten it done, or no way you could have attended; I’d say that needs an explanation. But, when something could get done, but you don’t do it, well…then I would label that as an excuse. So, here’s an excuse-free blog post for you.

First, I figure I’ll mention a video that I put up on my YouTube channel this week. It’s a quick recap, trailer-like funness about our Teens and Technology 2011 Coeur d’ Alene Workshop. Check it out here.

The second thing is that our deadline for entering our Teen Film Festival is up in two weeks. Get your entry forms to a participating library, and get the YouTube Upload Instructions while you’re there. Then, we hope to see you at our Red Carpet Event on Saturday, March 5 from 7-9pm. Even if you haven’t entered a video, you can still join us for viewing the films at the Red Carpet Event. Check out the website here.

The last thing I wanted to mention today is my involvement with SPLAT. Last month, I sent in an application to the Idaho Commission for Libraries to join there SPLAT team. Two members had just stepped down, and they accepted my application. SPLAT stands for the Special Project Library Action Team. “The charge of the Special Project Library Action Team is to serve in a crow’s nest capacity to search for innovation, propose experiments, lead pilot projects and discover new opportunities for Idaho libraries.” SPLAT members use a lot of their time looking at new technologies and innovation across the library scene, and bringing that knowledge to other librarians.

Even though I’m far from knowing all there is to know about technology, I’m excited to learn more and to share my experiences with other librarians. Here’s to another exciting opportunity!

Well, that’s about it for this week, so we’ll see you this Wednesday.