The Social

While 99 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have profiles on social networks, only 22 percent use Twitter, according to a new survey from Pace University and the Participatory Media Network.

This is consistent with what some observers have said about Twitter's recent push from early-adopter territory into the mainstream: that it's catching on with a slightly older demographic than the teenagers and college students who formed Facebook's initial core.

But of those young people using Twitter, the survey found that 85 percent of them follow friends, 54 percent follow celebrities, 29 percent follow family members, and 29 percent follow companies--not stellar news for the brands and marketers that have flocked to Twitter as the latest "conversational" destination.

Still, the survey organizers put a positive spin on it.

"Twitter dominates the news, but clearly we're only touching the surface of its potential as a marketing vehicle," Participatory Media Network co-founder and chairman Michael Della Penna said in a release. "This is a classic 'glass half full' scenario for Twitter because it's clear that Gen Y has an appetite for social networking, but still hasn't fully embraced micro-blogging. There is a tremendous opportunity now for marketers to develop strategies to get this important group active on Twitter too."

Here's what is everywhere: social-network developer applications. Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed by Pace and the Participatory Media Network say they have installed apps on their social-network profiles.

(Credit: Howcast Media)

Facebook, Google, and the Google-owned YouTube are among the sponsors for the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit, an event taking place at New York's Columbia Law School from December 3-5.

Along with other collaborators--which include the U.S. Department of State, MTV, Access 360 Media, and start-up Howcast--the event hopes to "find (the) best ways to use digital media to promote freedom and justice, and counter violence, extremism, and oppression."

The companies have amassed 17 leaders of different activist groups and hope to bring them together to come up with a common set of principles and strategies, inspired by a movement against a Colombian extremist group that was formed and organized on Facebook.

"Aided by social-networking technologies, the organization inspired 12 million people in 190 cities around the world to take to the streets in protest against the FARC, an extremist group that has been terrorizing Colombia for more than 40 years," an announcement of the summit read. "The magnitude of the marches illustrated once and for all that the FARC lacked a strong support base. Within days of the protests, the FARC witnessed massive desertions from their ranks."

Speakers at next month's summit include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskowitz, actress and talk show host Whoopi Goldberg, and State Department Undersecretary James K. Glassman.

The State Department has already partnered with YouTube for its "Democracy Challenge," a moviemaking competition in conjunction with several film schools. And in the wake of the 2008 presidential election, Facebook has been stepping up its activism and outreach efforts; earlier this fall, it sponsored the ServiceNation summit.

(Credit: MTV)

Once the global leader in youth culture, MTV's attempts to address the social-networking craze have seemed a little puzzling sometimes (the Twittering Moon Man?) But now we've seen another piece of the entertainment brand's puzzle: Backchannel, a play-while-you watch game that's one part chat room, one part Digg, and one part Mystery Science Theater with a Mean Girls twist.

It's debuting on Monday night with that evening's episode of wildly popular reality-soap The Hills.

Here's how Backchannel works: Watch the show (for now, only The Hills is on Backchannel, but later this fall it will be accompanying the network's new reality show about Paris Hilton picking a new best friend), join a "room" of other viewers while you're watching, and offer snarky or insightful one-liners that appear on the screen in a sort of tag cloud. Click on the ones you like, and they'll accumulate points. You'll receive points from the votes on your own one-liners, as well as submissions you voted on that became especially popular. And, yes, it extends through commercials, too.

In a press conference Wednesday, MTV's digital team referred to Backchannel, developed by New York-based gaming firm Area/Code, as "competitive chat." When you think about it, it's a little bit like competitive Twittering.

Executives said the formation of the game was heavily influenced by MTV's video game Rock Band, which added a new dimension to many bands and artists that were well over 20 years past their heyday.

"Something that arguably has diminishing value over time actually becomes more valuable over time," Area/Code's Kevin Slavin explained. "If Rock Band is doing that for music, what can do that for television?"

But Backchannel has bigger implications for what MTV has in store when it comes to social networking. Profiles for Backchannel are compatible with Flux, the from its acquisition of start-up Tagworld and debuted last year. Popular comments from Backchannel, aggregated on the Web site, will also be displayed on reruns of the show, much like MTV's sister channel VH1's Pop Up Video show from the 1990s.

Additionally, while current incentives for playing are limited to street cred and "badges" on your profile, MTV may be stepping this up a notch. Executives hinted during the press conference that down the road, accumulated gaming points may become a virtual currency that can be exchanged for real prizes--memorabilia, products featured on the show, or whatever.

Something like Backchannel clearly isn't applicable to shows with a "deep" fandom like Lost or Heroes, but I'll admit it--it's perfect for trashing Heidi's plastic surgery, Whitney's weird outfits, and Audrina's perpetually unsound grammar. Brush up on your "OMG" and "fugly," and get ready to unleash your inner Perez Hilton.

Iowa what?

Amid the frenzied press coverage over Thursday's too-close-to-call caucuses in the Hawkeye State, 153,226 MySpace.com users have already cast their (unofficial) votes.

In a set of "virtual primaries" held on Tuesday and Wednesday, Republican Rep. Ron Paul and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama were declared the winners of the News Corp.-owned social-networking site's polls.

The poll was conducted entirely through MySpace's Impact political site. And for those who have been following Election 2008 on the Web, neither "victory" is particularly surprising.

On the Democratic side, MySpace users selected Obama nearly 2 to 1, with the Illinois senator taking 46 percent of the vote, followed by Hillary Clinton with 31 percent and then John Edwards with 8 percent. Obama's triumph among MySpace's young and tech-savvy user base is no surprise--he has proven a favorite among many young voters hoping for change, as well as a sizable portion of left-leaning geeks.

But in Thursday's Iowa caucuses, Obama doesn't enjoy such a clear advantage--the outcome remains too close to tell.

Ron Paul, however, is a different story. The Texas congressman is considered quite the long shot, failing to poll above more than a few percentage points nationwide. But his libertarian views and vocal opposition to the war in Iraq have found a welcome home on the Web, and MySpace is no exception. In the social network's virtual primaries, Paul won by an impressive margin with 37 percent of the vote, followed by more legitimate offline contenders Rudy Giuliani (18 percent) and Mike Huckabee (16 percent).

"Exit poll" questions in the MySpace primary revealed that 83 percent of participants plan to vote in their states' actual primaries, and 91 percent plan to vote in the general U.S. election. They also named the economy and jobs, the war in Iraq, and health care to be the three most important issues facing the country.

Representatives from the social network, which has launched an extensive youth-voting initiative and political awareness campaigns for the 2008 election, have stressed that the results of the primary represent the "MySpace generation," and consequently probably don't reflect the nation as a whole.

Additionally, it should be noted that while the poll was offered only to members of MySpace's main U.S. site (not its international editions), it did not require respondents to be of legal voting age. And while MySpace has said the average age of respondents is 29 years old, such a figure should be taken with a grain of salt because no age verification system was in place.

But when it comes to the political leanings of avid social network users, MySpace's results may not be far off base. Rival social network Facebook has also launched a politics site in conjunction with ABC News, and ongoing presidential-candidate polls show Obama and Paul as the front-runners there too.

As part of its quadrennial "Choose or Lose" youth voting initiative, MTV has announced a "Street Team" of 51 young amateur journalists, one from each state and the District of Columbia, who have been selected to cover the 2008 election and emphasize issues important to the younger generation.

"We couldn't ignore the explosion in self-publishing and self-organization and all the tools that young people have now to express themselves on issues of importance as well as consume information," said Ian Rowe, vice president of public affairs and strategic partnerships and MTV, "and so we wanted to have the innovations in 2008 really capitalize on all the new digital tools that are out there for our audience."

Weekly reports from each member of the "Street Team" will appear, starting in January, on a new mobile site, the existing MTV Mobile, the ThinkMTV social network (which launched earlier this year), and the 1,800+ sites in the Associated Press Online Video Network. The reports will consist of blog entries, videos, photos, audio podcasts, and even animation.

The citizen journalism project has been funded by a $700,000 grant from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation's Knight News Challenge. Each member of the team has been provided with mobile equipment--laptops, video cameras, mobile phones--and software provided by Adobe as part of the company's Adobe Youth Voices philanthropy program.

MTV, a division of Viacom, has emphasized that this will not be a partisan effort. According to a release from the youth media hub, the "Street Team" members range from "seasoned student newspaper journalists to documentary filmmakers, the children of once-illegal immigrants to community organizers...conservative, liberal, from big cities and small towns."

Rowe explained that a passion for politics in general, not any particular affiliation, was the goal. "We've recruited a very diverse population," he said. "Some are more ardently conservative, some are more ardently liberal, but they weren't chosen for their political views. For all of them the goal is to produce objective reporting."

Efforts will focus on not only traditional coverage of political primaries, but also how national issues play out locally in each state. Additionally, there will be a focus on the 18-35 demographic: how the election will affect young voters, issues of relevance to youth that are underreported by mainstream news, and how politics are shaped by new technology.

MTV is already working with the News Corp.-owned social network MySpace on a series of televised and Webcast dialogues with presidential candidates.

Money is boring, unless you're spending it on something like an iPhone or a cute new pair of shoes.

Or unless you make investment cool, which is what a new company called Thrasher Funds is trying to do. It's a new mutual fund that's targeting the under-35 crowd with a bunch of youth-oriented and tech-focused holdings (Apple, Uniqlo, Diageo, American Apparel, Volkswagen, Google, and Garmin), "investment parties," and a Web site that looks like a Good Charlotte album cover.

"Commercials from financial behemoths only implore Baby Boomers to start planning and saving for their retirements, and/or their children's college tuition," a company description explains. "That's fine if you're over 40 with children. But what if you're not? What if you're a child of the 70's, 80's or 90's? What should you be planning for?"

Yeah, it's different. New York magazine's Web site called Thrasher Funds "despicable [and] brilliant, and its young writers attested that "we already have an extreme case of generational embarrassment, one that may or may not be manifesting itself in a full-body rash right now. But then again, that's how we felt about Garden State!"

Thrasher Funds isn't a technology company, really. But they're targeting the social-networking generation, which means that yes, the company has a MySpace page. And they've set up shop in the Silicon Alley boardinghouse known as Sunshine Suites, meaning that they're getting plenty of cooties from local Web 2.0 start-ups also using the space.

They're additionally getting a boost from the city-focused women's newsletter Daily Candy, which not only has proudly touted Thrasher as the first-ever investment company to advertise on the e-mail list but also hosted the finance start-up's launch party last week at the Caravan clothing boutique in Manhattan's NoHo neighborhood. The sparkling rose wine was flowing, the company founders were chatting it up with guests, and everything in the store was priced at 20 percent off. (Now that's what I call a party!)

At this point, it looks like all Thrasher really needs is a celebrity executive, you know, like DanceJam's M.C. Hammer or Ooma's Ashton Kutcher.

Thrasher Funds' Web site, which looks like it took a cue from Good Charlotte.

(Credit: Thrasher Funds)

That said, the company also has to prove itself to some extent before young people (even the ones eager to jump on the trendiness bandwagon) are willing to commit actual cash to it. Word-of-mouth testimonials, when they exist, are going to mean a heck of a lot more than a savvy ad campaign. This is the generation that's reportedly afraid to tackle health insurance head-on; mutual funds still are going to look kind of scary to some, no matter how much hot pink is on the Web site.

MTV has just launched a new social-networking community for youth activism, ThinkMTV, which is designed to network members both online and offline around causes ranging from climate change to HIV/AIDS. While as a standalone network it's not particularly momentous or innovative (although few names come to mind in the "social networking with a social conscience" space that specifically target the MTV demographic), ThinkMTV is worth noting because it's the first major operation to be unveiled as part of MTV parent company Viacom's new Flux social networking initiative.

MTV representatives told CNET News.com in an interview that ThinkMTV had largely been created as a result of the "Just Cause" study that the company had enacted about a year ago, in which 80 percent of young people surveyed said that community and social action was important, but that only 19 percent said they were already very involved.

Some brief and recent history: last week, after some rumor buzz, Viacom unveiled Flux's framework without a high-profile debut. It's a distributed platform, created out of what was once the social networking start-up Tagworld (which Viacom invested in), that will ultimately bring community features to many of the media giant's pop-culture brands as well as external partners. Prior to Thursday's official beta debut of ThinkMTV, the Flux functionality had already been integrated into some smaller niche sites.

Sign-ups for the beta of the Flux community on ThinkMTV had been open for some time now, and a bare-bones Think site was accessible (sans social networking features). The full site includes information resources, multimedia content, and means for members to network both as socialization and as a way to rally for the various causes involved. ThinkMTV has bolstered its community with some big-name nonprofits: The "founding partners" at the launch are the Case Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Goldhirsh Foundation, and MCJ Foundation. The site will also (naturally) be celebrity-heavy, with usual suspects like Leonardo DiCaprio, John Mayer and Bono connected in one capacity or another.

One of the more unique aspects of ThinkMTV promises to be the "Action Badges," which could be considered the digital-age version of scouting merit badges. They aren't part of the initial launch, but will be rolled out in coming months; users can earn them for real-world actions like volunteerism or blood donation, or by submitting video or photo content to the site.

The new community will additionally be a platform for existing MTV activism campaigns, ranging from the company's ongoing partnership with the Gates Foundation to the "campaign dialogue" series that it's organized in conjunction with MySpace in advance of the 2008 presidential elections.