Compilation of MS girls stuff for Kate, Jordan, Andrea

This is just for us to work in an 1/2 organized manner until we repost our compilation of ideas on Friday, so it can be ignored. If you want to comment on / add to ideas for the middle school girl demographic, it can all be done under one post now, instead of sifting through 3 like before.

Andrea-Beginning Idea
Beginnings to my idea....So these are a couple things that came to mind after last night:
One thing I thought of was definitely based off the Locker Stalker or Stocker or whatever we're calling it these days ... but what's important is there would actually be an actual, all out, middle school locker. Perhaps is something you would add on to an exisiting site (and for this, I'm not just talking about social networking in terms of Facebook/MySpace ... something that could go on the plethora of sites we came up with that already have the attention of these girls. For one, we know messaging is a big thing (who doesn't get excited when they have a Facebook message?). Through this, however, I was imagining the messages would be inside the locker, almost like on Post Its (or a similar paper product idea), written in handwriting -- the whole idea that someone left you a "real" note in your locker. Although this is more the social side of things, I'm sure there are ways we could turn it to incorporate news. There would also be a photo aspect that would work in 2 ways: 1. personal pictures of all your little pink shirt, mini skirt wearing middle school girl friends and 2. for news events ... the whole idea of a picture speaking a thousand words. Dave mentioned the idea of pictures telling stories when were first broke into this group in Ithaca (I remember mentioning the similarities to MSNBC's Week in Pictures). So there could be captions ... or even VIDEO in your locker. The real catch here is the news through text though. In this version of Locker Stalker it would be newspaper clippings in your lockers that would be actual news stories ... maybe with a little animation so they would actually float around your locker and pop up once it's opened (ok I'm thinking way down the road on that one). These would be news stories that would not only affect this demographic, but maybe written in a way to convey a "regular" hard news story, but with details to this level. Koz also originally mentioned the idea of having stories about your friends in the orginal idea, too.
I'm not entirely sold on what I've come up with so far, and my details may not be the best, but it's the idea that I like. I firmly believe they need to be getting this news without it being forced upon them, or without them really realizing it. So if we could come up with a way (better than this) to mix their socializing needs (which we've found out are their prized posession) with their news needs (which they don't realize they have) it'll be the perfect combination.
Comments:
Kate said...
Andrea:Love the first idea. We could combine a lot of ideas from our two sites to develop the greatest site of all time. How, besides the notes (which is way sweet) could we get kids to want to go on it? I'm having the hardest time figuring that out myself.
August 15, 2007 8:21 PM
Andrea said...
Okay for some reason it won't let be edit my idea right now ... but I just had a thought. What if somehow we included a "school newspaper" in the locker ... but it had elements of what a middle school paper would have (i dunno, horoscopes, gossip columns, you get the idea). But there's like blank spots in it (a template ... think InDesign) and then you have a selection of stories that you can drag and drop in to complete your newspapers. But those are actual "news" stories. So you end up with a combination of hard news and girl news.Again, you run into the whole problem of why do they want to complete the newspaper / who says they're going to read it anyway. We have to trick them into it, somehow.
August 16, 2007 4:48 PM
Jon Taylor said...
I really like the direction that you're going in with the middle school demo research. I was thinking about that book Branded that we had to read for VisComm and the ideas from the book are reflected in your approach to this project.I like the concept behind the drag n' drop that the girls can do within their personal lockers - their news, their way. Using the ideas behind Branded, we can easily convince this demo to complete their newspapers - maybe offer incentives if they do - more access, etc.
August 16, 2007 10:13 PM
Jordan said...
love the idea of a locker app on facebook, and maybe we could literally just get it sponsored by the partner from ONA. It kind of goes off of Kim's idea of having something easy and fun like the Washinton Post did. Just make it an app and people can add and take away from their locker and maybe like a little secret wall that only they can read or something. I mean, I doubt it would get the high traffic that some of the older apps do, but it seems really cool.
August 18, 2007 2:30 PM

Jordan-Beginning Idea
I will be working on some sort of news game for our tween girl demographic.Wed Aug 16, 2007 12:30 AMOk so I’ve been brainstorming ideas for the past couple days and looking at more girly web sites and I keep going back to Flip.com… I think I might be obsessed with it. It’s the quintessential tween girl web site, which is probably why I’m obsessed with it – that was not meant to be creepy as much as it was meant to be gay.The great part about it is the girls get to put things they like, an expression of themselves in the flip book and then pick out different background and tacky sparkle letters, etc. But it can be so much more… you can link videos and web sites to it, etc.Here’s a link to one that I made when I was fooling around with it months ago. It was something for my blog (I write a weekly top favorite things in my blog). I never ended up using it or finishing it, but I still thought it would give you all some kind of idea.Jordan’s Flip Book.It also only has one page, which I know defeats the purpose of calling it a flip book, but just imagine more similar pages…Here’s one that Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour made.Now how to add the news to this platform? More coming later. Mull over these ideas (is that the correct phrase?). And I’ll start thinking of the news elements that are or could be involved.
Thursday 9:00 AM
I was thinking of an idea of “Things that affect me” kind of deal since tweens are all about themselves. It kind of plays off of that idea I said for locker stalker of adding like if a photo of you ended up in the paper, you could save it in your locker. This would be a bit different.
The target publication would no doubt be local, probably a local paper or something. And online they would have available their normal content. What I propose is a type of widget where tweens or really, anyone, could highlight text, or click on a picture and an option would be to add to “Their Content.” I don’t know how many papers are putting comics online, but they could do it with those as well. So that would basically just be a personal space where all these things would be collected and archived.
The fun part comes next.
They can put that content into a flipbook like deal. Archiving different articles and events, adding their own commentary and pictures. Telling the story in a different way. They could chose to make it a lot like a timeline. So they could go back to a day or a week and see what was important to them. I think it wouldn’t make sense if we didn’t allow them to add their own pictures, text and content to their archives so they could add that to the book as well.
The flip.com thing is really easy to use as far as erasing and resizing. Sure it’s not the best quality ever, but it seems good enough for teen girls.
Thursday (or I guess technically Friday) 1:00 AM.
I’ve been trying in my head to iron out the details of how to get these girls onto a news web site. It would be nice to add a news element to an existing site, but that makes me nervous because I doubt Flip.com will be at the ONA, nor do I think will many girly fun sites. This will probably be a continuous problem, especially since we really have no clue which organizations will be interested. I almost find this as a huge flaw of the project. We have to create something for news organizations, a very broadly defined thing, but yet it would seem the best ides have a narrower scope about them.
At least last year the people who did it knew they were doing it for AOL or Time Warner or whatever so they already had a strong base to build off of, innovate a new idea for AOL to use. Sounds way easier than just make an idea that’s adaptable to all sorts of demographics, but have no idea what kind of news you’ll be presenting, how much money you’ll have or how many resources will be provided. Or really even, if anyone even will want it.
Anyways, I was thinking about what andrea commented below and it seems to me that the best way to get the kids involved is to force their involvement. (I really didn’t mean for that to sound like we would be inflicting pain on them… ) So let’s say a local paper picks up the idea. Even in a town like mine which has about 50,000 people, I think getting a test group of girls in middle school would be easy. Kids love getting out of class and the local newspaper has a great relationship with the school district. So you pick 50 girls out from different classes, ask them to play with the site and see what they think. Really that would just be a marketing ploy because you know they’ll tell all their friends exactly what they were doing and their jealous friends will want to see for themselves. If it’s cool enough, it will stick. If not, we’ll look like asses and the girls will laugh at us.
Comments:
Kate said...
A). Anna Wintour's flip book was the funniest thing I've seen in recent memory. Thanks for bringing it into my life.B). I really like the idea of using the site the girls are already on, and I like it a lot more than using myspace. Is there a way for the girls to see each others (is it a social network?) Or is it more of just a personal thing. I also wonder if there would be a way to present the girls with the news on the site, as I can't really see a bunch of 11-year-olds running off to CNN as soon as they can post things the affect them.
August 16, 2007 6:43 AM
Andrea said...
Okay first off, Koz you would find the Anna Wintour thing funny. Secondly, I agree with the idea of adding on to another site (probably becuase I, too, had this idea).Now to the new stuff ... I REALLY like the idea of highlighting things you see in a newspaper and using having that added to my content (to sit on the shelf next to your "book" groups and your notes), but there's one problem ... how many middle school girls are visiting their local newspaper site already? And do you blame them? We've seen things that they are interested in through our audience research last week, and plain newspapers sites appear to have zero attraction to them. So although I love this idea in theory, how can we ensure they're going to the site? The end idea/product is great, too. But it goes back to the whole "they're not getting the news" thing. Doesn't it always?
August 16, 2007 4:36 PM
Christina said...
I think the whole 'add to their content' idea is really great, but, like Andrea was saying, there's that big problem of getting the girls to the news site.... What if there were some sort of incentive to adding news content to your flipbook/locker/whatever? What if there were some sort of reward/bait?? That may be a terribly lame suggestion, but think about it.

Kate-Beginning Idea
Locker Stocker (note spelling change)
The basis of this idea would be what we talked about before: A Web site made to look like a simulated locker. The inside would house a section for uploading pictures as well as an area to store books. The books would, in actuality, would be links to differnt groups. For instance, the "Hilary 2008" book would sit on top of the "Haverhill High School Football" book. Each book would house different articles and topics, similar to a message board. Each layer would hold a different set of disscussions. Users could link to articles, videos and pictures. On the door of the locker would be what looked like a newspaper clipping. The clipping would change regularly and would be news delivered to each user based on the groups he or she (she) has chosen as well as a section for top stories. Top stories would apear on everyone's clippings (maybe based on geography?) and would encourage users to gain interest in different subjects and join groups (get books) to talk about them. The stories (could be video) would be writen or broadcast in such a way that younger audiences could activly engage in them and reallt take something out of them. This might be becuase it is easier to read, or because more background is given.Just a start... any ideas?
Comments:
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Andrea said...
I reallly really like the idea of group being books in the locker. What I was struggling was with the news thing - with my idea of the newspaper clippings, I feel like you would have to use RSS feeds to know what each person wanted or for their general area (and lete's face it, what 12-year-old girl wants to deal with RSS feeds? At least not the ones we're targeting at). So a broader scope on the news thing would probably be the answer.As for your question of how to get people to come to the site .. that's why I was thinking that the Locker could somehow be an application or something (I'm not good with all the technological wording with everything) that were added to all the existing tween sites out there (think back to the gazillion we all posted). But then again, you get into the whole competition thing. I just really don't think it's necessary for another site ... or I guess more importantly why are they going to join a news one over another one. It all goes back to the whole idea of you have to catch them with the news when they're not looking.Also, should we combine our posts because they're about the same thing? I'm alraedy confused looking back and forth at them both, and I'm writing one of them. Just a thought...
August 16, 2007 4:23 AM
Kate said...
I didn't really invision it as RSS feeds, more as a Pandora-like thing. By choosing groups, the girls would choose what the wanted to recieve news about- it would all be mechanical. They say they like it, so its sent to them- automatically.And you are right. How are we going to pull a Daily Show on them? I was sort of thinking, maybe stupidly, that the site would be hooked up to another, like Flip and Teen Vouge. So, in that case, girls who read Teen Vogue because it makes them look older would see the site and think it was cool and use it. Only problem, kids aren't reading the news already. The locker aspect would allow kids to post pictures and decorate and things which they might think is cool. I guess the draw of being able to really choose the content isn't all that cool either. We could always consider marketing it to adults who would then force kids to use it, haha. We could also market it to those parents who do not allow kids to use myspace and other sites, as an educational alternative. I guess I really envision a combination of Flip and a news site in locker form (corny) where girls will be drawn to the site because they can do whatever they want with the locker, as well as leave notes for each other (which is an idea I loved, Andrea).I don't know, any more thoughts?
August 16, 2007 2:29 PM
Andrea said...
Okay, after reading the comments ideas from me, Kate, and Jordan ... we all have the same problem: we've come up with what the three of us seem to think are pretty decent ideas geare toward these MS girls based on what we found already exists last week ... but we all seem pretty clueless on how to infuse the news into that (although Jordan took a stab at it wiht the highlighting / my content thing). I still say, however, and I think Kate's agreeing ... we can't send them out to find the news. We can't make them responsible for getting the news. Because that's status quo ... and they're not doing it. The news has to already been present on the site / flip book / locker already so they have no choice but to watch it.
August 16, 2007 4:41 PM
Kim Gregson said...
what if you sent them out to write the news? to find the news in their own life/school? instead of finding news on the internet - let them be news creators. Remember - the whole let people tell the stories they think are important, let htem tell the news professionals what they (the consumer) thinks is important as news.then the news goes out from them - to other users, to the general news publicWould that help any with the issues you're discussing (and good job with the back and forth - thanks)
August 16, 2007 8:40 PM
Andrea said...
I really like Kim's idea about sending them out to get the news - then, if they are using it on a social networking site that allows themt to be connected through networks (think Facebook, but maybe like your town or your school instead of "Boston") you could use someone elses news. It could be incorporated with my school newspaper idea somehow (that ideas under my original post).
August 17, 2007 4:00 AM
Christina said...
Maybe this is silly, but if we send 14 year old girls out to write the news, I see it turning into a real fiasco...I think that before long it would be gossip-driven clique-like behavior brought to a whole new level. I can totally see some mean chick writing an article about how the weird girl in English class has a moustache or how how so-and-so was dumped because she was a prude. You know what I'm saying? It's a cool idea to have them write the news, but how do you regulate it and make it responsible and not "I <3 Justin Timberlake 4eva !!"??
August 17, 2007 8:15 AM
Kate said...
Haha, I agree. I think it would be cool and certainly innovative to have girls write the news, but it could get very Cady Heron and Regina George, very quickly. The idea of girls posting there own stuff is really exciting to me, just I don't really see it playing out with any significance. Instead, I'm thinking we could get them in a bunch of ways. Market the site, as strange as this might sound, as a sort of consolation prize. Sure, mom and step-dad won't let you on myspace, but they are letting you go on Locker Stocker. You can still write notes to your friends and set the site up how you want to. I'm envisioning picking music, like myspace. I'm also envisioning a note book, which would be like a flip book, and girls could even link to their actual flipbooks from the Locker.I don't really see how the sire lends itself to becoming an application on another site. I've been trying and can't.I love you all, Kathryn Kozlowski.
August 17, 2007 6:15 PM
Kim Gregson said...
again - you guys have to give up control. The news organizations can't keep control of what is news. The users get to decide.and who decided paris hilton was news? the news organizations. so maybe the little kids won't do much worsehow about tying it in with some writing education/girl scout badge project to get htem writing better news?
August 19, 2007 5:29 PM