Lock Stocker: summarized

Here's the summarized list of what we've come up with for the "final discussion/vote":

Features:
*notebooks serving as groups (aka Haverhill High Soccer or Hilary '08). These will have to purposes: 1.) to direct what sort of news clippings get posted in your locker and 2.) to help jumpstart community involvement. One gripe we had with facebook groups was the show who wants to make a change, but really do nothing to make a change. Therefore, groups about national issues, etc (not so much "Haverhill High Soccer" will instead give you contact info, ideas, ways to go about an action.

*leave "post it" notes to your friends - security was a concern. Because security is our top concern, we discussed making this feature similar to when AIM asks you if you want to accept a message from a user not on your buddy list. That way, you're not accepting strange notes from strange people. Friends are going to only be within your network, not just randoms (also, security purposes).

*Use of a flip book feature to encourage the sharing and creating of ideas, which seems to not only be a big trend right now, big to this project, but also very popular among this demographic. Your flip book could turn into something very similar to a yearbook to keep with the whole "school" theme.

*News - Ironically, this is probably our biggest hole, and not for lack of research/discussion/effort. We're still very open to opinions on this, but for now these are what we've narrowed down to our two (I think) options: 1.) Go with a local news sponsor who can gear your news toward your more "local" groups as well as your network. For instance, continuing with the Haverhill High Soccer example, your news could be whatever coverage they are getting from local news sources. These same sources most likely carry, to some extent, basic coverage at a national level (so the story might not be covering every political decision like the NY Times politics section, but it likely will touch on candidates who have been in the area locally. 2.) A national carrier. We discussed how having a larger, national sponsor could have it's advantages, and compared Locker Stocker directly to MySpace in this sense. So for example, CNN might sponsor this site (although it wouldn't necessarily be attached to CNN) and therefore be the news provider. This has its advantages when it comes to national groups/issues (for instance, the Hillary '08 group would receive a lot more news than having a local sponsor). So it's still up in the air, and an opinion outside of our group is definitely being sought!


One other way to connect news was again through the idea of sharing, and joining this idea with groups (we looked into Girl Scouts, 4-H, Catholic Youth Organization, and Camp Fire USA teens). A lot of these groups have a community service involvement component (probably the Interest Projects of the Girl Scouts being the highest). Anyway, a lot of times they are encouraged to "share," which can easily be done through writing ... thus, the idea of the girls writing for a Locker Stocker newspaper. This would prevent the fear of "I heart Justin Timberlake 4eva!" becoming news. They would contributing, but it would be in a more controlled manner.

*Marketing to parents /privacy - we want security to be a high priority. Discussion of no photos (drawings acceptable, but no digital images of yourself) and no need for contact information. This isn't a social networking/educational device to be turned into a method for stalking middle school girls, because quite frankly the idea of that is sickening. No official decision on whether parental permission would be a requirement - what do others think? A plus for parents and educators, and something that would allow this site to stand alone from the mess of others aimed at this demographic.

Remaining questions:
Just to summarize what was mentioned above, our big remaining questions are:
1. National versus local: we've outline above our argument for both
2. Parental permission? Either way, security/privacy is huge for this (look at the stats posted by Kate).
3. Promoting it. Jordan suggested advertising on sites these girls already use (although the whole competition factor might come into play here).

What exists:
We're definitely not saying this is an untapped market, because sites exist that are more than obviously going after this market. What we hope we've created is something that is a mix between social networking and education ... it's not a place where you're going to go to post pictures of your friends, write on walls, and declare your love for a latest movie or song. It's also not a place where you are going to read about how to make your closet better or how to deal when you have a "crush" on your best friends boyfriend. It's also not a site where you go to practice math facts or get a summer reading list. So what is it? It's social networking in that it's connecting other people within your networking and giving you a place to make change. Also, you have the ability to create your own space and the FlipBook feature gives you the option to express yourself and include flowers and sparkly, glittery letters that are found all over these other sites. It has the ability to connect you to other organizations your a member of. Getting them involved in the news is going to help them toward their other projects. They're going to read the news, make their own news, and then write their own news.

And finally...
So there's the reasoning on why Locker Stocker is innovative and news oriented.
We fleshed out all three original ideas and the discussion in one post, so for something more super specific than this, look below, becuase that's what we've been working off since Sunday.