learnandteachonline.com

In strolling through my referrer log I discovered a SocialRank site that aggregates news from elearning blogs: Learning Signal. Nice! I'm subscribed. Here's how the intriguing new SocialRank site works, from the MindValley Labs blog. Not sure if I'm mischaracterizing it, but it seem a little like a cross between Techmeme and Mahalo? No?

MindValley, parent and incubator of SocialRank, looks like an interesting company. It's located in Kuala Lumpur. Staff is on the young side. It's sad how an old fart like me can resonate with a stirring description of the character of a workforce and company mission, then totally know I'd never fit in when I see a group employee photo.

In a different section of my stats report -- keywords -- I see something that wasn't there last time I studied them. Are hackers or spammers making use of MS Live Search for some nefarious pursuit? I see more Live searches than Google searches recently, and the terms they tend to seek are "account" and "username." What's going on there?

Keepers of Harry Potter fan sites were invited to a conference call promoting a new movie starring Daniel Ratcliffe, who plays Harry in the Potter movies.

Of course they're going to feel flattered and write about it -- a lot, and probably rave. Really smart. Find the bloggers who care and give them access. So much better than astroturfing nonsense that tries to create community rather than find and tie in to existing communities. So much smarter than working to thrust crafted marketing messages on carelessly chosen lists of bloggers. Expellimarus, Bacon's!

The New York Times does a roundup of social sites catering to older netizens, remarking that "Some of the older users of the sites say the experience feels more comfortable to them than when they tried MySpace, Facebook or Friendster."

Stowe Boyd says he doesn't buy it, contending that "connection transcends demographics."

Yeah, I know... except I have to admit I really have enjoyed hanging out on message boards that discourage teenagers from posting. They're book discussion sites and don't specifically target boomers, just grownups. No YouTube- or Digg-flavored "she's hawt" comments. You know?

A few years ago when my older son was in high school, he used to sneak a VCR into the hotel room when he went on overnight school trips.

The thing to do now, according to my younger son, who just got back from a theatre festival, is to bring Xboxes and 50-foot ethernet cables, and network the boxes from room to room. Amazing.

G4, the cable channel for gamers, has added The Man Show to its programming lineup. If you have young sons and you know what this show is about and you're at all opposed to misogynism, you'll deplore this move as much as I do.

Here is a description of the show from the website:

Adam and Jimmy may have introduced the red-blooded American male pastime of watching girls jump on trampolines, but you haven't completed your male education without indulging yourself in the cultural traditions of Japan, where panty-viewing joins moon-viewing as de rigeur for the sophisticated gentleman.

It's a revival. The show used to be on Comedy Central.

My 16-year-old tells me gamers 14 and older who don't have girlfriends all are horny and love this stuff. I guess it's the 9-year-olds who watch the channel that I'm most concerned about. You pair this sexist content with the cool gaming stuff they admire and you don't need a Ph.D. in sociology to understand that it adds up to boys learning that sexism is cool.

When I've half-watched the channel as Aaron is watching, I've admired the channel's choice of the female hosts, hip and a little punk, smart and equals. By adding The Man Show I think they've indirectly objectified these young women.

The whole thing makes me furious.

Later... Looks like at least one guy thinks it's a horrible idea, too. I didn't realize G4 had its roots in TechTV. I wonder if Chris Pirillo has an opinion about this.

Maybe G4 is targeting another psychographic my younger son has told me about in adding The Man Show.

(If you follow some of my ramblings you'll already know that my little guy likes to help me understand subcultures and is as much of an avocational collective behavior analyst as I am.)

Aaron knows the type from interacting with them in MMORPGs, and he calls them "the 30-year-old loser living in his parents' basement." The LoserBase30 type is only a type. He can have a job and a wife and kids and still loosely belong to the type, albeit part-time.

Have you ever noticed how a cable channel will debut with a wonderfully niched offering, then gradually get greedy and broaden the scope? Witness A&E. I can't imagine it coproducing Pride and Predjudice with the BBC as it did in 1996. What about the "science" channels that dipped into the home makeover fad? And I don't know what Spike is. Guy stuff, reportedly, but do the same guys like DS9 and detective shows? Maybe, but it seems all over the place to me.

NYT reports on Urge, a new music service MTV will launch next year in partnership with Micorosoft.

I think somebody could clean up by ignoring the youth market and positioning pay-per-audio-download for the rest of the world. Podcasts, online learning, music for grownups.

I pointed to the BW Blogspotting report on the teen podcaster who landed the acne cream sponsor. I finally listened to it today, and now it makes more sense. Turns out she's Michael "Rock'n'roll Geek Show" Butler's daughter, or some relation, apparently. http://mp3.rockandrollgeek.podshow.com/EGT_12.mp3

I still think marketers are not quite getting it when they think:

- We are not reaching kids with traditional media anymore
- Whatever shall we do?
- Kids have iPods
- Podcasting is related to iPods
- All the kids are listening to podcasts
- Let's advertise there

I don't think that many kids are into podcasts, and the big numbers just aren't there yet. I shouldn't knock it, though. It's cool that advertisers know they have to do something different, and are willing to try podcasting. I just hope it's not so early that they get disappointing results.

Maybe a product like acne medication would get a better response if the company itself produced a podcast on skin care and grooming for teenagers

BW's Blogspotting reports that a teenager had landed a podcast sponsorship. Emo Girl Talk and Nature's Cure, an acne preparation. Isn't that pretty much perfect?

I've been pumping my almost 17-year-old for info about emo kids because I'm an avocational group behavior scholar. According to my unobjective source, one of the things emo kids do is spew their angst on their blogs, which are almost always on the hosted blogging services that are popular with teens like Live Journal and Xanga.

I cross-examined Aaron to try to get to the bottom of why their blogging style makes him so angry, and we came up with something that makes sense in my own experience. He says they carry on as though they're writing in a private diary, knowing it's public, but pretending it's not.