YPulse Mashup 2008 Day One: A unique blend of culture, marketing and technology

As the first day ended at the Ypulse National Mashup in San Francisco last week, my head was reeling just a bit. I was thinking about my presentation (slated for the next morning) and trying to decide how to adapt it to this very unique audience. I was also trying to take in all that I had heard on Day One and figure out what was really going on here.

If you are interested in the play-by-play, you can get a run down of the day’s events thoughtfully summarized by Ypulse’s founder, Anastasia Goodstein.

Blyk Kicks-Off the Day
Our day started with an outstanding keynote by Antti Ohrling from Blyk who echoed what our teens have been telling us, they will accept “advertising” if there’s something in it for them – it’s all about “free.” Blyk’s model is similar to the Virgin Sugar Mama campaign: take our stuff and we’ll give you free airtime. For a population that doesn’t have easy access to their own money, it’s a great offer.

That Can’t Be True
Following Antti, Ypulse hosted a panel where a comment was made about teens and tech that ended up generating a headline that has captured a lot of attention. The headline reads: “Cell phone is mom-avoidance device for teens.”

But let’s slow it down. Here’s the quote that generated the headline: “Teens are pushing their parents to go on mobile because they don't really want to communicate with them directly,” according to Stephen Saiz, manager of consumer insight and strategy of the Walt Disney Internet Group's North American mobile division.

This interested us because our teens have never, ever said they don’t want to communicate directly with their parents. If anything, they see technology as an opportunity to communicate more with their parents. Our tween Quinn did a great job of explaining how tech helps her connect with her mom throughout the day. We’ll have more in a few weeks about how teens see the relationship between tech and their parents.

Teen Culture Rounds Out the Day
After lots of mobile – we shifted to some great data from the folks at C&R Research on how the teen market looks as a whole. You can see some of the data in the Ypulse summary. The presentation was followed by a dose of culture – with David Levithan reminding us of the “mortification” that comes with the teenage years (and how that’s pretty much universal and memorable). If you have a few minutes, I highly recommend dropping into the website and watching a few of the videos! Better yet, grab Dave Nadelberg's book and have a good summer read.

And to wrap things up, Michael Franzini shared personal stories from his new book, “100 Young Americans” which is a look at 100 individual teens from around the United States. It includes stunning photos and bios from his time on the road.

So What Was Really Going on Here?
With such an eclectic set of presentations, I wondered more about who this audience actually was. As I talked with people it was clear we all shared an interest in young people (not just as a market, but as a cohort, as our children, as our future) and that what we were hearing offered useful applications to our business but also great insight into who these people will become.

While we didn’t talk much about it, today’s teens are facing some big issues – many that are reflected in our teens comments – from global warming and the environment to the importance of their relationships and individual identity to coming together as a unified global community with fewer boundaries and more opportunities. The Ypulse National Mashup was a great opportunity to spend two days focusing on these remarkable young people as we hold a place for them in history and look for ways to offer them goods, services and opportunities that will ultimately serve us all.

On Thursday I will share some more thoughts from Day Two at Ypulse.