Teen Survey of preferences

Where do they learn about cool, new products?

The interweb, of course (65 percent)

Friends come next (62 percent)

TV commercials third (54 percent)

We know they're headed to the malls (95 percent), but which stores are they going to?

Electronics (46 percent)

Bath & body (45 percent)

Music (surprise. surprise.) (41 percent)

Who gets the most of teens' hard earned money? ($100 or more)

Their sweetie (28 percent)

Mom and dad (20 percent)

Grandma and grandpa (18 percent)

What do they want most?

Money! (39 percent)

Laptop or desktop computer (30 percent)

Clothes (25 percent)

A new car! (24 percent)

If they could ask for just one gift, it would be:

Laptop/desktop computer (15 percent)

Money (12 percent)

Car (11 percent)

And as for the brands they want?

When specifically asked about brands, Apple was the most
cited brand in the music technology category, Dell was ranked #1 for
computers/laptops, the Motorola RAZR phone led the mobile phone
category, and Microsoft’s X-Box 360 was the leading video game console,
while Halo 3 was the leading video game. Abercrombie and Fitch was the
clothing brand most teens say they want and when it comes to cars, Ford
and Cheverolet brands were most cited.

I'm surprised by the RAZR vs. the iPhone and by American auto brands
vs. Toyota and Honda. The biggest take away is that eCommerce still as
a long way to go in attracting teens because of credit cards/payment
and they view shopping as a social activity they do with their friends
at the mall. The exceptions would be for online retailers selling
something you can't find offline. Obviously teens check out retail
websites to find what they want, but they are still buying it in
person.

Update: Weekly Reader also surveyed tweens and teens 8-17 on which consoles and games they wanted and found...

Eight of 10 children said they would ask for a video game;
the five favorites, the survey found, are Guitar Hero, Mario Party DS,
Super Mario Galaxy, My Sims and Halo 3.

And nearly six out of 10 (59%) intend to ask for a console game
system as a holiday gift. Most popular? The Nintendo Wii (32% plan to
ask for it), followed by the Sony PlayStation 3 (19%) and Microsoft
Xbox 360 (17%).

Article Link

Powered by ScribeFire.

What kids learn in virtual worlds

Doug Thomas, associate professor at USC's Annenberg School of
Communication, said during the panel that much of what's happening in
virtual environments is informal learning. In many cases, kids are
getting an early education with technology, learning how to be members
of a citizenship, and picking up skills that they'll need in the future
workforce, Thomas said.

The downside, he said, is the inherently commercial nature of virtual worlds like Club Penguin and Webkinz,
which encourage kids to play games, dress up online characters, and buy
virtual goods to decorate their in-world homes or avatars.

"If you're a parent, I would be much less concerned about things
like online predators or violence, then I would be about the conflation
between consumption and consumerism and citizenship (in virtual
worlds). Because our kids are being taught that to be a good citizen of
this world you got to buy the right stuff," Thomas said during the
panel, which was being simulcast via video over the Internet.

The panel came together to talk about the promise and pitfalls of virtual worlds from an educational and commercial viewpoint. Virtual games like Club Penguin and Webkinz
have become much more popular with 6- to 14-year-olds in the last two
years, attracting tens of millions of members. Researchers estimate
that more than 50 percent of kids on the Internet will belong to such
an environment by 2012, double that of the current population of
virtual world members.

Meanwhile, many educators herald virtual environments for their
educational potential because they manage to get kids extremely
engaged. Thomas, for example, works with kids in an educational virtual
world called Modern Prometheus.
He said the environment is useful for teaching children about subjects
that can be difficult to teach in the classroom, such as ethics. The
game allows the kids to play out scenarios involving ethical decisions
over and over from different angles, letting them see the various
effects, he said.

Most people in America still haven't even heard of virtual worlds,
but that's changing, said Julia Stasch, vice president for domestic
grant-making at MacArthur. This generation is the first to grow up
digital and everyone needs to be paying attention to what kids
themselves have to say, Stasch said.

Bullying, racism, homophobia, every cultural ill is replicated in
virtual worlds," Thomas said. "If you went to any sixth grade class and
studied it for a year, all the good, bad, and ugly shows up in a
virtual world just like every class, and we should all be mindful of
that."

Article Link

Powered by ScribeFire.

U.S. Teens Spending Power for Crucial Holiday Season Could Bode Well for Traditional Retailers

Where do you learn about                                     Total
    cool new products?                                           Teens

    Internet                                                     65 %
    Friends                                                      62 %
    Commercials on TV                                            54 %
    Magazines                                                    48 %
    TV shows                                                     38 %
    Shopping                                                     38 %
    Movies                                                       29 %
    Ads in theatres before the movie                             21 %
    Siblings                                                     21 %
    Parents                                                      19 %
    Celebrities                                                  14 %
    Other                                                         2 %
    None of the above                                             5 %

Please tell us how/where                                     Total
    you plan to shop this holiday                                Teens
    season.

    Electronics store                                            46 %
    Bath/body store                                              45 %
    Music store                                                  41 %
    Chain clothing store                                         38 %
    Mass merchandise store                                       37 %
    Accessory store                                              35 %
    Department store                                             35 %
    Bookstore                                                    35 %
    Sporting goods store                                         29 %
    Athletic shoe store                                          26 %
    Video store                                                  25 %
    Pet supply store                                             24 %
    Cell phone/wireless store                                    23 %
    Discount chain store                                         18 %
    Specialty/local boutique                                     13 %
    Store websites                                               13 %
    Through a catalog or mail order                              12 %
    Home improvement/decorating store                            12 %
    Online store                                                 12 %
    Thrift/secondhand/vintage store                               8 %
    Supermarket/food store                                        8 %
    Online auction site                                           8 %
    Drugstore                                                     4 %
    Convenience store                                             4 %
    Home shopping Network/QVC                                     3 %

Plan to spend "$100 or                                       Total
    more" of my own money on:                                    Teens

    Boyfriend/Girlfriend                                         28 %
    Parents                                                      20 %
    Grandparents                                                 18 %
    Boss                                                         17 %
    Nieces/Nephews                                               15 %
    Siblings                                                     13 %
    Aunts, Uncles or Cousins                                     13 %
    Co-workers (other than boss)                                 11 %
    Teachers                                                     11 %
    Pets                                                          9 %
    Best Friend                                                   9 %
    Classmates                                                    9 %
    Secret Santa(s)                                               8 %

Article Link
    Other friends                                                 7 %
    Other                                                         9 %

Powered by ScribeFire.

"The Pleo Song" takes our breath away

It's no secret: songs about gadgets are a scourge upon the earth.
And that's why they're awesome. The latest of these little ditties
that'll have you humming in the shower tomorrow morning -- and raving
like a lunatic the day after -- is "The Pleo Song," courtesy of
RobotsRule. The song was written to celebrate Ugobe's announcement of
30 day shipping notices for Pleo,
which we suppose is as good an excuse as any to write a gratingly bad
song about a robotic dinosaur. "Remember the heart of a child knows
that love goes with Pleo." If you still think you can stomach it after
that little teaser, the YouTube version is after the break.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Virtual Fun And Games

Virtual worlds that cater to kids and teens in a safe, low-tech
environment are experiencing the biggest surge in population growth.
Korea's Cyworld, which also has a U.S. outpost, gets monthly return
visits from more than 15 million young adults who decorate online rooms
and spend and earn "acorns" on the site. Finnish Habbo Hotel attracts a
similar crowd with its tiny, pixelated people. Disney
(nyse:
DIS -

news
-

people
)
endorsed the notion of virtual worlds for kids when it scooped up Club
Penguin for $350 million in August 2007. That site claims 12 million
active users. Analyst firm eMarketer predicts that by 2011, 53% of U.S.
Internet-visiting kids and teens--or about 20 million people--will go
to virtual worlds regularly.

Article Link

Powered by ScribeFire.

Conversational marketing

The first step for brands to socialise with consumers is to start
profile pages on social networks and then accept “friend requests” from
individuals. On MySpace, brands have been doing this for a while. For
instance, Warner Bros, a Hollywood studio, had a MySpace page for
“300”, its film about Spartan warriors. It signed up some 200,000
friends, who watched trailers, talked the film up before its release,
and counted down toward its DVD release.

Facebook, from this week, also lets brands create their own pages.
Coca-Cola, for instance, has a Sprite page and a “Sprite Sips” game
that lets users play with a little animated character on their own
pages. Facebook makes this a social act by automatically informing the
player's friends, via tiny “news feed” alerts, of the fun in progress.
Thus, at least in theory, a Sprite “experience” can travel through an
entire group, just as Messrs Lazarsfeld and Katz once described in the
offline world.

In many cases, Facebook users can also treat brands' pages like
those of other friends, by adding reviews, photos or comments, say.
Each of these actions might again be communicated instantly to the news
feeds of their clique. Obviously this is a double-edged sword, since
they can just as easily criticise a brand as praise it.

Facebook even plans to monitor and use actions beyond its own site
to place them in a social context. If, for instance, a Facebook user
makes a purchase at Fandango,
a website that sells cinema tickets, this information again shows up on
the news feeds of his friends on Facebook, who might decide to come
along. If he buys a book or shirt on another site, then this implicit
recommendation pops up too.

Article Link (The Economist)

Robot Consumers, Grow Up!

Part of the problem is the Western world's relatively short history with robots.

[...] robots (or at
least automatons) have been part of the Japanese culture for hundreds
of years. They're seen as friends, helpers, entertainers, and
companions. They've always resembled their creators.

What Sony didn't anticipate, [...] was its
target market's antipathy toward home robots. The more powerful and
realistic AIBO became (the final version, the ERS-7, looked remarkably
like a plastic-covered dog), the less interest Americans showed.
American consumers fixate on anthropomorphism and generally find
androids and even android pets grotesque. You won't find a lifelike
robot receptionist in the U.S., but there are already many at work in
Japan.

There's an obvious comfort level with the now five-year-old iRobot Roomba
vacuum cleaner. It doesn't look like us or any of our pets. We
understand that there is some intelligence in there, but we are not
threatened by it.

Ironically, Americans also have a fascination with
robots that look and act like real, living things. David Hanson, for
instance, often receives broad, laudatory media coverage for his
Frubber-faced Einstein robot. Now he's working on Zeno, an Astro Boy–like automaton
that will have a Frubber face and offer real social interaction.
Release is a year or more away, and who knows how much the company will
have to charge. I worry about the product's viability in this
marketplace.

American robot consumers have yet to comprehend
the cost of the programming and mechanical complexity necessary to
create effective, realistic, interactive robots.

Hasbro, however, may have found the formula for
success in the U.S. The company has been building functionally limited,
successful FurReal friends for years [...].
The products have canned interactions, never learn, and usually cost
less than $70. They also look quite realistic. The lower price point
seems to help parents overcome their hesitation, and they usually wind
up bringing home a Hasbro robotic pet for the holidays.

WowWee's $149 Robopanda,
is its most sophisticated offering and could prove the least successful
in the U.S. Again, it straddles the line between engagement and
aversion.

Perhaps Americans' inability to accept complex
robotics has something to do with our tendency to generate emotional
attachments to inanimate objects. We shower our cars, homes, and boats
with the affection we should be directing to, say, our children. Add
just a touch of intelligence and interaction and our engagement
increases exponentially.

Of course, the challenge is on both American
consumers who can't handle the idea of anthropomorphic robotics and the
engineers who spend their lives inside university laboratories and have
no idea how consumers will respond to their life's work.

The consumer robotics market is not going to
explode. American consumers simply aren't mature enough. Instead, the
future of robotics will, for the next decade or so, be a story of
embedded technologies.

Article Link (PCMag)