Teens and the Election

We're back!
We hope you're as excited as we are to keep working on Teen She Spot.

Since we're in the midst of a heated election right now, it's the perfect time to talk about one of the stories we're working on for our site.

Even though many teens aren't old enough to vote, they're definitely making sure their voices are heard.
Teens are raising money, making calls, and even working the polls.
Now more than ever, teens are involved in the political process, and they are making a difference. Teens may not be able to vote, but that's not keeping them away!

The group Teens for Obama has made almost 6,000 calls and raised $120,000 for Barack Obama.

A group of teens supporting John McCain started an online petition to show their support for McCain. Check out the petition and sign it here.

The Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative hosted a teen debate-watching party in Teen Second Life, and teens weighed in via tweets about the candidates and the issues in this year's election. Check out their tweet stream here.
The Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative is planning to host another debate party on October 15 for the final presidential debate. Check back here after the final debate to see the tweet streams from that viewing party.

Comment below to tell us who you're supporting and why. We'd love to hear from you!

"Teens Plugged In" tech conference

This week we went to the Teens Plugged In conference at HP in Palo Alto. (Yes, multiple people there asked if we were teens, and if we were there to speak on one of the teen panels.)

Quote of the conference, spoken by a young woman on the teen panel: "I use technology to reach people and try to change the world."

We spoke with some teen girls there that were incredibly inspiring and really reinforced our desire to make this happen for real. These girls use the internet every day, and use it to try to connect with other girls, promote the causes they believe in - like ending poverty and the objectification of women - and one has even started a non-profit organization (I'll add the link to her site later). Everyone we talked to was excited about the site, which made us even more excited and motivated to take this to the next level.

Focus Groups

This summer, Allie and I plan to hold a few different focus groups with teen girls. We're planning one in Colorado in August, and would like to set up more in other locations.
Does anyone know a teen girl who would be willing to play "host" for these sessions? Let us know.

Also, we've decided to make our primary target 17-year-old college-bound girls. Our thought is that it will be easier to get younger girls interested in content aimed at the higher end of our age tier than to go the other way around and get older teens engaged in content for younger girls.

Comment here or email either one of us if you have any contacts for us. Thanks!

know any feminists?

Over the summer we're going to produce a ton of stories to start building up content for the site when we launch. Stories will range from print, to slideshows, videos, or anything else we come up with. One of the stories I'm getting started on is about young feminists. Who are today's wave of feminists? How have they evolved? What about high school feminists? Why would they become politically active if they can't even vote yet?

If you know ANYONE who I could interview for this, or just have any suggestions, let me know s'il vous plait.

Blogs for our site

We've decided we'd like to feature one blogger for each section on our site. Some of our ideas for sections are: college/career, health, beauty, fashion, celebrities, do-it-yourself projects, and feminism. We're trying to find bloggers who already have blogs related to each of these topics. What blogs do you follow? Do you have a favorite blogger? Let us know.

Thanks for the Feedback

Just in the last week, we've received tons of feedback and comments from you. If you have ideas for things teens would want to see in a site like this, please let us know.
We know we have a large pool of people supporting us, and can use all the feedback possible, so definitely keep it coming!
You can either email us or just click the comment link at the bottom of the postings and let us know your thoughts.
We really appreciate it!

Pushing the survey

We just did a little refining on our survey, and are now spending time trying get as many teens as possible online. We're using myspace, facebook, and this blog to draw as many girls to it as we can. So, if you know ANY girls this age, or know anyone who knows any girls this age, please send along the link and ask them to take it. It's really quick (only 10 questions) and will help us out a ton. Thank you! Does anyone have any other ideas for drawing teens to the survey?

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=zoyGy_2b7k5ro11xE_2bCOs3aw_3d_3d