"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.