America's current reigning Junior Miss touts the pageant-cum-scholarship program. "It's awesome," Michelle Rodgers tells awestruck fans.

Cum scholarship? No wonder our tweens are in trouble! Hahaha.
You can't beat the media.

[The full story in the Washington Post is actually very good. Pic: Flickr]

Disney corporate executives noticed that they weren't wringing enough revenue out of the souls of young boys, so they're rebranding an entire station for them called Disney XD, with such (future) classic boy shows as "Aaron Stone," starring a kid "who was for a time a barista at a Starbucks down the street from Disney Channel headquarters." What you need to know is that this is maybe the best sentence from a business news story yet this year:

"[blah blah blah] collaborate on original programming and other sports-themed topics for Disney XD. (Disney says the letters don't refer to anything.)"

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. Bring back GI Joe. [WSJ]

This is the first half of the first sentence of the article, and in our fantasies, publishing this where people can read it would actually be illegal!

As the financial crisis swept across the nation these past few months, one of the first microtrend groups to emerge is

We bet you're excited to read further! Mark Penn should be ashamed to show his byline in public, as the pollster is famous for being one of the worst political minds of his generation, inventing meaningless demographic groups instead of winning elections. He took over Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's campaign and then she lost to a completely untested outsider (and it was all his fault!). Let's read the rest of that first sentence:

the New Mattress Stuffers — people who have lost their trust in the financial world, and are preparing for the next meltdown.

The proof that this cutely named demographic group exists? Anecdotal evidence, plus a Holiday Spending Survey that suggests that people are spending less. And also they're using cash they have, instead of credit cards, not because they're a crazy new demographic group but because people finally wised the fuck up. Anyway Mark Penn suggests you invest in guns and safes!

A couple of ad targeting firms let Steel look at what they had on her, and guess what: it was not totally accurate! They guessed that she liked luxury boats and was a newlywed, when actually she just had friends getting married, and has no boat. That's because tracking can't follow you across different computers, and guessing about demographics based on internet cookies is an inexact science. You might think that keeping these people in the dark would be a good thing, but Emily gives props to the firm that correctly pegs her as "someone who spends time exercising and socializing at bars and nightclubs." Psht, well that's not exactly ESP territory. She ends with this:

Meanwhile, marketers, here is some free intelligence about me that you won't find in my Revenue Science or Acxiom profile: I'm a bargain shopper who loves reading fiction, and I'm a huge Tar Heels fan. And for the last several months, I've been scouring the Web for running gear.

I'll be looking for the targeted ads.

As soon as every other American writes a WSJ feature on their shopping preferences we'll have this whole industry straightened out.

[WSJ; pic via]

Twitter CEO (nice business card, ha) Jack Dorsey says the teeny-typing service is a boon for reporters:

Dorsey: We've heard from a number of organizations — even as old as Reuters — that are building tools to monitor what's going on with Twitter to help conform what they need to focus on in terms of writing their articles.

Twitter provides a great man-on-the-street account of what's happening right now.

That's where you're wrong, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. You know what provides a great man-on-the-street account of what's happening right now? People on the street!

See, streets tend to be full of all types of people: all races, creeds, subcultures, and economic strata tend to utilize streets. But Twitter is full of—we're generalizing slightly here, but not too much—upwardly mobile white tech obsessives. It's certainly easy to shop for a quote on Twitter. And reporters love easy quotes, I say from personal experience! But it's the modern equivalent of asking your taxi driver in Mumbai what he thinks about the upcoming elections or whatever, except more likely to be delivered in 140-character increments. By an affluent tech nerd. A demographic which does not yet represent a reasonable cross-section of citizens for any story outside of, you know, tech stories.

It's a lot like our own relationship with our commenters. We love you, but you're a voluble minority, and if we guided the site based solely on commenter feedback, it would consist exclusively of live blogs and notices for commenter meetups. Which is fine, no backlash please! But we've seen the problem more important arenas, too: Howard Dean thought his massive lead in Meetup.com events would help him win the presidency. It didn't!

Reporters still have to leave their cubes to find the people on the street. They're outside, you see; out there, on the streets. And remember, Obama fans:

IWM: Who are some big-name Twitterers?

Dorsey: The biggest one at the moment is Barack Obama.

That's not necessarily a good sign.

[I Want Media]

…until they reach their mid-forties at least! So there is, it turns out, probably a surplus of single young dudes, and an absolute paucity of single old dudes. Oh yeah, and none of this counts unmarrieds in relationships, which decidedly includes The Gays:

Sure, there are some issues with the map. The first: homosexuality! This data and this map are completely heteronormative, but please direct invective at our pal the Census Bureau. Also, I don't think I can really trust the internet on this one, but men are about twice as likely to identify as gay than women - what's this mean for the map? It'll skew hard towards there being a ton of unmarried men!

Ha ha ha, guess that's Javascript for "blueballs," ladies! Next time.

Fox News just partnered with Facebook, even though the social networking website directly competes with its News Corporation sibling MySpace. MySpace, meanwhile, is working with MSNBC to cover the political conventions, despite a notorious rivalry between other News Corp. properties and Olbermann.

But the partnerships make sense when you consider demographics. With its popularity among rock bands and its garish design sensibility, MySpace is the social network of high school students and young adults — MSNBC viewers. Facebook, meanwhile, has a buttoned-down presentation that has made it more popular in corporate environments and thus among older people, making it a better fit for Fox.

As MSNBC adds coveted young viewers, who are overwhelmingly Democratic, it becomes less likely to ever seek, say, a conservative counterweight to Olbermann, or a barking pseudo-populist curmudgeon like Lou Dobbs. It would no more do such things than MTV would. And the temptation to become the winning cable network of the Obama years will be too great for MSNBC to ever truly balance its present leftward political tilt.

Picture a gay who wants to hang out with other gays, but lives in Westport, Mass. There aren't many other 'mos in the immediate area, and there certainly aren't any gay bars. He could drive to New Bedford or maybe Fall River or maybe even Providence, but who wants to go all that way on a Friday night? What's the other option? Go to the high end of the dial and settle down with some crappy, low-budge gay flick or TV series. So, the newly provincial gays may need queer programming, Logo! Good news!

But, other statistics about gay men and women having even numbers of straight and gay friends, being out to family members, and believing "it’s important to integrate into the greater culture," could spell trouble. If things get too normalized, then there may not be a need for "here you go, girl" programming. Though, an obvious example of "niche" television enduring through the years would be BET, which, demographically speaking, holds a mirror up to African-Americans the way nearly every other network on television holds one up to white Americans. It's hard to imagine that there will soon be complete symphony between all of these seemingly disparate sets of tastes—not to mention satisfactory representation on the bigger nets—so maybe the "need," or at least a small audience, for Logo will remain.

Anyway, poor social theorizing aside, these numbers represent the 1,800 gay people from New York and Dallas who were polled. Let's poll that made-up gay in Westport (I like to think his name is Barney Joy) and see what he has to say. In the meantime, maybe there should be a focus on, you know, quality. I'd watch then. And I subscribe to here! for Christ's sake.

[via Manhattan Offender, who thinks these numbers spell doom for Logo]

In rough-and-tumble Bridgeport, CT:

#1: "I Think I Love My Wife"
#7 is "Why Did I Get Married?"

Theme: Oh noes. Families are disintegrating.

San Francisco:
#1: "24 Hours on Craiglist"
#3: "Commune"
#7: "Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock"

Theme: Techies and hippies!

In the geek-boy Google capital of Mountain View, CA:

#1: "Tell Me You Love Me, Season 1"
#2 and #6: "Battlestar Galactica

Theme: We work for Google. There aren't a lot of girls here and we're sad.

In fancy Easthampton, NY:

#1 is "Becket": "When King Henry II (Peter O'Toole) names his friend and former drinking partner Thomas à Becket (Richard Burton) the new Archbishop of Canterbury, he counts on his unbending loyalty when it comes to religious matters..."

Theme: Inaccessibility, old money.


[Photo: librarygeek's Flickr]

In the last six months, cable news ratings have risen, but network news ratings in our key demographic have fallen. CBS is down 21%, ABC is down 14%, and NBC is off 10%. The conclusion? Those shows are on too early for youngsters!

One reason is that the traditional newscasts air too early in the evening, when a lot of younger people are still working or on their way home. Others are in school. Or they're eating dinner or picking up kids from after-school activities.

They simply never got into the evening news habit. Their TV watching comes later in the evening.

Also, there's the internet. Nightly network news still puts up big numbers relative to other TV news shows, but their figures are on a downward slope that doesn't show any sign of reversing itself. Of course, every new form of media is put on a deathwatch when a strong challenger arises—they thought radio was dead when TV was invented. Instead, mediums usually adapt and settle into a more specific audience base.

So what can Katie C, Brian W, and Charles G do to connect with coveted viewers like us? Move the shows to midnight, crack lots of sarcastic jokes about stuff, and make enough appearances on the nightlife scene to be perceived as a credible object of sexual desire. Consider this free advice from the generation that will soon, scarily enough, be running things.

[via Media Life Magazine]

The site is based on a Wikipedia model, with users adding and editing information about their local cops. The only problem is that people who are interested in wasting their time on online directories don't really notice their local cops. Until they're mugged and need help (A+ cop would call again) or they're unexpectedly harassed by the pigs for smoking on a train platform (abuse of power!). There's a reason this model works best for rating the hotness and lax grading policies of college professors.

The people who might actually benefit from a site like this are likely poor, and since they're poor, they can't contribute via iPhone or BlackBerry. In fact, they might not even have an internet connection in their home. (I don't know how they survive either.) Gawker jailbird Sheila is the exception. The internet has democratized knowledge, sure, but only for the people who can afford a DSL connection.

[I]n the mini dining room, the mini-tables were filled with animated parties of diners, many of them female, happily chatting in the soft, carefully calibrated light. At one of the banquettes sat a magazine food editor, a regular judge on the reality series Top Chef. And across from her sat the living embodiment of possibly the most desired demographic of all. "Do you know who that is?" said one of the hulking gentlemen at my table. "That's Anna Wintour's personal assistant."

But times are a-changing. Print media is so versatile. Arena recently relaunched. Their website features zero tits but does include an article about a teddy bear. Exactly what the "urban playboy" needs. According to Arena editor Giles Hattersley, the new man "works hard - probably pulling in a packet at an investment bank - and is very sophisticated in his tastes, be it a new gadget, car, type of wine or a new shirt. The days when most British men were poorly dressed oafs are long gone." Not exactly true! Also, if men are only interested in engaging in consumer culture moreso than in sex, who's doing all the screwing that is swelling Britain's population to 75 million by 2051?