Ning Adds Zing to Personal Social Networking

When Shaping Youth was looking into adding a high performance social networking component to our site under construction, we were pitched by various companies promising mini-MySpace hubs with pricey software technology in the six-figure bracket. Ouch. I was looking for a simple, turnkey solution like Ning, using an intuitive interface to hook up our site in a social media … [Read more...]

Kids’ Toon Team Animates New Yorker Comics

Wow. Now even one-panel comics come alive through the digital web and mobile! While snooping around syndication services for Shaping Youth, we stumbled on these short, snappy bursts of content from RingTales who just launched a worldwide premiere of animated cartoons exclusively licensed from the New Yorker. Cartoons and humor are a youth media fave, so we’ve been … [Read more...]

Food For Thought: Media to Digest for Healthier Kids

March is National Nutrition Month, so Shaping Youth is adding to the ADA's Eat Right web resources with some fun and worthy positive picks in food media to share with your kids, boost their media literacy IQ, and counter-market the cartoon pitches for empty calorie crud. Here goes: I've always loved the SmartMouth interactive site for kids, but my new discovery is the U.K.'s … [Read more...]

Readergirlz: YA Books Become A New Media Experience

Dust off your book jackets, click some tunes and get ready to have some fun as one dimensional media turns into a multi-platform conversation! Launching March 1st, in time for National Women’s History Month, the new "readergirlz" web site bonds gal pals in “Sisterhood of the Travellin’ Pants"-style friendship, as YA books turn into a full blown digital … [Read more...]

Green Media & Electric Cars: New Energy Shaping Youth

Update Mar. 22, 2013: Just stepped into the future in a silent Tesla sedan that zoomed 0 to 60 in 3 seconds like a 007 James Bond stunt car, piloted by a neighbor pal of mine (who happens to be a pilot, go figure). I'm completely floored by the design, engineering, eco-efficiency...and er...custom 6-figure hot off the assembly line price tag. Fast Company just featured the … [Read more...]