The Teens in Tech Official Blog

From time to time here at Teens in Tech, we like to spotlight companies and initiatives that share our views – be it on starting a company and the entrepeneurial spirit or the activities of teens worldwide.

Logo for Digital Open Initiative

Digital Open is a free and open-source technology project. Blah, blah, blah, we’ve all heard that before. So what’s the catch? Digital Open is only open to youth 17 years or younger. It spotlights teens who go above and beyond in the world of technology, and there are a variety of prizes that go to the winner in each category.

For more info, check out Digital Open at http://digitalopen.org and help spotlight teenage involvement in free and open-source technology!

One of my personal beliefs is that you always need to work with people smarter then yourself. I’ve been very lucky to have such a great Board of Advisers at Teens in Tech. Well today I’d like to announce a new Board member! Louis Gray works in corporate marketing at BlueArc, a Silicon Valley technology company in the high performance network storage space, where he has worked since January of 2001. His focus there is on public relations, demand generation and content creation. Prior to BlueArc, he was the Web Marketing Manager for 3Cube, a communications application service provider, sold to Oracle in 2001. Prior to 3Cube, he was an e-commerce analyst for Internet Valley, Inc. Louis runs a successful blog focused on Silicon Valley and early adopters at louisgray.com. He is also an advisor to fellow startups BuzzGain, ReadBurner and SocialToo.

Louis brings years of experience to his work, and having him join the Teens in Tech Board of Advisers just makes our current Board event better. Louis joins current members Chris Yeh, Daniel Ha, Florian Seroussi, Robert Scoble, and Sam Lessin. You can follow Louis on Twitter as well!

I’ll be working very closely with Louis and the Board on improving Teens in Tech and our other products.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been battling a spam problem with Teens in Tech, which most of you have noticed. Well, today I’m very happy to announce that Teens in Tech will hopefully not have to deal with spam any longer!

We’ve taken the initiative in three directions:

1. Signup Question. During registration we’ve added a signup question which you have to answer correctly in order to get an account. We installed this a few weeks ago, and it seemed to work. This plugin places a question on the signup form to help fight spammers who try to create blogs automatically.

2. WP-Captcha. Seems like the simple way, because it’s a great simple plugin. The plugin blocks automated comment spam without resorting to CAPTCHAs. It does so by validating a hash based on time (and some other parameters) using AJAX when the form is posted. Comments posted via automated means will not have a hash or will have an expired hash and will be rejected. Unlike using a captcha, this does not place any burden on the commenter.

3. Invites. We’ve spent a lot of time developing and researching an invite plugin for our users. Now, if your registered, you can generate a specific invite code to hand out to your friends so they can use Teens in Tech as well!

We’ve also added a feature where the ‘Hello World’ posts won’t appear on the homepage. As Daniel mentioned earlier, we’ll be opening to the public shortly, but are working on some tricks up our sleeves. If you have any problems with spam, feel free to email me directly.

Thanks,

Mike Cohen
CTO/COO, Teens in Tech

I’m very happy to welcome Hany Rashwan (@iHany) to the Teens in Tech team! Hany is a 18 year old student in Columbus, Ohio joining Teens in Tech as a Senior Web Developer.

I first met Hany at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco, and we immediately hit it off. Hany will be working on Teens in Tech as well as our sister site and brand new property, YBN.

Please welcome, Hany!

Many of you have seen the news that Teens in Tech has acquired the Youth Bloggers Network (YBN) run by 15 year old, Patrick DeVivo (@patrickdevivo), I just wanted to take a moment and explain why we decided to take this route.

Teens in Tech is all about empowering teenage media content within a community. Patrick originally emailed Teens in Tech in February wanting to learn more, etc. We started talking about how Youth Bloggers Network and Teens in Tech could integrate to bring our communities together. From that, we had the idea of merging and being one big network. Patrick and I went back and forth to try to figure out how this will work, and we finally decided on bring YBN in as part of the Teens in Tech Community. After a few weeks of negotiations and calls with lawyers and advisors, we started working on plans for how we will approach this and how we will make it happen.

YBN will remain it’s own site and forum, but under the Teens in Tech name and brand as a property. We are combining Teens in Tech with YBN as one big community because we are staying true to our message: empower teenage media content. We haven’t really focused too much on the community aspect, and we hope that with the addition of YBN and Patrick on our team, Teens in Tech will rise.

One issue that has come up is revenue. Many have asked, how will Teens in Tech ever make money. We currently have two ideas. The first is what we call Publisher Advertising. Basically, we will split advertising with our publishers so Teens in Tech makes revenue, as well as our publishers (it’s a win-win situation). We are working with partners right now to establish this system. The second route is pro services. Pro services seems to be the easy way out these days, and we’ve thought hard on how to differentiate. We’ve decided that we are going to offer pro features like custom domain names (EXAMPLE.teensintech.com), more storage space (we added 250 MB last night for each user adding to 750 MB for each user), and more. YBN will also be making revenue through advertising, and we hope to extend Publisher Advertising to both networks after our pilot program. Changes to this will be occurring as we focus more on the this subject, but as of right now, these are the plans.

As Teens in Tech works more and more on new features and ideas, I always would love to know what you think. Feel free to get in touch with me directly at or Twitter me at @danielbru.

I hope you understand our choice, and continue to support Teens in Tech.

Thanks,

Daniel Brusilovsky
Founder/CEO, Teens in Tech

P.S Teens in Tech is open to new registrations this weekend! If you don’t have an account, register now!

Redwood City, CA – March 27, 2009 – Teens in Tech, an online community where teenagers produce and distribute media content, has announced that it has acquired the Youth Bloggers Network (YBN).

The Youth Bloggers Network is a destination site where more than 100 young bloggers and teenagers collaborate and network. The Youth Bloggers Network was founded in May 2007 by Patrick DeVivo, who will now join Teens in Tech as Director of Youth Bloggers Network and will oversee YBN’s integration with Teens in Tech.

“We are very excited to welcome Patrick and the YBN team and community to Teens in Tech,” said CEO Daniel Brusilovsky.“We are all about teenage media production, and blogging is our number one source of content.”

“On behalf of our members, I’m very happy that Youth Bloggers Network is joining Teens in Tech to create one central service for youth that will promote teenage media and community,” added founder of YBN, Patrick DeVivo.

Youth Bloggers Network will continue to run as its own service under the Teens in Tech brand.

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About Teens in Tech

Teens in Tech is a media platform and community for teenagers wanting to produce media content, and distribute their content via the internet. Teens in Tech was founded in February of 2008 by Daniel Brusilovsky. Teens in Tech launched into private alpha in August of 2008, and currently hosts and distributes over 300 blogs with media content. In early 2009, Teens in Tech acquired the Youth Blogger Network extending the Teens in Tech network.

About Youth Bloggers Network
The Youth Bloggers Network is managed by Patrick DeVivo, a fifteen year old blogger. The goal of the Youth Bloggers Network is to provide a place where young bloggers can collaborate on projects and communicate about their blogs. The Youth Bloggers Network has over 100 members, and an active forum. YBN was acquired by Teens in Tech in March of 2009.

Press Contacts:
Daniel Brusilovsky
Founder & CEO
daniel@teensintech.com
650-539-4017

Neil Vineberg
Vineberg Communications for Teens in Tech
neil@vinebergcommunications.com
631-377-1494

Last month, I joined Teens in Tech as Interim CEO to assist Daniel Brusilovsky while he wrapped up things with school and some other projects. Having known Daniel for 2 years, I’ve been inspired by his work. His follow through, precision and vision are like no other young person and I’m happy to know such a bright young man.

When he asked that I help him out by taking over here at Teens in Tech, I jumped at the chance to help out and am proud to be a member of this team. As Interim CEO, I’m assisting with day to day duties and working on 2 big tasks that can’t be named just yet. Daniel is still heavily involved with the company and I’m here to help him take a load off. If you have any suggestions, opinions or thoughts for Teens in Tech, I encourage you to leave a comment below or send me an email.

Thank you all for your support and for sticking with Teens in Tech. There are some fantastic developments coming soon.

Redwood City, CA – February 5, 2009 – Teens in Tech, a media platform and community for teenagers to produce and distribute media content online, has announced that CEO and Founder, Daniel Brusilovsky, will be taking a two (2) month leave of absence from the company.

Adam Jackson will be taking the interim-CEO role and will run day-to-day operations at Teens in Tech. Jackson is a online media professional with 6 years of online experience. Currently, Jackson is a Community Manager and Social Media Evangelist for Yoono, Inc.; he will continue working for Yoono as well as Teens in Tech.

“At this point, with school my number one priority, a personal break from Teens in Tech is necessary” says CEO Daniel Brusilovsky. “I trust Adam with running day-to-day operations, and I’m sure he’ll do a great job.”

“I’m honored to be chosen for this position at Teens in Tech” says interim-CEO, Adam Jackson. “I’ve been an advisor to Teens in Tech since its inception, and it’s great to step in a bigger role.”

Jackson will begin on February 17, 2009. Brusilovsky will remain President during his leave, overseeing operations at Teens in Tech.

About Teens in Tech:

Teens in Tech is a media platform and community for teenagers wanting to produce and distribute media content via the internet. Daniel Brusilovsky founded the organization in February of 2008. Teens in Tech launched into private alpha in August of 2008, and currently hosts and distributes over 300 blogs with media content.

Press Contacts:

Daniel Brusilovsky
Founder & CEO
daniel@teensintech.com
650-539-4017

Neil Vineberg
Vineberg Communications for Teens in Tech
neil@vinebergcommunications.com
631-288-6933

Teens in Tech would like to announce a new hiring.

Greg Rosen is the new Teens in Tech Chief Engineer. He will be working with Chris Van Patten and the Teens in Tech Development Team to provide the most efficient and most user-friendly Teens in Tech user interface.

Greg has worked previously with a variety of sites that he’s both coded and designed. The most prominent of these is Gamernode, which Greg led under six revisions. He also works with Dynatech with media, CMS, and hosting solutions.

Welcome, Greg!

Teens in Tech is planning on launching this July. We are putting the finishing touches on our service now and can’t wait to launch to the public! Teens in Tech is committed to create the best possible community for teenagers looking to become involved in technology, be it through blogging, podcasting, or any form of new media. We can’t wait to see you checking out our service soon!

On a sadder note, Teens in Tech regrets to announce the resignation of three of its employees. Richard Escobedo, Chris Farley, and Max Murphy have decided to leave the company. All three were a great help in building the foundation for Teens in Tech. The company wishes them luck and good fortune in their future and personal endeavours.

Richard Escobedo’s blog, vlog, and podcasts can be found at http://blog.richard-escobedo.com.

Max Murphy’s weekly podcast and blog, Mac News Weekly, can be found at http://macnewsweekly.com.

Chris Farley’s blog can be found at http://viewfromafarley.com.