MTV LAUNCHES FIRST ONLINE COMMUNITY TO MAKE
YOUNG PEOPLE FAMOUS FOR DOING GOOD
Bono, Pete Wentz, Shakira, John Legend, Reggie Bush, Rosario Dawson,
Nick Lachey, Chris Rock, ,Miss USA Rachel Smith and Nick Cannon
Join with Youth on Think.MTV.com to Effect Positive Change
Site Helps Members Get informed, Get Heard and Get the Goods – Including Exposure on MTV, Access to Socially Conscious Celebs, VIP Events, Grants and More
New York, NY – September 20, 2007 – MTV, along with founding partners the Case Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Goldhirsh Foundation and MCJ Amelior Foundation, today launched a new online community where young people, their friends and some of the biggest names in pop culture can come together to bring about positive change. Think.MTV.com is a dynamic, multimedia-driven site where any young person can learn more about important issues like the environment, sexual health and immigration, share their opinions – via uploaded online videos, podcasts and blogs – and connect with others to make a difference.
The Think Community is one of the only to reward members for positive actions taken online or off, serving up chances to hang out with socially conscious celebs, access to exclusive MTV events, exposure on MTV and other national media outlets, as well as grants, scholarships and more. Bono, Pete Wentz, Shakira, Reggie Bush, Rosario Dawson, Nick Cannon, Miss USA Rachel Smith, John Legend, Nick Lachey, Chris Rock and Steve Nash are just a few of the stars already involved with the Think Community, and many more will be joining in the weeks ahead.
Think.MTV.com is a place where any young person can:
· Get Educated – The Think community is loaded with multimedia content uploaded from members, ThinkMTV and MTV News. A diverse mix of video and audio, news reports, picture galleries, socially conscious video games and more helps the uninformed quickly come up-to-speed on complex issues and the hyper-literate stay up-to-date on breaking news.
· Get Connected – Think.MTV.com is a national meeting point where all young people can leverage their collective talents and have a greater impact on issues they care about. Members can align in “Think Tanks” by interests, skills, geography and more to effect change globally and locally.
· Get Heard – The Think site is a platform for all young people to make their voices heard, serving as a powerful megaphone for a generation that is constantly self-publishing. Unlike any other online community, content posted on the site will have the chance to bubble up to MTV’s other online and mobile platforms, even MTV, which reaches more than 90 million subscribers in the US. Beginning later this fall, every video, photo or conversation a user contributes will also earn Action Badges, which can be redeemed for prizes, national exposure and more.
o Action Badges – Actions taken online or in the real world translate to Action Badges, a new feature launching within the next two months, which will enhance a user’s profile, unlock new community features and result in honors and prizes (see below).
· Get Active – Think.MTV.com offers young people simple ways to take action on key social issues, including registering to vote, petitioning congress, volunteering or starting a divestment movement. Further, the Think Community enables “do-it-yourself” activism, serving as a framework any participant can use to start or join an Action Project.
o Action Projects – Developed by celebrities, leading social activists or young people, Action Projects will launch later this fall and take aim at everything from fixing broken street lamps to ending world hunger – and make it easy for anyone to join in and help.
· Get Rewarded – In a first for social activism, Think.MTV.com taps into the power of MTV, its reach and partnerships to offer valuable rewards to members who use the site to do good. One of the first examples is the Young Creators Award, a partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which will give grants totaling $500,000 to young people (under 25) with innovative ideas on how digital journalism can strengthen community ties. Other future examples may include tickets to the VMAs for helping offset a community’s carbon footprint, exposure on MTV News for developing a pro-social video game, or scholarships for stimulating youth voter registration efforts. The possibilities are endless.
The Think Community is part of MTV Networks' recently announced Flux Network, which allows members to take their profiles and friends with them to any site in the network. Think.MTV.com is live now and MTV invites all young people to sign up, build a profile and begin contributing. The site will be the engine that drives all current and future MTV pro-social efforts, including the Emmy-winning “Choose or Lose” campaign on the presidential election, award-winning “Break the Addiction” campaign to help reduce over consumption, “It’s Your (Sex) Life” campaign to promote safe sex and fight the spread of HIV / AIDS, the network’s education initiative to help more high school students graduate prepared for college, career and life, as well as MTV Tr3s’ “Voces” campaign, launched specifically to help empower young Latinos to get the most out of their education.
The Think Community was built with the help of financial support and expertise from founding partners the Case Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Goldhirsh Foundation and MCJ Amelior Foundation. The founding partners will serve as key advisors and help bring “Best in Class” non-profit organizations – such as Malaria No More, Strong American Schools, the President’s Volunteer Service Award, Declare Yourself, City Year and PlayPumps – into the Think Community, engaging members through on and offline action projects and educational content. Other organizations contributing to and supporting Think.MTV.com include the United Nations, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Games for Change. Through partnerships between ThinkMTV and MTV's affiliate distribution partners nationwide, the network and its partners hope to inspire youth activism across the country, one local community at a time.
A major impetus behind the Think Community was ThinkMTV’s seminal youth activism study, “Just Cause,” which revealed that young people care deeply about activism: 80 percent say that taking action to help their community and others is important and the right thing to do; yet only 19% percent describe themselves as “very involved.” Respondents were very concerned about the challenges that face their generation – from personal issues like sexual health, discrimination, and education, to global concerns such as the environment, terrorism, poverty, and immigration – but many weren’t sure where to turn or how to get involved. Think.MTV.com will help mobilize these young people with new tools of engagement (mobile phones, online forums, broadband video, digital cameras, etc.), thereby narrowing the “activation gap” and making it much easier to become informed and take action.
Check out EDin08 on Think.MTV http://think.mtv.com/EDin08/
