Youth Bytes!

Tags: media | schools | universities | youth activity

A new chat service enabling staff and students to instantly interact has been launched at a Scottish University.

The chat service commenced at Glasgow Caledonian University on February 23.  The Youth Wire Chat widget also allows students to collaborate and rate the level of support they have received, a real time integrated delivery and evaluation tool for a vital front line service. 

The widget has been added as part of the Youth Bytes, and is expected to be added to schools, colleges and universities already in partnership with the organisation.  Youth Bytes currently work with over 200 schools, colleges and universities in the United Kingdom transmitting a variety of health and welfare messages to students through their PC desktop messaging system.  The Youth Wire system displays animated welfare messages on the desktop of the student PCs, as can be seen in this Youth Bytes Demo.

Youth Bytes provides access to a number of essential youth services:

• Broadband internet access
• National and local information, support and advice
• The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Angus
• Health Drop-Ins
• Community Safety information

Due to the massive move towards ‘smart phones' and laptops, most people now spend a large amount of time browsing through internet applications.  Consumers are constantly looking for the next innovation in mobile applications, especially since the evolution of Apple's iphone. Marketers compete on a daily basis to provide the latest useful, valuable tools and information.

Young people are driving the need for digital media services, and there is a clear marketing opportunity in this area for organisations looking to engage with young people. Consumers of digital media are looking for instant gratification, so connecting with them requires getting short, punchy messages across in the shortest time possible. This is the concept behind Youth Bytes.

The idea was to come up with something bigger and better for brands promoting positive messages and products for young people to engage with them, and Youth Media came up with the desktop app. Over the last year, Youth Media has responded to growing trends in the market and come up with a digital platform in the form of Youth Wire.  Accessing more than 650,000 university students and installed on 24,845 PCs in places of study, it's made available to commercial brands looking to target the student market.

The desktop app is similar to the mobile version, and can be tailored to suit the needs of individual organisations.  There are a range of functions to play with, from tabs displaying basic content, to video feeds, news streams, data capture, even SMS and MMS communications.  Students are able to personalise their desktop space with apps allowing access to social networks, weather updates; a link to Wikipedia, and links to find reference books using their school/college/university's Library Catalogue.  All of the information is fed to the student's desktop in classes and in their free time.

Since 1999 the Youth Group has been involved with assisting academic institutions and various Local Authority Partners, charities and organisations to reach students with their health and welfare marketing campaigns.  Youth Bytes also brings services to young people who live in the most rural parts of the UK, such as Angus, which they would normally struggle to get access to. Young people who normally have problems reaching services, projects and youth workers for support, guidance and advice are now experiencing the benefits of Youth Bytes' mobile resources, brought to them in a dedicated vehicle.

Those wanting to find out about specific academic institutions Youth Bytes work with, or to find additional information can contact William Jenkins on 0141 564 2910 or e-mail William@youth-bytes.co.uk