We've been hard at work building our program for the next Ypulse Tween Mashup. I wanted to thank everyone who has been suggesting speakers and just clarify how we're defining tweens since the age range is a bit of a moving target in the media. Since we're focusing on technology, we decided to narrow the age range to 8-13 and limit the web sites that are speaking to those that are COPPA compliant. My thinking is that even though sites that are 13 and up may attract the "tween" demographic, I wanted the focus here to be really clear. These are sites specifically designed for this age group, not that happen to also attract them. We are keeping all of the speaker requests coming in for future events including next year's big Mashup in July.

We just added Addie Swartz, CEO, of B*tween Productions, to our new school panel -- Addie will be joining Jim Bower and Mattias Miksche to talk about how these new school brands are using technology to reach tweens. Beacon Street Girls has been an indie success story in the book publishing business and is expanding their online community in a big way. More about Addie:

B*tween Productions is the home of the Beacon Street Girls award-winning book series and Web site for preteen girls. Addie created the Beacon Street Girls in 2002 to provide positive role models and healthy messages for tween girls, whatever their challenges. Today, there are 10 Beacon Street Girls books with more than 500,000 copies in print. There are "super-fans" in 95 countries and BSG related products are sold at more than 850 independent gift shops and through the COPPA-compliant Beacon Street Girl website. Addie founded BrightIdeas in 1992. The company sold educational software to parents and teachers and was acquired by Addison Wesley in 1996.

We also added Bryon Cahill, the editor of Weekly Reader's Read Magazine, to the Old School to New School panel. Weekly Reader is a pretty old school magazine brand, and I have been impressed with how they have dedicated themselves to their new blog "WORD." I don't have his "professional" bio yet, but his WORD bio is pretty funny:

Bryon is the editor of READ Magazine. His whole life has been devoted to reading. In fact, he started reading before he was even born! Back in the middle ages, when Bryon was nothing more than well... nothing... he would read constantly. OK, that's an impossible lie. You got me. Wait a minute. Are we live? Turn off the camera! Turn it off!

We have confirmed that a very senior exec from Nickelodeon will deliver our opening keynote and are working hard to confirm an afternoon keynote from Disney. And...superstar Jupiter analyst David Card will moderate the Old School to New School Panel while kid/tween community guru Izzy Neis will moderate the New School panel.

I'm also happy to announce that Swivel has signed on once again as a sponsor of the event, which includes a case study slot. I was really excited when they told us they wanted to give their case study slot to Kajeet. If you've been watching the evolving tween mobile space, Kajeet has emerged as one of the leaders. They did a recent partnership with Whyville and also launched dudemail, which is powered by 2007 Mashup exhibitor Oddcast. Kajeet's CEO Daniel Neal will deliver the case study.

There are three sponsored case studies available, so if your agency or brand wants "15 minutes of fame" to talk about how you successfully engage tweens with technology, please get in touch with Charles Pelton at Modern Media. We're also looking for a "happy hour" sponsor -- the Javits isn't exactly the most hip environment to network, so we'd like to go somewhere cool in Chelsea after the event to keep the conversation going and the drinks flowing.

I also want to let you know about a special deal we have with Digital Media Wire. They are putting on their Millennials Conference in Manhattan right before the Tween Mashup. If you look at our agendas, you'll see there is almost no overlap -- the exception is Stardoll, but I think seeing Mattias demo Stardoll at Millennials will be very different than seeing him in conversation with other New Schoolers and YOU about under 13s specifically. There is no overlap by design because we want to encourage you to go to both events and are offering a discount to anyone attending the Millennials event. Of course, they are also offering a discount to anyone who wants to attend the Tween Mashup. We also are offering a discounted non-profit rate. The early adopter discount ends September 15. So register today!

Posted by anastasia