XplanaZine

While teenagers and college students still enjoy the ever fun-filled “documentaries” of Spring Break, this alone will not hold their attention for long. The average young adult is always after something new, something more; in essence we are a generation with A.D.D. when it comes to our technology and media. So, in an attempt to recapture its followers that are getting bored with Spring Break contests and can get their music videos more quickly on the internet, MTV has recently launched a new campaign directed at the college crowd: mtvU, a special MTV channel broadcast to colleges and universities throughout the United States.Its mission is to be an all-encompassing college network across the states, providing not only entertainment but tickets to concerts, and a lot of interaction with its viewers in an attempt to regain its fans. However, how does mtvU hold up to facebook, an online site concerned with linking university students together? At a recent look, mtvU is broadcast to over 760 colleges while facebook connects 2,600 colleges nationwide. Perhaps this is not a fair comparison as facebook is an online site while mtvU is a television show. Like any good show these days mtvU naturally has its own website.

The mtvU website allows you to access the show and view it online and offers a list of all the shows. Reality tv dominates the channel with shows frequently produced by college students ranging from a show about college hygiene to substituting a celebrity for a professor. Most of the shows sound entertaining, but it’s the same old stuff we’ve seen before. If anyone wants to go find a video clip of college kids doing stupid things, there are sites dedicated to showing the world the stupidity of the young, and most of the sites have better quality videos and jokes like eBaums World or YouTube; even Google Video and has some entertaining stuff if you click the random button often enough.

MTV was at least halfway thinking when they decided to create mtvU, they just weren’t thinking up to speed. Social networking is all the rage with at least 67% of facebook users checking the site daily. Myspace is also another growing social network that isn’t limited to just college students. Another tv show wasn’t a bad idea, but if the show had been launched by a website that happened to connect users across the nation, that would have been a better idea. The FX network had the idea when they launched their television show “Black/White” recently. The network created a myspace for the show and gave out the website during advertisements. Viewers can comment on the show and chat with other people about their opinions of the show. It connects people and nearly everyone on the planet wants to be connected with other people.

While mtvU does connect people through its concerts and events, it doesn’t provide an outlet for its viewers/users to talk and connect. So instead of becoming MTV’s next big thing, it’s quickly becoming just a small station used for background noise while college students surf the net for their entertainment.