News for the Week of August 06, 2006
Age verification keeps coming up as the ultimate solution for safe social networking, and it was a key topic in kid-tech news again this week, with a new twist on it and a new kids' product on the market...
Self-verification: New trend?
This is not the killer-app age verification that state attorneys general are calling for on the social networks (see "Verifying online kids' ages" ). The story in the Wall Street Journal is about people verifying themselves (which teens probably won't do unless someone makes them). But as more and more people do so with the various means described in the Journal piece, the questionable characters will increasingly stand out. It's the kind of trend that, if it really kicks in, will grow fast as awareness grows, in a snowball effect, starting with dating sites and online transactions in sites like eBay. The Journal gives an example in Rob Barbour who wanted to verify his good reputation because he sells software and tech consulting on the Web. "When he put up an eBay Inc. listing a few weeks ago, the Ashburn, Va., technology consultant embedded a link to his new online profile on verification service Trufina Inc. He soon will paste the link in his emails" and his site to ensure that everyone knows he is who he says he is. "Proving who you are is increasingly important on the Web, amid growing concern that pervasive Internet fraud is making it difficult to know whom to trust," according to the Journal. So far, only adults can verify themselves, because there isn't publicly available info on minors that verification services can check against and verify, and establishing a national-level database of ID info on US children would likely be highly controversial (see my feature for more detail on this ).
Children's 'virtual ID card'
"NetIDMe," a new ID card for online kids out of the UK mentioned by the BBC , is also no "killer app." Like child age verification, it would require critical mass to be truly useful - e.g., all children required to have an ID card, which would also mean large databases of personally identifying info. One way it would work is in large groups, say, a school district: if every student had an ID card tied to a district's student database, and if there were a rule everybody followed that they could only email and IM with fellow ID-card-bearing students in the district (obviously this wouldn't work on MySpace). But everyone would have to obey the rule. Actually it might work better with peer groups, if everybody in the peer group obeyed their parents' household rule that everyone on the buddy list has an ID card. Parents, you can see even that would be a challenge!
In Other News...
- Patch your Windows. Homeland Security said Wednesday in what ZDNET called "a rare alert" on PC security . If you haven't already automated security patches for your Windows PC, the agency "recommended that people apply Microsoft's MS06-040 patch as quickly as possible. The software maker released the 'critical' fix Tuesday as part of its monthly patch cycle." Microsoft this week issued a dozen patches as its regular monthly security update, saying nine of them were critical. "However, the flaw addressed in MS06-040 is the only one among the updates that could let an anonymous attacker remotely commandeer a Windows PC without any user interaction," ZDNET adds. Go to Windows Update (using the Internet Explorer browser) for more info.
- MySpace's new search source.The good news is it may be easier to find your kid on MySpace; the bad news is it may be easier for other people to find your kid on MySpace. Google and MySpace just formed a partnership that means Google will provide MySpace and other News Corp. sites advertising and search, the San Jose Mercury News reports . In its coverage of this development, the New York Times says MySpace will pass the 100 million-member mark this week . Here, too, is the Los Angeles Times's coverage .
- AOL & CNN to host videos. They're joining the ranks of the many, many video-hosting sites trying to attract all those homemade videos out there. AOL is revamping its video portal to focus more on user-produced videos (aka young videographers at your house) - YouTube-style. CNN Exchange will be a place for news-focused user videos it will call "I-Reports" (to be previewed by editors before they appear on the site). CNN Exchange is "powered by blip.tv," the site will allow amateur videographers to upload "I-Reports," which will be reviewed by editors before being published to the site (here's CNET on the CNN development ). Knowledge@Wharton says there are more than 225 of these YouTube-type sites, among them VideoEgg, Video Bomb, Blinkx.TV, Blip.TV, Guba, Grouper, Frozen Hippo, Blennus, and Eefoof.
- Universities on social networking. Heads-up, freshmen! Along with all the other warnings your college-bound kids will be getting about partying and credit card debt, this year they'll be told to be careful about what they post in blogs and social-networking sites, the Associated Press reports . "From large public schools such as Western Kentucky to smaller private ones like Birmingham-Southern and Smith, colleges around the country have revamped their orientation talks to students and parents to include online behavior," according to the AP. Some even include role-playing skits about online socializing in their orientation programs. But note that the schools are warning not banning. "College administrators say they can't - and wouldn't want to keep students off sites such as Facebook."
