News for the Week of January 14, 2007
Leading kid-tech news this past week was a story the Wall Street Journal broke about a new tool MySpace will soon be releasing for parents...
MySpace's software for parents
Code-named "Zephyr," it's parental-notification software, not monitoring software, which makes sense because MySpace says it's designed to promote parent-child communication about social networking. It will be just another tool in the tech-parenting toolbox.
The company wasn't ready to announce Zephyr because it won't be available for at least a couple of months, but anything MySpace does in the child-protection space is big news.
Zephyr's a very simple program parents will be able to install on household PCs which "identifies any MySpace user who logs in from one of those computers," MySpace says (a Mac version will be released later this year).
What parents can/can't see
With it, parents will know what profiles their children have; how old your kids say they are in MySpace; the user names and hometown they've provided; and when they log in from anywhere. It also has a tool parents can use to send MySpace verification of their children's ages, which helps ensure that the site's privacy and safety protections for minors are applied to your child's profile. The software also automatically notifies the MySpace user "that their parent has downloaded [the] software, and their profile will now be tagged by the software," the company said.
You won't be able to see your child's profile from within this software program - so it won't show you profile comments, friends lists, photos, videos, blogs, groups, etc. (you can honestly tell him this is not an invasion of his privacy). You'll have to use your Web browser to go to your child's page. If the profile is set to private, you still won't be able to see it (like anyone else trying to access it who's not on their friends list). So you'll have to get your child to show it to you. These "can't see's" will definitely create opportunities for parent-teen discussion, which I feel is the best part of this tool. (By law, MySpace says, it can't disclose a profile that's set to private without its owner's permission.)
Basically, it's a convenience tool and a conversation starter for families with MySpace users. For more details and my takeaways on this development, please click to a special report at NetFamilyNews.org. For the Wall Street Journal piece, see MoneyWeb.co.za in South Africa, which picked up the original article that ran 1/17.
In other news...
- GPS phones ease parent fears. More and more phones have GPS (for getting a fix on the phone's physical location), and more and more cellphone companies are offering geolocation services. Including kid phones (see AssociatedContent.com), which are easing parents' concerns and raising those of privacy advocates, the San Jose Mercury News reports. The article leads with the story of a Northern California family with two kids 5 and 6, each with a Migo, "a small phone for kids with a built-in computer chip that communicates their location." Their parents clip the Migos to their kids' clothing and use Verizon Wireless's Chaperone "location awareness" service for $9.99 a month. Sprint's Family Locator service costs the same. At first glance, it looks like there's only an upside, "but privacy advocates worry that carriers will collect location data that could be used against consumers," says the Mercury News.
- Pinpointing peers - new territory for online safety. It's the technology that allows cellphones users to pinpoint their friends' physical location with their phones. The only thing that's regulated about this in the US is the FCC's 1999 requirement that "cell phone companies implant location-tracking receivers in handsets," Business Week reports. On the safety and privacy front, "providers of services that help wireless users track friends and loved ones are still finding their footing," but meanwhile new companies providing all kinds of phone-to-Web media-sharing tools, as well as geolocating social tools for phones. The Pandora's Box is now open for business, so watch out, parents! Meanwhile, here's Mashable on a new tool called Jaxtr that allows visitors to a MySpace page call the page's owner on his/her cell.
- MySpace users need better passwords. If parents are looking for conversation openers with their teens social networking, one might be MySpace passwords. PC security experts actually have some numbers of people tricked by a recent phishing scam. Because of a fake log-in page MySpace users click to on the phishers' Web server, they have 60,000 user names (email addresses) and passwords of MySpace users, reports Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs. Which gets us to the part about stupid passwords (the insecure kind that people can easily guess). Brian lists some of the passwords these phishers have collected.
- 2006's Top 10 videogames. No. 1 was Madden NFL '07. "Like Madden itself, the PS2 has practically become a fixture in the homes and consciousness of Americans under age 35," reports the New York Times in its analysis. The rest of the Top 5 were New Super Mario Brothers (a quest/rescue-the-princess game), Gears of War (3rd-person shooter), Kingdom Hearts II (a fantasy role-playing game), and Guitar Hero 2 (rockstar role-playing game). The Times article has a sidebar listing the full Top 10 and the consoles they're played on. Meanwhile, videogame sales had a record year last year, up 19% to $12.5 billion worldwide and up 28% in the US, the Associated Press reports.
