App as parent-child talking point

Here's a good talking point for the tech part of parenting: Facebook Grader. It's a mini application ("app") that tells users their "reach and authority" on Facebook, TechCrunch.com reports. "The tool works by analyzing the number of friends you have, how important those friends are (whatever that means [maybe based on how many "friends" on their lists?]), how complete your profile is, how many wall posts you have and how many groups you belong to." Billed as a profile grader, for some kids it may be more of an indicator of how cool, sought-after, or popular they are. So it could fuel a discussion about whether your child uses a grading or rating tool like this, what s/he likes about social-networking, what it's best for, whether something like Facebook Grader is really any indicator of what a good person s/he is, and what s/he feels (and you feel) the real indicators are or should be.

'Curmudgeon's' guide to widgets

Not everyone loves widgets, those little applications supposedly adding fun and a sort of animation to social-networking profiles. Parents, here's the perspective of someone who finds some of them a little annoying (words such as "insidious" and "invasive" are used), including Facebook's No. 1 app, the FunWall. Another, bigger, reason to be wary of widgets is in the privacy-protection area. Note this from the Associated Press: "People often think Facebook profiles and sometimes MySpace pages, if they're set as private, are only available to friends or specific groups, such as a university, workplace, or even a city. But that's not true if they use applications [aka "widgets"]. On Facebook, for instance, applications can only be downloaded if a user checks a box allowing its developers to 'know who I am and access my information,' which means everything on a profile, except contact info. Given little thought, agreeing to the terms has become a matter of routine for the nearly 70 million Facebook users worldwide who use applications to spruce up their pages and to flirt, play and bond with friends online."