Hmmm. I hope the Santa Cruz Sentinel does a followup story on this, because it’ll be interesting to see if a parent-created, parent-monitored site for teens – even with all the desirable features – will develop significant teen participation. Invitation-only Santa Cruz Teen Space – with “instant messaging, chat, online radio, Yahoo! videos, blogs, polls, games and event listings” – was created by 41-year-old computer programmer and father of two James Williams because he wanted his daughters and other local teens to have a safe alternative to other social sites, the Sentinel reports. “Members [so far there are 72] can format their own profiles as well as rate each other’s attractiveness, send each other cyber high-fives and leave embarrassing face-to-face confessions behind by sending notification of a crush.” If people (under 18 only unless a parent) want to join but haven’t been invited, they can apply. Williams reviews the applications. The Sentinel doesn’t say how he verifies applicants’ ages or parents’ guardianship, unless by phone when he checks up on applicants (and people can lie on the phone as well as online). I suspect there will always be teens who make “safety” a priority (it’d be great if researchers could come up with a percentage in a future study), but I suspect that what MySpace and other social sites deliver is what I’d call social critical mass – e.g., everybody in one’s school (or one’s country, as with Lunarstorm.se in Sweden and Cyworld in South Korea) – and for most teens, having “everybody” there would be a higher priority. [Cyworld’s now has versions in the US and other countries, but the Korean one claims 90% of South Koreans under 20 – see this great blog post about it.]
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