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Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup for this second week of October:

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Safe chat for kids

We recently ran into an online-safety organization that truly practices what it preaches. It not only teaches kids how to chat online safely, it provides a place where kids and teens can chat safely. I-SAFE America made its chat area safe by harnessing two kinds of expertise: technical and human. (We propose that few services are truly effective on the Internet unless they employ both of those.)

In an interview, i-SAFE president Teri Schroeder elaborated on that for us. Please note: These are criteria you can use to check on the safety level of other chat areas your kids go to. On the technology side, i-SAFE has its chat servers configured so that:

On the human side, i-SAFE has a secret weapon: kids. Yes, the kids' chat rooms are monitored by grownups trained in chat safety (STATs, for "Safety Trained Awareness Team"), but they are also monitored by a team of kids and teens called Junior STATs. JrSTATs are volunteers who are interviewed, trained, and tested before they join the monitoring team (here's the JrSTAT mission). JrSTATs have rules, and one of them is "School first!", so they are generally "on the job" only three hours a week. A highlight of our week was interviewing one of their leaders, 11-year-old Graeme McNaughton, so keep reading!

As we talked to Teri about all this, we wondered why safe chat is attractive to the some 300,000 unique visitors (600,000+ visits) who come to the site each month (we know why it's attractive to their parents and teachers!). Teri told us that, on the Net, kids don't have the signals or context they have in a physical encounter which tell them when they're in danger. "We have found that kids/teens wander over to i-SAFE because they know that no matter what, if there is an abuse issue, it will be dealt with, and this allows them to feel safe and have the assurance that someone cares about their activities online." Teri added that she's found that some children enjoy chat more when the "mystery factor" is removed. She's referring to the phenomenon in online chat where people are not always who they say they are (e.g., adults with bad intentions can pose as children). One can never be totally sure of fellow chatters' identities, but we can see that it helps when familiar "faces" are in the chat room, such as i-SAFE's STATs, and especially peers - JrSTATs.

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A young safety expert

To complete the picture, we interviewed JrSTAT co-director and sixth-grader Graeme McNaughton and his dad, Jim. Their family has been online a little over a year, at Graeme's initiative. He'd been online at friends' houses, he told us, and it seemed like a good idea for the McNaughtons, too, he said. We asked him what he does most online, and chat clearly tops the list, with a little surfing, research, and interactive gaming on the side.

We asked Graeme how he got involved in i-SAFE. "I asked my parents if I could try chat. We went onto a search engine and looked at a few of the options. We picked i-SAFE because the description in the search engine said it was for kids." Why did you pick one for kids? we asked. "My parents encouraged me, and it was also my own idea." His dad added, "When our kids first started going into chat, we were with them for the first while to see what the basic talk was in the chat area - what people were saying. We tried various chat areas…. His sister goes on Yahoo! Teens, but we're not as happy with that one. It doesn't have as strong controls, and it's wide open."

We asked Graeme how i-SAFE compares with other kids' chat areas. "I tried FreeZone, but there are so many people on there I didn't really feel comfortable. No one ever listens to me. At i-SAFE, it's unusual to get a group over 15 in a chat room [all at once], and STATs and JrSTATs will talk to people and really answer their questions."

To continue his story, we asked Graeme how he came to be a JrSTAT himself, and he said that as he chatted with the JrSTATs he just got to wondering about their job and asked them what it was all about. He told us the name interested him, as did "being able to keep the place safe. I wanted to help out, I wanted to be a part of it."

And what has he learned in the process? we asked him. "It's helped me have a better personality. I can be more nice in my real life because of spending time in chat." We asked Graeme if he means that online chat shows him how people's behavior affects others. "Yes, you learn from that…. The way you act can determine who you can be in your life. Without a good personality you may not have as many friends. If you have a happy personality you can have a really good life, get married, have a lot of good friends." (This is a wise 11-year-old, we thought.) We asked i-SAFE's Teri Schroeder the same question - what the JrSTATs learn - and she added "responsibility." "We have them sign up for a schedule to teach them responsibility," she said. "So they take this very seriously and treat it like a job."

Finally we asked Graeme what advice he'd give parents about keeping their kids safe online (not just in chat). "The first thing is, carefully pick out where you're going," Graeme said. "Find out what chat actually is, and when you pick one out, be sure you know what you're getting…. Don't go into any areas that say 'free pictures,' because they're usually nude pictures…. Look for safety guarantees…. Telling people your age, sex, and closest city are ok, but don't describe what you look like, and don't ever give out your phone number or address. In chat, don't let people follow you, and don't go into a private room with anyone. If they put you in a private room, sometimes you can't get out."

If you and your kids check out the i-SAFE kids' chat area, do tell us what you think - via feedback@netfamilynews.org.

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Do parents filter?

We recently asked online market researchers NFO Interactive for their take on how many online US households use some sort of Net filtering software or service. We were very interested to hear that 47% of parents surveyed have heard of filtering tools but don't use them. Eleven percent do use them; 10% haven't heard of them; and 4% have used it in the past and no longer do, pointing to customer-satisfaction problems. That first statistic is very interesting. Filtering is certainly not for everybody, and we take no position on individual family decisions, but it would be interesting to hear from you why you've made whatever decision you have on filtering. Parents can help each other with their growing expertise in online-parenting.

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Actually getting answers (on the Web)

Here are two very useful Web-based research tools for your consideration, one brand-new the other very old:

ExpertCentral: We've all heard the saying that experience is the best teacher, well one Web entrepreneur is capitalizing on that. According to Wired News, Greg Schmergel, founder of ExpertCentral, figures search engines just don't fill the bill for a lot of people and their questions. So he created a spot where the Web public can interface with some 4,700 experts in at least 20 categories of expertise (pet care to car repair - it's fun to scan the "Other Categories" page just to see how specialized expertise can get). Sometimes the answers will cost ya, but cost is negotiable - between questioner and answerer. ExpertCentral handles the billing and takes a 15% cut of the experts' fees. Take a look at the Wired article to get a feel for how successful the site has been already.

Information Please: InfoPlease.com was just acquired by the Family Education Network, a community of parents, students, and educators interested in all things K-12. That's the latest news in a story that dates back to pre-TV NBC. Information Please was first a quiz show with a long run: 1938-52. Nine years into that run the show's creators saw the need for a reference book for finding reliable answers to the show's obscure questions, and the Information Please Almanac was born. Now there are entertainment and sports almanacs, too. The Web site's new owners say this searchable online dictionary-encyclopedia-almanac bundle gets more than 1 million unique visitors a month. For students, there's Homework Center, "specially designed for K-12 homework problems," and a Kids' Almanac.

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Web News Briefs

  1. The 'free frenzy'

    We've been advising you of freebies and cheapies all along; here's some welcome context from the New York Times. There's one thing the article doesn't say that we'll say: This won't last for long. It's another one of those Internet phases. Last holiday-shopping season's numbers told all the venture capitalists and investors that e-commerce is the thing. So zillions of Internet startups wrote their business plans around "e-commerce" and scrambled to get it into their sites. This season it's all over the Web, so in order to get shoppers' attention and pull 'em in, they're giving things away. But don't take our word for it - read what the analysts say (in this article). It's fun to see what they're thinking about us shoppers - and to go into the season with eyes wide open!

    And here's yet another example from InternetWire: Free Internet service with a closeable ad window (the piece doesn't say how the provider, iFreedom, will make money). And if anyone's interested in dollar projections of what this holiday shopping will look like to e-retailers, Internet.com has the story.

  2. Ads in school

    Bills are pending in both California's state legislature and the US Senate that would restrict marketing to kids in school, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A company in California, ZapMe! Corp., offers schools free computers, Internet access, and tech support. Those computers have ads on the edges of their screens and software that monitors students' surfing habits. The Chronicle says, "If a 15-year-old girl from Concord logs onto ZapMe!, the computer would ask her age and gender and would then select an ad designed for a typical teenage girl, such as sportswear modeled by Monica Seles." The California legislation would require written permission from a parent for a student to participate in market research at school, and it calls for research on commercialism in public schools.

  3. TV viewing, Web surfing

    Contrary to what other surveys have shown, a recent one by Burke Information Communications and Entertainment Research shows that Web use is *not* cutting into TV viewing in the US. The survey, conducted for MTV Networks and Turner Entertainment Networks, found that less than 2% of people with Internet access trade time spent watching TV solely for time spent online. What that means is, we're all multitasking more. If our TV time goes down, that saved time goes to a number of activities: social time with family and friends, athletics, and more time at work, as well as online activities. For more detail, see the article in CyberAtlas.

  4. Debating online pornography

    The full spectrum of opinions in the porn-on-the-Web debate could be heard at the National Press Club in Washington last week. From those who say it's good for the US economy (but not good for children) to those who call it "a danger that sacrifices children on the altar of the First Amendment," it was all there. You can find the debaters' views, as well as those of the surfing public (in a discussion board at the bottom of the article), in a ZDNet report. What do you think? Should the onus be entirely on parents to protect their children from pornography on the Net? Should there be other restrictions and, if so, which ones would not violate free speech? Share your views with fellow subscribers.

  5. Why college students use the Web (or don't)

    Not all students were born with a mouse in their hands, according to a fun Wired News piece full of college students' own comments. Some use the Web to read what's going on back home, others for job searches and research. Others - just like some baby boomers we know - are in denial that they'll ever have to figure this Internet thing out! Meanwhile, for the Web-literate who are trying to get into college, there's College Board Online, a very commercial spinoff from the nonprofit organization that administers the SAT tests. According to the New York Times, the College Board is making a "radical shift" from "dispassionate conservatism into the big-money world of Internet startups." The site, which reportedly intends to be advertising supported, includes SAT coaching, a college/university search engine, and College Board news such as the latest survey of how much a college education costs.

  6. 'Home of the future'

    We, the general public, are not allowed to visit the "home of the future" recently set up in Manhattan by Excite@Home. But ComputerCurrents.com gives us a small peek. Now that we've read this short list of innovations, you'll find us among the majority surveyed recently to whom a networked home is more about having the home's PCs networked to reduce the number of phone lines needed and to share a printer. But you early adopters out there tell us what you think.

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A correction

Last week we published an item about Dotsafe.com and its offer to provide free filtered Internet service to all US schools. Their announcement said they expect to accommodate as many as 400,000 schools. They have since corrected that to say 400,000 students, but Dotsafe CEO Robert Maynard tells us, "I think we'll add a zero to that next year." Looks like they're getting a positive response from schools! We'll keep you posted.

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That does it for this week. Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Net Family News


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