Protecting teen reputations

In this latest phase of the Web, when anybody can be a publisher, videographer, or instant celebrity, many parents are concerned about what can happen to their kids' reputations and future prospects. We're beginning to see news reports picking up on this (see "What you say online could haunt you" in USATODAY, "Whose space is it, anyway?" in the San Jose Mercury News, and a more recent piece in the Grand Rapids [Mich.] Press). It's getting to the point where kids will need spin-doctor skills (see my item on this last June).

International social-networking flap

Social-networking has the US and Brazilian governments doing some "networking" of their own. Rival Brazilian football fans were organizing a street fight in a US-based social-networking site, Google's Orkut.com (most of Orkut's users are in Brazil), and police monitoring the planning were able to prevent the fight, according to South Africa's IOL.co.za. The international part of the story is a "debate between Brazilian and Google officials appearing before the Chamber of Deputies' Human Rights Committee.
Brazilian authorities monitoring online messages for possible crimes want the US company to turn over users' personal information to help stop crimes an abuse like the street battle between the football fans." Of course, Google's user-privacy struggle is even greater in China (see the New York Times's thorough coverage). [Here's my earlier item on social-networking outside the US.]

Gaming's hot news

The biggest game news this week was: 1) Nintendo's forthcoming Revolution console's new official name, "Wii" (pronounced "we," Reuters reports), and 2) Microsoft acquiring a startup videogame ad agency in New York for somewhere between $200 million and $400 million. The 80-employee Massive Inc., places ads for clients like Coke and Honda in online games, the Wall Street Journal reports. With that news, Viacom's $102 million deal to acquire Xfire Inc., "a startup that operates an instant-messaging service" for game chat, and News Corp.'s $650 million acquisition of IGN, which runs game zine Web sites, we're seeing serious signs that online gaming is moving into the media mainstream. For gamers themselves, the top story is probably the cancellation of "the most lucrative tournament in computer gaming," as the BBC reported it, seen as a huge setback for pro gaming. Last year "the World Tour organised by the Cyberathlete Professional League gave away $1m in prizes to pro-gamers at 10 events held around the globe," the BBC added.

Then there's the brainy-games trend. In PeaceMaker, developed by two grad student at Carnegie Mellon U., players fight for peace and in the process learn about "the complex choices facing leaders in the Middle East," CNN reports. It's not just a shooter game, though it simulates "the violence and political turbulence of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. In another example, "Nintendo has sold nearly 5 million copies of its three Nintendo DS brain training games since the series launched in Japan a year ago," the BBC reports. They're designed by "one of the country's top brain researchers," the BBC adds. On the console side of gaming, CNN offers a "sneak peek" of that part of E3, the videogame industry's annual trade show that begins May 10.

Bully/anti-bully, Web 2.0-style

As the Village Voice describes HollaBackNYC.com - designed to empower New Yorkers to "holla back at street harassers" - it's grassroots surveillance. The site is a photo moblog, a blog to which people can upload pictures of a sexual or any other kind of harasser on the spot with their camera cellphones, and it can get pretty graphic, as is the Village Voice's coverage. But it's not much different from what can be found among the zillions of innocent profiles, blogs, photos, and videos on the social-networking and media-hosting sites. "There's a term in academia for the practice … University of Toronto engineering professor Steve Mann coined it to mean the opposite of surveillance. 'Sousveillance' is looking from below, turning the lens on the higher-ups, altering the power dynamic," the Village Voice reports. School administrators and law-enforcement people certainly know something about this. But what parents (and of course kids who upload photos, videos, etc.) need to think about is the privacy issue. Certainly some harassers deserve the spotlight they're getting. But the Village Voice cites the view of the Electronic Privacy Information Center that "sites like Holla Back may open a door to misuse or defamation." What they mean is, these sites can be used not only to "holla back" at bullies, but also to bully, defame, or threaten just about anybody, a terrible misuse of digital people power.

Social-networking at the BBC?!

The youth- and user-driven Web is invading that ol' granddaddy the BBC even. Its director-general Mark Thompson just announced a big shakeup after saying the BBC "was increasingly seen as irrelevant by younger audiences," The Times of London reports. Britain's publicly funded broadcaster will "revamp its Web site to include user-generated content such as blogs, music and home videos, similar to the MySpace service that is hugely popular with teenagers," according to Reuters. That will include a new "teen brand" and fresh content for people 12-16 on TV, radio, and the Web, MediaGuardian adds, listing a bunch of changes. All the new developments are meant to make the BBC more "on-demand" and responsive to a much more user-generated media environment, C21Media.net reports. All I can say is that MySpace parent News Corp. must be glad organizations like the BBC are joining it on Web 2.0, figuring out how to foster self-expression as well as self-protection among teen users. [While we're on the subject, Microsoft will be doing S-N too: The company announced "a joint venture with Wallop to get in the game," Internet News reports, describing Wallop as kind of a blend of MySpace and Friendster.]

'MyDeathSpace.com'

One wonders if MySpace is happy with this "spin-off," as described by the Staten Island Advance, but it could be seen as another legitimate form of sharing experiences online. Launched last December, MyDeathSpace.com appears to be one of the many mashups that are happening all over this increasingly user-driven Web. It's an obituary social-networking site that "collects the profiles of deceased MySpace users and links them to news stories, obituaries or blogs that detail their lives as well as how they died." On the one hand, it could be viewed as a sick or exploitative use of social-networking (founder Mike Patterson, 25, told the Advance that he gets a lot of hate mail). On the other hand, it makes sense for young people who do so much socializing online also to grieve and create memorials online. A number of students at a local high school recently found comfort in eulogizing a fellow student in MySpace.com, one of their moms told me. The Advance cites the view of one grief therapist that "this kind of 'grief work' can be particularly healing for young people." Founder Patterson gets grateful emails too and told the Advance that one of his goals is educating teens that "life is fragile," "they're not invincible." Later this week, the New York Times ran a big-picture piece on online memorializing.

Lingo of our digital lives

Do you have an "EMV" too (that vague, trail-off-y "email voice" people use when talking on the phone while reading email), or does your child "frazz" a lot ("multitask ineffectively")? I guess a friend with an EMV is more thoughtful than a friend who engages in "cylences" – "the long gaps in phone conversation that occur when a person is reading email or cybershopping at the same time." These are terms describing the intersection of our digital and real lives included in a list in "Overly Wired? There's a Word for It" in the New York Times. Some of 'em, like "logonorrhea," don't quite work for me, but I definitely hear from "regurgimailers," don't you? There are a bunch more such terms in Part 2, including those annoying "unamailers," who respond to emails with a single word (something of which you all know I'm never guilty, unfortunately), and those with "cellulitis," who have phones maybe surgically attached to their ears.

Tougher child-porn law proposed

The Net has created an "epidemic" of child pornography, said US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in a speech at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children late last week. He was unveiling "proposed changes in the law under the Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments of 2006," the BBC reports. The BBC adds that "the proposals have been sent to Congress and include new laws that will require ISPs to report child pornography and bolster penalties for those companies that fail to do so." The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA, which supports both free speech and voluntary site labeling for explicit, violent, and other types of content to which parents may not want children exposed) responded to the news with support but also a qualifier: "We vigorously oppose an added measure included in the draft bill which would require Web sites with sexually explicit material - material that is legal, but potentially harmful to minors - to use a government-mandated labeling system. ICRA strongly believes that self-regulation of legal Internet content leads to the best balance between the free flow of digital content and the protection of children from potentially harmful material." Here's the text of Mr. Gonzales's speech.

Meanwhile, the British government has taken a significant step in efforts against child exploitation: It just launched the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, "which will operate 24 hours a day [and] is the first of its kind in the UK to bring together police, computer industry experts and child welfare representatives to tackle issues such as online grooming and child abuse images," the Times of London reports. Meanwhile, the British government has taken a significant step in efforts against child exploitation: It just launched the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, "which will operate 24 hours a day [and] is the first of its kind in the UK to bring together police, computer industry experts and child welfare representatives to tackle issues such as online grooming and child abuse images," the Times of London reports . Finally, the Wall Street Journal's "Numbers Guy" takes a closer look at the child porn industry's "$20 billion" sales figure being widely cited.

'Geek heaven'

That definitely includes kid geeks, reports CNET, referring to Maker Faire, put on by Make magazine at the San Mateo, Calif., Fairgrounds this past weekend. It's "a haven for thousands of boys and girls and men and women, perhaps one of the few times when such a smorgasbord of geek fare attracted such a diverse crowd. And a big part of it was that almost all the exhibits allowed attendees, especially kids, to get their hands on them and play with them," according to CNET. Maybe a country fair makes people want to raise Herefords or Holland Lops, but this fair makes kids want to go home and build something, Make's editor told CNET. There's something for everyone, reportedly, from rubber chickens and soap-bubble tricks to Power Tool Drag Races. A fun article about a fun event.

Social-networking 'traffic jam'

It's shades of the days when file-sharing was all over tech news and universities were trying to unclog their networks. Students at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas, have been told they have to use MySpace off the school network because their social-networking is slowing it down, the Associated Press reports. "Forty percent of daily Internet traffic at the college involved the site," the school's chief technology officer told the AP, which adds that MySpace is now up to 72 million+ members. TMCnet.com's report went into the development further. [As the New York Times reports, MySpace doesn't even quite know how to sell all those pages to advertisers- it's "charging bargain-basement rates to attract enough advertisers for the nearly 1 billion pages it displays each day" and trying to figure out how to help advertisers target those ads to "each member's personal passions."] Meanwhile, file-sharing at universities is still in the headlines: In their latest move against music and movie piracy, the RIAA and MPAA "sent letters to presidents of 40 universities in 25 states informing them of piracy problems on their schools' local area networks and asking for immediate action to stop it," CNET reports.

Christian social-networking

The reporting (about mainstream social-networking) isn't entirely accurate, but Associated Baptist Press does look at the downside as well as the upside of religious sites in this category. It cites a wise parent pointing out the false sense of security Christian social-networking cites can foster. "Ken Satterfield, a father and marketing specialist, told Associated Baptist Press anonymity of the Internet causes people to divulge personal information they ordinarily wouldn’t share. The Christian label on Xianz.com or Swordwalk, another Christian site, causes some people to let down their otherwise careful guard against strangers, he said.... As a parent, Satterfield said, he also struggles with the choice between shielding his children from potentially harmful media and letting them learn how to navigate the world on their own." Xianz.com supposedly offers all the services of a MySpace - customized profiles, blogging, music, etc. What this article doesn't say is if this by-invitation-only site of 4,500 members to date has similar security measures. Its founders, who say its growth is "incredible," "concede users with malicious motives might be able to access the site," Associated Baptist Press reports. It also seems to suggest an element of exploitation.

Kid-tracking phones

I blogged about this when Sprint first unveiled its service, but the Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro actually reviewed the phone, thinking here and there from the perspective of "the objects of all this surveillance." He does get one thinking about how far we've come since 9/11. "As demonstrated by a Sprint publicist yesterday, the service was deceptively easy to use . . . considering that the whole idea would have been science-fiction fodder a decade ago." He concludes with the thought of what it might feel like for a traveling employee knowing HQ can in this way "manage its mobile assets." I wonder how big the market is for this technology, which does seem to take potential privacy invasion to another level. Rob writes, "The whole idea of tracking your family in this manner is weird and alarming on some levels. So is the notion that we're all so deathly afraid for our kids that there's even a market for this." Do you agree? Email me or comment in our forum.

Web by phone

If it's happening in Europe and Asia, it'll happening in North America too, where cellphones are concerned. And the latest study - by market researcher Ipsos Insight - found that in some spots people are checking email and browsing the Webs with their phones more than laptops, the Associated Press reports. And the AP adds that mobile phone Web-browsing is moving beyond teens and young adults.

Circumventing teens

Teenagers doing the circumventing, that is - with Web proxies. CNET's "Kids outsmart Web filters" leads with the story of Oregon high school student Ryan bypassing his school's filter by setting up a Web proxy at home so he could access Web sites the school blocks. The school eventually figured out what he was doing and worked out some countermeasures, but there was no disciplinary action - its wise administrators told CNET this is how they learn. And of course Ryan's not alone. "An increasing number of teenagers are setting up proxies on home PCs to sidestep school filtering traps, in addition to using free proxies set up on the Web, according to technologists at schools and at content-filtering technology providers," CNET adds, elaborating.

Better spyware protection

To keep our family PCs more spyware-free, suggests Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs, we need to give up our rights. It's not as radical as it sounds, but he acknowledges one does give up some convenience. Basically, he's saying we can keep our PCs more secure if we run application software under sub-accounts, or non-admin accounts - the ones that don't have the power to install programs or modify the operating system. Why? Because, Brian says, "spyware and other unwanted programs have a much harder time getting their hooks into your system if the current user lacks installation privileges." Check out the article to see how.

'Social-bookmarking'

It *sounds* like startups are just capitalizing on social-networking's runaway success, but this is real. "Power to the people" has definitely arrived on the Internet, and what Larry Magid (my partner at NetFamilyForum.org) and I are delighted we're beginning to see is people power in the kids' online safety area. Already, dozens of bands and artists on MySpace.com are interested in joining an effort to educate and protect teens who use MySpace. But I ramble. Getting back to social-bookmarking. As a CNET columnist put it, "The amount of good content on the Web is exploding. So how does a person find not just what's good, but what other people think is good so that we can at least talk to each other about the same things?" One way is to use social-bookmarking sites like Digg.com and Del.icio.us, or a "cool mashup" of the two: DiggLicious.com (the article links to dozens of others too). These are basically voting systems, in which the people decide what sites are worth our while.

Young cellphone 'junkies'

"Multi-socializing will be a needed skill in tomorrow's economy," reports the Lansing State Journal, referring to teens' social multitasking. Multitasking is about juggling tasks. Teens do that too in the process, but the main activity is, in a way, "juggling people" in the sense of holding multiple one-on-one conversations simultaneously in instant-messaging while talking or texting on the phone and typing comments into a blog or social-networking site. The Journal cites a Michigan State professor as finding the skill admirable in some ways. Adults, who aren't used to this style of communication may wonder why, but it helps to observe how it's done, and experts find that there are positives and negatives to it, as with most ways of relating. "Teen cell phone relationships aren't necessarily shallow, experts say. They're just different. Sure, kids miss out on the non-verbal cues, but the length of the conversations can compensate for that," the Journal reports. Check out the article for some more insights - as well as a sidebar on some recommended rules for parents on teen cellphone use.

MySpace safety tour

MySpace is giving more and more tours of its 4th floor these days. That's where the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company deals with the issues so much in the news of late: teens' social-networking, blogging, cyberbullying, and ID theft. We recently got the tour, and we thought you'd like a snapshot of what's going on there behind the headlines. Please click to this week's issue of my newsletter if you'd like to take a look.

MySpace teen-safety tour

MySpace is giving more and more tours of its 4th floor these days. That's where the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company deals with the issues so much in the news of late: teens' safe social-networking, cyberbullying, and ID theft. We recently got the tour, and we thought you'd like a snapshot of what's going on there behind the headlines. Please click to this week's issue of my newsletter if you'd like to take the tour.

Researchers, kids on violent games

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Pittsburgh have released a study showing "what they consider proof positive" that violent videogames have a negative affect on players, TechNewsWorld.com reports. The study, which looked at the effects of media violence exposure on men 18-21, found that the games "negatively affect a players' blood pressure and lead to uncooperative behavior, permissive attitudes toward violence, alcohol and marijuana use, sexual activity without condom use and hostile social information processing." [See "MI videogame law killed" for more on the linkage between research and laws.] Meanwhile, "Video Game Violence," a 7-minute documentary by three Florida 9th-graders, won 3rd prize in C-SPAN's nationwide contest "StudentCam," the Palm Beach Post reports. "The documentary includes original music created by a garage band and interviews with parents and students at the school." All the winners, which will be shown on C-SPAN, can be found at StudentCam.org.

Teens charged in child-porn case

Three Rhode Island girls, two 16 and one 19, recently were arrested and charged with conspiracy. One of the 16-year-olds allegedly took sexually explicit photos of the other two girls, the Associated Press reported, who were arrested earlier for posting the photos on their MySpace pages. The photos were discovered by a police officer "assigned to Lincoln High School who regularly monitors the site," the AP added. I asked an attorney at the National Center for Missing & Reported Children if she believes it's increasingly possible that minors will be up against adult-level prosecution in cases where they "distribute" child pornography like this. Mary Leary, deputy director of the Center's Office of Legal Counsel, replied that kids do "face the 'possibility' of charges much more so now than in the past. However, particularly when the images are of the youth him/herself, the appropriate response from prosecutors is unclear and very jurisdiction-specific. In situations such as that referenced in the AP report, this will be a fact-specific review to see the purpose for the posting, circumstances of the posting, and applicable law." Parents and kids will want to note what Ms. Leary says here: "In many jurisdictions youths will be charged with such offenses, notwithstanding a lack of understanding they were dealing in child pornography." She adds that "there are additional repercussions as well for such actions, even if the product of bad judgment ... [including] charges unrelated to child porn, such as harassment, aiding and abetting, and conspiracy charges. Civil liability should also be a concern."

Get the April patches

Microsoft has released three new patches for Windows PCs, all critical, the Associated Press reports. One fixes an Internet Explorer browser flaw that has already been exploited, so – if you Windows PC owners don't have patching automated (e.g., at Windows OneCare), get that patch right away! Here's Washington Post PC security writer Brian Krebs with "The Skinny on April's Batch of Microsoft Patches."

Child porn law not global

Since the advent of the Web and the consequent growth in child-porn trafficking, we've usually heard that child pornography is illegal in most countries. Now we know it isn't, thanks to a new study by the International Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "ICMEC's global policy review of child pornography laws in 184 Interpol-member countries showed that more than half [138] have no laws that specifically address child pornography, and in many others the existing laws are insufficient," Information Week reports. The ICMEC's press release added: "Surprisingly, just five of the countries reviewed have laws considered comprehensive enough to make a significant impact on the crime: Australia, Belgium, France, South Africa, and the United States." The number of calls last year to the US's National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline.com (800.843.5678) was 340,000, up from "more than 24,400 in 2001."

Virtual pedophilia in Net 'world'

It's not against the law because real children aren't involved, CNET cites legal experts as saying, but some players in the Second Life virtual world are speaking out about "age play." "This age-based role-playing can take on various forms," according to CNET: "It can be as innocuous as people acting out a family dynamic, or as potentially troubling as two adults engaging in sexual role playing, with one of the avatars made to look like a child." Second Life avatars can be animals, elves, monsters - just about anything the imagination can dream up. The adults-only game has 170,000 players and is growing by about 20% a month (there's also a Second Life for Teens – see my 8/12/05 issue). The game's management, which acknowledges "age play" is occurring, says it's reluctant to ban any role-playing activity that isn't illegal because role-playing is so integral to an alternate world, but "if a critical mass of 'Second Life' participants were to ask that something additional be done about sexual age-play, [its creators] Linden Lab would tackle the issue in some way. So far, there hasn't been a general outcry," CNET reports. This is an example of how the gray area between legal and illegal activity seems to be widening as the Web becomes increasingly user-driven and peer-to-peer, other examples being the use of music in home-made videos (see PC World) and "self-published child porn" (see my 1/20/06 and 8/27/04 and issues).

Social-networking in Brazil

Here's a point of interest, internationally speaking: It doesn't matter if a US-based social-networking site didn't really take off in the US. San Francisco-based Bebo.com is the hot social-networking site in the UK and Mountain View, Calif.-based Orkut.com is the hot social-networking site in Brazil. "Orkut, the invention of a Turkish-born software engineer [at Google] named Orkut Buyukkokten, never really caught on in the United States, where MySpace rules teenage cyberspace. But it is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon in Brazil," the New York Times reports, adding that 11 million of the site's 15 million users are social-networking in Portuguese (well, they're in Brazil, anyway, where the site's name is pronounced "or-KOO-chee"). Of course, humanity being the way it is, there's a backlash: "Almost as soon as Brazilians started taking over Orkut in 2004 — and long before April 2005, when Google made Orkut available in Portuguese — English-speaking users formed virulently anti-Brazilian communities like 'Too Many Brazilians on Orkut'." What one social-networker doesn't like, undoubtedly others are finding very cool. Penpals, Web 2.0-style! Meanwhile, The Sunday Times of London reports that Bebo's some 22 million users now include some 500,000 in Ireland, and SiliconRepublic.com reports that Bebo's will be among the "senior executives from global internet giants Google, eBay, [and] Yahoo" who will "descend on" Dublin next month to "discuss the impact and future of the internet at an Internet industry conference." (See also "Bebo craze in UK.")

1 smart mom's process

She sounds like a great parent, and her process in navigating online social-networking issues with her 13-year-old will sound familiar (and be useful) to a lot of parents. But don't stop reading Los Angeles Times reporter Catherine Saillant's account after the first page. An idea from her sister is what really got the smart-parenting wheels turning: "My-49-year-old sister, Christine, joined MySpace and told me she was having fun using it. She urged me to set up my own account so we would have a free, easy way to exchange emails and photographs. I thought … what if I allowed Taylor [her daughter] to maintain a page while keeping a close eye o nit? I'd join too, to become familiar with the site's benefits and drawbacks?" Check out the article to see what happened (hint: you will not be surprised to find it wasn't all smooth sailing, but there was some priceless collaborative learning.) For further tech-parenting input, including coordinating with the parents of our kids' friends, see advice from psychologist Ron Clavier, author of Teen Brain, Teen Mind, in the Toronto Star.

Free ABC TV on the Web

The Wall Street Journal is calling it "a watershed." As TV ad revenues continue to slide, YouTube.com takes off, and the Web is nudging out TV in teen time spent on entertainment, Disney's move could speed up changes in TV consumption even more, the Journal says. "On April 30, ABC will unveil a revamped Web site that will include a 'theater' where people with broadband connections can watch free episodes of … hit shows on their computers … the morning after they air," at which time they'll be archived in ABC's site for anyone to view anytime. "A Disney Channel version with five shows will start in June, and an ABC Family version is also planned." The move probably won't affect ABC's deal with Apple's iTunes because Apple, because ABC's site won't allow users to download the programs to portables like the video iPod. For more on the YouTube phenom (35 million videos viewed daily, 35,000 new videos uploaded daily), see the Associated Press (and "YouTube: The next MySpace," 4/7).

Filters, laws, parenting?

It never hurts to have another tool in tech-parenting toolboxes, and good sense, software, and laws are among them. The Journal News in Westchester County, N.Y., suggests that parents are increasingly using filtering software as a stopgap for younger Web surfers when they can't be looking over surfers' shoulders. "The increasing reliance on technology comes in the absence of enforceable laws that regulate pornography on the Web," the Journal News reports, though "the lack of laws is not for lack of trying." There have been many legislative efforts, but the First Amendment keeps bringing online child protection back into parents' hands, which is probably best because that's the only place where solutions can be tailor-made for each child. The Journal News mentions the latest legislative effort, Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006, a proposed law from Sens. Mark Pryor (D-AK) and Max Baucus (D-MT), "that would create a new [.xxx] domain for adult Web sites" with "the idea that filtering software could then easily identify which sites to weed out." It, too, will probably face big hurdles because a body outside the US government, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), is what creates Web domains, the .xxx idea has been stalled there for years, and meanwhile US courts (including the Supreme one) are still trying to figure out what to do with the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (stay tuned for the next set of arguments in the federal court in Philly in the fall).

Teen self-expression: On Web, in a book

Teen online journals and social-networking sites aren't the only "place" to find out what kids are thinking about. There's also The Notebook Girls, by Julia, Sophie, Courtney, and Lindsey, who "passed a notebook around to each other during classes [at Stuyvesant High School in New York City]. In that notebook, they would share comments on all sorts of things – "boys and basketball, drugs and dating, politics and promiscuity," according to the Los Angeles Times's review – their whole other life that "parents don't even know about," as one of the authors put it, so it's not for the faint of parental heart. That one, collective journal of four freshmen's school life, with both "personal and political [post-9/11 lower Manhattan] anxieties," became five bulging, handwritten notebooks that publisher Warner Books compressed back into one. The sub-plot of the L.A. Times's great review is about teen writers, who are beginning to compete, perhaps rightfully, with adult authors in the "Young Adult (YA)" category. "This generation of teenagers seems less fazed by the challenges of writing a book and getting it published…. Teenagers, after all, are forever sending text and instant messages. They spend hours updating blogs and keeping online journals. The discipline that adult wannabes fight so hard to master in night classes and writing colonies — the need to write, write and write some more — comes effortlessly to many teens. For them, daily life on the Internet has become an almost natural prelude to the writing of short stories, essays and novels." A definite upside to teen online activity, I'd say.

YouTube: The next MySpace?

Not really. Facebook apparently wants to be the next MySpace, since it passed on a $750 million offer and is "reportedly on sale, with an asking price of $2 billion," Fortune reports. But YouTube.com is definitely a phenomenon, having seen "the number of viewings on the site shoot up from 3 million a day to 30 million since the Web site's December launch," CNET reports. The New York Times calls it "the latest medium for short, loud adolescent messages." It has some tough competitors with huge resources (Google Video, iFilm.com, and Atom Entertainment's AddictingClips.com), so – besides its huge popularity as a media-hosting site, it's like the early days of MySpace in this way: "Nobody knows how YouTube, which has 20 employees, plans to make money," according to CNET. Maybe advertising? Here's CNET on the competition.

Social-networking 'sting'

I don't usually plug TV shows in advance, but this one stars a learning process a lot of parents and teens are going through right now. It also features recent NetFamilyNews contributor and kids' online-safety advocate Det. Frank Dannahey in Rocky Hill, Conn. He suggests that kids and parents watch this segment on NBC Sunday night (4/9) together - as a great "talking point" for family discussion. Please see this week's issue of my newsletter for details.

Phone with sex-offender alerts

It's not the first phone with GPS technology, but it's the first one linked to a national database of sex offenders. Nextel's Cat Trax phone "allows parents to build a 'geofence' around every listed child predator that lives within their ZIP code. The phone alerts parents through an email, text message or pager if their child enters that zone," the Associated Press reports. This new feature will be available within two months and will cost $19.99 for the first phone and $9.99 each for additional phones. "Other products, like Wherifone and Teen Arrive Alive, also help parents keep tabs on their children's whereabouts and driving habits," the AP adds.

'M' for 'Missing info'?

When buying videogames, parents "may be getting more than [they] paid for," reports ABC News, citing a study by the Harvard School of Public Health as finding - "more sex, violence and obscene language, that is." The study, which looked just at games rated M (Mature/17+), found that 81% of the games "were mislabeled and had missing content descriptors" (e.g., the M descriptor on the back of game boxes: "content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language"). On p. 3 of its report, ABC explains how the Entertainment Software Rating Board's rating process works. The ESRB did have a practical response concerning how much info can fit on game packaging. It "argued that the researchers in this study want to see game packages littered with descriptors." A parent who's a gamer himself told ABC parents shouldn't rely too much on any rating system: "He suggested parents spend time researching the games they buy their kids — and themselves.

Teens arrested for uploaded video

It was a homemade video allegedly showing two teenagers firebombing an old airplane hangar in the Novato, Calif., area. They had uploaded the video to their MySpace.com pages, police saw it, and the boys were arrested "on charges of possessing destructive devices," the Associated Press reports. "Police officers stationed at each middle and high school in Novato regularly surf the MySpace site for signs that local teenagers may be involved in criminal activity such as drug or alcohol use, sexual assault or vandalism," the AP added. Police said the damage to the building, part of an Air Force base that was closed in 1976, was "minimal." The two boys have since been released and their case "referred to the Marin County District Attorney for possible prosecution."

Net-music update

Music file-sharing hasn't been on US media radar screens much in recent months, but it certainly was across The Pond this week. File-sharers face what the BBC called a "legal onslaught," as the IFPI, the international umbrella for recording industry associations like the US's RIAA, announced it was suing nearly 2,000 P2P service users in 10 countries. Reuters added that the IFPI released data showing it had lost 1 billion pounds ($1.8 billion) in the past three years, due to file-sharing (see "File-sharing realities for families"). But piracy isn't only on the P2P front. Two California men "involved in what US authorities called the largest bust of pirated music CDs [burning some 200,000 of them] and computer software in America each pleaded guilty to five criminal counts on Monday, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, if you're looking for *legal* ("podsafe") music to enhance your homemade videos (so they won't get deleted from YouTube.com because the copyright owners complained to the Webmaster), PCWorld has some sources (and explains "fair use" in these days of self-published media). Finally, the Associated Press updates us on the argument between Apple and the record labels on pricing of legal online music.

The Disney phone

Marketed to parents but designed for kids. That's the approach of Disney Mobile, announced at the big wireless communications trade show in Las Vegas this week. This fairly customizable (and thus kid-friendly) camera phone for 10-to-15-year-olds (or more realistically 7-to-10-year-olds – can't imagine a 15-year-old using a kid cellphone) makes Mom or Dad the phone's "family manager," USATODAY reports. Parents can designate, on the phone itself or by computer, when and how much the child can both talk and text on the phone, as well as add ringtones and other downloads. "The manager is alerted when a kid bumps the limits and can raise them. When kids exhaust their allowances, they still can exchange calls with their parents and other designated numbers and can dial 911." There's also a GPS feature, so parents can find the phone (and hopefully its owner) from their own phones or on the Internet. The phones cost about $60, and usage plans can be found at disneymobile.com. Disney's not the only company to market kid phones, but "Firefly Mobile and Tic Talk from Enfora and LeapFrog are not full handsets with conventional keypads," USATODAY points out. Here's further coverage at ABC News and the New York Times.

Webcams' darkside

Webcams - and how they're used in the sexual exploitation of online kids – were the focus of a high-profile hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday. "The lead witness at the hearing [of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee] was Justin Berry," the New York Times reports, "who was molested as a teenager by people he had met online, and then went on to run a pornographic Web site for five years, featuring images of himself." Justin, 19, started using a Webcam to make friends online when he was 13, the Times reported in a front-page story last December (see my summary, with links), and he has provided help in "the prosecution of some of the 1,500 people who had paid him to perform on camera" in what another testifier, a pediatrician at the University of North Carolina described as "real-time child exploitation" (Justin discovered the very first day he put his photo in a Webcam directory that there simply were no friends to be found there, only people with exploitation in mind). Internet News reports that "congressional estimates put the online child pornography business at $20 billion a year and growing." It added that yesterday's hearing was "sparsely attended," though it was covered by news outlets nationwide and in South Korea, India, Ukraine, and other countries. The Louisville Courier-Journal and CBS News focused on Justin Berry's testimony at the hearing. The CBS piece links to an audio interview with Ernie Allen, CEO of the National Center of Missing & Exploited Children, who also testified at the hearing, conducted by CBS tech reporter and SafeKids.com publisher Larry Magid.

Speaking of child exploitation, a Department of Homeland Security official, Brian Doyle, was the same day arrested and "charged with 23 felony counts, including using a computer to seduce a child and transmitting harmful materials to a minor," the Los Angeles Times and hundreds of other news outlets reported.

Youth & cellphones: Study

Younger cellphone owners have different feelings about and different ways of using their phones from those of older American phone users, according to a survey by AOL, the Associated Press, and the Pew Internet & American Life Project that was reported worldwide. For example, 18-to-29-year-old users (the youngest age group Pew looked at) "are more likely [than phone owners 30+] to use their phones as personal computers, digital music players, cameras, and more," the AP reports. Pew listed a lot more differences: Younger phone owners are "more likely to reserve their calls until the hours that do not affect the minutes used in their rate plan; more likely to make spontaneous calls when they have free time they want to kill; more likely to use their cellphone to avoid disclosing where they are; and more likely to feel burdened by the intrusions the cell brings into their lives; and more likely to experience sticker shock when monthly bills arrive."

For teen phone users as well as the young adults in Pew's study, social-networking will drive the next-generation cellphone market, Silicon.com reports. MySpace will have its own phone, in a deal with Helio announced last month, and earlier this week "Facebook announced deals with Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless to enable users to post messages to their Facebook profiles via SMS text messaging." For further evidence, see also this press release about JuiceCaster 2.0 for phone-created Web content (enabling more kid-produced media on the Web).

MI videogame law killed

A federal judge has overturned a Michigan law restricting sales of violent videogames to minors, saying the law is unconstitutional. "Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed the law in September, and it was scheduled to take effect December 1," the Associated Press reports, but US District Judge George Steeh issued a preliminary injunction in November, which was made permanent with Judge Steeh's decision this past week. CNET reports that this is just one of a series of similar free-speech-related decisions concerning videogames, including federal court decisions in Washington, California, and Illinois. "One reason for the judicial skepticism," according to CNET, "is that academic studies have not established a link between simulated violence in video games and real-world action. (Under Supreme Court precedent, such a link between simulated violence and "imminent lawless action" would be necessary to make those laws constitutional.)" That's why, last month, Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) "persuaded a Senate committee to approve a sweeping study of the 'impact of electronic media use'," CNET adds.

Tougher to buy 'M' games: Study

The US Federal Trade Commission did some undercover shopping at 400+ videogame stores nationwide and found that it's getting harder for kids to buy games rated "M" (Mature). The FTC had "secret shoppers" aged 13-16 try to buy M-rated games without a parent, and 42% were able to buy one, down from 69% in 2003. "National sellers were much more likely to restrict sales of M-rated games," the FTC found. "Only 35% of the secret shoppers were able to purchase such games there. Regional or local sellers sold M-rated games to the shoppers more frequently – 63%." The shoppers noted other improvements, too: More stores provided info about ratings, and more cashiers asked the shoppers' age as they were trying to buy M games. Here's coverage from GameDaily.com and the Wall Street Journal, reporting that members of the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association, representing "nearly 30 of the top retailers accounting for nearly 75% of the market of electronic and videogames," had, under public pressure, committed in 2003 to "prohibiting the sale of the M games to children under 18 by the end of the following year." And here's the ratings-description page at the Entertainment Software Rating Board's site. For an update on anti-violent-game legislation and debate on Capitol Hill, don't miss this thorough report at GameSpot, with the subhead: "Psychologists and anti-game activists verbally spar with free-speech advocates, industry reps at Capitol Hill session."

Teens' sites: What to do?

You know parents' teen-blogging woes have gone mainstream when Dr. Joyce Brothers is offering social-networking advice in a newspaper near you. In Saturday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, she was asked the question on millions of parents' minds these days: How can I get across to my teenage son/daughter that "the suggestive photos, dirty jokes, plenty of curse words, references to drugs and drinking, and even links to some porn sites" in his Web site are "in poor taste and reflect badly on him personally?" Her answer was more about restrictive rules (which a child *may* obey at home, where only some of his Internet use occurs, unfortunately) than about convincing him of the bad implications of activity Dr. Brothers herself says are "very normal for a young teen." Can't blame her for not really answering the question, though, since there probably aren't enough newspaper column-inches to answer it satisfactorily for all parents. But in this user-driven phase of the Web's development and at teens' stage of brain development, one thing is clear: helping teenagers to think about what they put online and to be alert in online communications is much more effective than mere rules. Teenage brains - especially the frontal-lobe part with its "executive functions" ("planning, impulse control and reasoning"), according to the US National Institute of Mental Health - are very much works in progress.