Videogames: Hazardous to privacy?

That’s what 10news.com in southern California cites consumer privacy experts as saying. The videogame 10news refers to is Battlefield 2142 by Electronic Arts, which, when installed on a PC, also installs spyware. If the spyware creates problems in running your computer, a source says, the game company recommends that the customer uninstall one of Microsoft’s security updates. Doing so would render the computer vulnerable to compromising security hacks. The upshot of this story: read the fine print before installing a computer game.

Who is Time's 'you'?

It’s not just teenage social networkers, ABC News reports, referring to Time’s decision that the Person of the Year is “you,” as in all the you’s driving the user-driven Web. Citing Nielsen/NetRatings figures, ABC says about 55% of YouTube’s users are 35-64 and 25% is 18-34; and about 57% of Wikipedia’s users are 35-64 and 23% 18-34. As for MySpace, ABC says the actual number of its users is “probably closer to half” the 100 million+ profiles on its service because that figure “includes inactive accounts, fake accounts and multiple accounts (which might be set up by a single user). About 30% of users hadn't logged in since creating their page, according to an informal analysis done by tech Web site forevergeek.com.” And ABC cites the view of a Harvard Business School professor that the increasing ranks of 35-to-54-year-olds are parents wanting to check out what their kids are up to on the site (not that there aren’t plenty of single adults looking for dates on the site, ABC adds). “And there are many casual MySpace users who set up a profile, but do most of their networking on niche sites. Michael Ellenbogen, a 30-something filmmaker, has a MySpace presence but spends most of his time on aSmallWorld.” Writing on this subject, a Toronto Globe & Mail columnist cites some notable “come-from-nowhere” stories of social-Web stars getting lucrative contracts in the mainstream media.

Social networking-plus

It's kind of like MySpace-meets-Teen Second Life. Teen-targeting HabboHotel.com has added social-networking elements to its mix, BrandRepublic.com reports. That makes HabboHotel more like South Korea-born Cyworld (which recently launched in the US): a cross between a social site and a virtual world. The social part is called "Habbo Home" and will feature "friend lists and links to other Habbo's profiles. Users can decorate their profile pages using backgrounds, customisable stickers, sticky notes and widgets. To interact with other Habbo's users can click directly on to other Habbo Home users' profile page or use the console instant messenger service within Habbo Hotel." BrandRepublic adds that HabboHotel has more than 64 million users in 29 countries. In the UK their age range is 11-18. Another hybrid is IMVU, which brings the virtual-world element of avatars (also used in Cyworld and Habbo) to instant messaging. Here's an interview about it with IMVU's creator Will Harvey, who also helped create the teen world of There.com. BTW, if you're curious about what virtual worlds are like, Forbes reports Elizabeth Corcoran spent some time in Second Life (not to be confused with the teen version) and wrote an in-depth account of the experience. She mentions one of its attractions, the game's virtual economy, in which one's avatar can make real money. GameSpot tells the very real story of language teacher Ailin Graef, who has made $1 million in real money selling virtual real estate in the worlds of Second Life, Entropia Universe, IMVU, and There.

Social sites topped 2006 searches

Social networking dominated Web searches this past year, Britain’s VNUNET reports. “Bebo took the crown as the most searched for term throughout the year, followed by MySpace.” Not surprisingly “World Cup” came in third, followed by video-sharing site Metacafe.com. But YouTube didn’t even make the Top 10 (“video” was No. 7). And Internet News reports that social networking “rocked the [Internet] industry” in 2006, adding that the surge in high-speed Net connections was a huge factor.

Child investment advisers

If you’re a venture capitalist, it pays to have children these days – literally. One such told the New York Times that her daughters were her secret weapons. The daughters good-naturedly called themselves “lab rats.” These young people may be friends and family, the Times says, “but their impact can be broad, because venture capitalists not only help steer the development of new ideas but also invest billions of dollars in those ideas on behalf of investment groups and wealthy individuals.” Interestingly, this is new. It was not the case during the dot-com boom. But this is Web 2.0, the youth-driven as well as user-driven Web. It’s probably why Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2006 is You. As Time, “look at 2006,” and you’ll see a story that “isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before” – the year of MySpace.com, YouTube.com, and Wikipedia.org.

MySpace more mobile

Social-networking giant MySpace is about to get more ubiquitous. It just struck a deal with Cingular that allows more than just Helio users to socialize via cellphone. Internet News reports that “MySpace Mobile for Cingular allows subscribers to edit MySpace profiles, view and add friends, post photos and blogs, send and receive MySpace messages for $2.99 a month.” Facebook works with has a similar deal with Cingular too, and YouTube with Verizon, according to Internet News. But this “agreement marks a change in the way carriers present content.” Before, the phone companies adjusted it for teeny screens. Now they’re reportedly bowing out of the process more.

Socio-political Web: Very worldwide

Iran "remains a staunch opponent of Internet freedoms - or any freedoms at all," The Guardian reports - and yet "Farsi has made it into the top 10 languages on the Net." Iranian bloggers, especially women, are "keeping Iranian freedoms alive," according to The Guardian, which adds that there are an estimated 70,000-100,000 active blogs in Iran, "the vast majority in Farsi." In South Africa, StudentVillage.co.za is a fast-growing social site and sign that the genre is increasingly location-based. A tiny "Internet center" in a Bangladeshi town has helped people find affordable health care, apply for passports, hold online weddings, find overseas jobs, and stay in touch worldwide; don't miss this insightful Washington Post article. Here's a view of Web benefits from India, an author working on two collaborative books. A day in the life of a teen blogger in Nepal is described in her words here. Finally, a vibrant discussion - with posts from all over the world – on the program of $150 laptops for children in third-world countries can be found in the International Herald Tribune, building on a story on the subject by John Markoff of the the New York Times.

A 20-something on mobile socializing

Check out this week's issue of my newsletter for the second part in our series about social Web sites and services from the perspective of a university student studying their impact. This week, Ann Moylan-McAulay looks at social networking on phones, specifically Dodgeball.com.

Police on the social Web

Law-enforcement people are using the social Web more and more in their work, the Raleigh News & Observer reports. "Most commonly it's detectives in the gang and intelligence units who troll the sites, but … more officers are getting trained because the sites have become so popular - and young people are so frank on them." If a kid has a photo of himself holding a gun, police won't start a file on him, but they'll definitely add what they find online to a file if the person is already the subject of an investigation. They also use the social Web to find out what kids are thinking and talking about in schools and neighborhoods, the News & Observer adds. But police also know that kids can act out online, that what they say and depict is not necessarily true. One officer told the News & Observer that it isn't illegal to pose with a gun "unless you are a convicted felon. Even then, he said, it would be difficult to prove the gun is real," and photos can be altered.

'Trust with verification'

That's the parenting approach PC World writer and licensed family therapist Steve Bass recommends to his friends, along with monitoring software. The friend he leads his article with has five kids 16 and under. "You've probably guessed I abhor programs that spy on users - but Mom and Dad really need to know what's cooking online," Steve writes (though, ideally, we don't need spyware to know that). "Philosophically, though, I'm okay with watching what people do on their PC provided they're fully aware that it's happening." I tell parents that too. If you're concerned, you're not getting the picture directly from your kids, and you have to use monitoring software, be up front with them about it, if possible – because if you monitor secretly, how much harder is it to work together *after* you've found them doing something inappropriate and have to confront them with it? Readers, how about you – what's your approach to protecting your online kids? Email me anytime. [BTW, Steve goes on to explain in the article how his monitoring program of choice works – check it out.]

Mobile-y social teens & the future

I've just seen another piece of the (near) future. I was reading this press release about how "The N" (MTV's "nighttime network for teens"), mobile social site Mbuzzy.com, and online research firm OTX are together creating "the first-ever wireless teen research panel" called "Teens Everywhere." "This new methodology gives the network direct access to a panel of 10,000 young people for immediate feedback about their lifestyles as well as network programming, advertising, events and other information" – something their parents may want to know about. In exchange, the teens get access to a new social-networking microsite (micro to fit on a phone screen), where they can upload and download phone content via computer or phone (ringtones, photos, videos, songs, info, etc.) and socialize with one another (the press release doesn't say if they get new phones too, which would be quite a draw). They'll be recruited from the existing Mbuzzy.com community as well as The-N.com and Quizilla.com (a popular profile-decorating site). But the piece of the future I'm seeing, here, is Mbuzzy. It mashes up a whole lot of elements and parties interested in converging – teenagers, content, devices (phone and computer), and professional content providers (record labels, game producers, film and TV producers, etc.). Because Mbuzzy is both a social site and a distribution service of both professional and homemade media for both phone and computer, it makes everybody very happy. Teens can create and distribute their own content as well as socialize around it, plus they can download (and buy) "cool content" for their sites and phones from their favorite artists and labels. For the digitally literate, it's getting increasingly annoying *not* to be able to move whatever content you have around to and from whatever device and share it with whoever you want, whenever you want. Mbuzzy fixes that. People in music, TV, and film probably get that, but they wish they could just sell it, not have it shared quite so much! [For example, see "UK kids' tune-swapping on phones."]

Left Behind Games: New game, social site

Among the rapidly multiplying niche social-networking sites is the just-launched DreamWebSpace.com. It's another brainchild of Left Behind Games, "evangelical Christian software corporation spun off the best-selling book series," CNET reports. Left Behind is promoting it as a "safe and profanity-free alternative to services like MySpace that have largely unregulated content." As for the company's just-released game Left Behind: Eternal Forces, I decided to see how much coverage it has been getting and a search of Google News turned up more than 200 news outlets around the US and overseas picking up the story about the controversy it has sparked. A couple of examples are from Reuters and the Associated Press, the latter a brief item on a Presbyterian minister's protest against the game. Reuters earlier described the game this way: It's "set in New York City after millions of Christians have been transported to heaven. Players are charged with recruiting, and converting, an army that will engage in physical and spiritual warfare with the antichrist and his evil followers."

For young game developers

Microsoft wants to create the YouTube of videogames, the BBC reports. The difference is, though, a lot more people know how to shoot and produce videos (and post them in a site like YouTube) than know how to design games. So Microsoft made its game-development tools available to everyone – including students. Five UK universities "were involved in the initial trial of the software, suggesting tweak to the tools." A computer science lecturer at Hull University got started right away on working the game-development tools into his curriculum, he told the BBC. "While the games that can be created by these new tools will be rudimentary in comparison to the best-sellers, it would hark back to the days when games were made on a shoestring budget." The development software can be downloaded for free, "but many may want to join the XNA Creators Club, which allows [game] developers access to technical support, white papers, starter kits and other assets to help turn the games into reality. This will cost £65 [about $128] for an annual subscription, or £30 for a four-month subscription."

Va.'s online-teen protection plan

Echoing Sens. Schumer and McCain's announcement last week (see this item), Virginia is now looking at a proposal to bar sex offenders from social-networking sites. The state attorney general, Robert McDonnell, is proposing requiring the state's 13,500 sex offenders to register their email addresses and IM screen names," InformationWeek reports, adding that "the proposal was immediately endorsed by MySpace.com." The proposal, which will go to Virginia's General Assembly for approval, calls for the offenders' electronic IDs to be turned over to social sites for blocking. Here are reactions to the McCain-drafted legislation at CNET.

FTC: Disclose online stealth ads

You might call it digital word-of-mouth. Probably since the beginning of blogs, advertisers have been creating ad blogs – blogs that look like any other pundit blog or music-fan blog, but that are really more like banners ads or billboards. Now, in a milestone development for Internet marketing, the Federal Trade Commission is going to require that advertisers disclose their relationships with paid bloggers, the Washington Post reports. "In October 2005, Commercial Alert, an advertising and marketing watchdog group in Portland, Ore., petitioned the FTC to consider taking action against word-of-mouth marketers," according to the Post. Among the practices Commercial Alert has spotlighted since then are Procter & Gamble's use of "a volunteer force of 250,000 teenagers to promote the company's products to friends and relatives." Procter & Gamble says the participants in its "Tremor" marketing division are free to be positive or negative when they talk about products and only receive products to sample, no other compensation. The FTC's action appears to address the online version of existing word-of-mouth regulations.

Patch your Windows!

We all just experienced "patch Tuesday" again. Microsoft released seven PC security patches this month. "The software maker originally planned to release only six security bulletins as part of its monthly patch cycle. However, it added a seventh to deliver a fix for two flaws that affect the Windows Media Format," ZDNET reports, adding that they were to take care of 11 security flaws, most in the Windows operating system. "However, there were no fixes Tuesday for a pair of known flaws in Microsoft Word that are also being exploited in malicious software." If you need to download the patches manually, just go to Microsoft Update. Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs offers protection advice for the long term at the bottom of his coverage of patch Tuesday.

Views on Vista

For family PC owners wondering about whether or not to upgrade to the new Vista operating system, here are multiple perspectives on the subject – from smart people who have been following Microsoft developments for years. The bottom line from SafeKids.com's Larry Magid, writing in the New York Times is: "Even if your PC is Vista-ready, that doesn’t mean you should buy the upgrade kit. For most users, especially those whose hardware isn’t quite up to speed, it might make sense to wait until it’s time for a new PC" (after January 30). PBS tech pundit Robert X. Cringely echoes that thought with a bit more bite: "Will people upgrade their existing systems? Of course not. Microsoft operating systems are always designed for future PC's, not for the installed base. Part of the plan is to make Vista work poorly on current computers so we'll all have to buy new ones." CNET looks at whether the PC security component of Vista is a privacy intrusion, and the Associated Press and the whole picture of Vista security.

UK kids' tune-swapping on phones

Note what kids in the UK are doing on phones and you'll see what's coming to the US. Copyright law isn't exactly on the minds of British child cellphone users. A recent survey found that almost a third of UK 8-to-13-year-olds share music with their phones – "using the built-in Bluetooth wireless feature of many phones … but without the consent of copyright holders," the BBC reports, and "almost a half (45%) of children who said they did not swap music via their phones said they would like to." A quarter of British children under (more than 1 million) have a mobile phone, "and newer models are commonly used as MP3 players to listen to digital music."

Game industry to parents...

Check out the ratings! With the help of Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) on Capitol Hill recently, the videogame industry launched a new consumer-awareness campaign. Senator Lieberman "said parents must play a central role in learning about the ratings and what games their children should be playing," Fox News reports. CNET adds that "both senators have been vocal critics of the game industry in the past." The videogame ratings are at the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Meanwhile, London's TimesOnline.com reports that Left Behind: Eternal Forces, which "depicts a crusade of violence by Christians could be heading for the bestseller charts this Christmas, even though it has been condemned by Muslims and secularists." And two mainstream news outlets looked at the latest research on videogames' effects on teenage brains: NBC and USATODAY, leading with the story of a high school history teacher's own thoughtful test of whether videogames teach anything and, if so, what and how well?

2006: 'Tsunami of self-expression'

That's from Jon Pareles of the New York Times. He adds: "Simply unleashing it could be the easy part. Now we have to figure out what to do with it," and I think he's right. Individual media producers (your kids and mine) have to figure it out, as do professional artists, lawyers, parents, media companies, educators, judges. "The music business in particular is going to have to remake itself with lower and more sustainable expectations, along the lines of how independent labels already work. But let the business take care of itself; it’s the culture that matters." And Jon goes on to describe the fragmentation, or segmentation, of the music scene, as well as the "tabulation" – the way "sites featuring user-generated content prominently display their own most-viewed and most-played lists" or sites like fluxblog.org and obscuresound.com "that gather hard-to-find songs for listeners to download" - the now slower (but maybe more authentic?) ways we get to the "top of the charts." But that's the question – is the grassroots way a better way to get to good art than huge marketing dollars on the record companies' part? Maybe. Check out The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki. And stay tuned to the user-driven Internet – I'll be watching right along with you. ;-) [Thanks to Michael Geist of BNA Internet Law for pointing Jon's article out.]

High-school-sports social site

Sports Illustrated has invested in its future. It struck a deal with Takkle.com, a social-networking site that's all about high school sports. "Under the alliance announced today, sports fans can go to Takkle.com to nominate candidates for SI’s Faces in the Crowd, a longstanding department of the magazine that recognizes student athletes," MediaWeek.com reports. SI will also feature a pick-of-the-week athlete video chosen among videos posted on Takkle.com. Here's the press release from the two companies.

Virtual concert for tweens

Whyville – which claims to be "the leading educational virtual world" for kids 8-15 - is putting on its first virtual concert. The very real pop/R&B singer Stacie Orrico, who sold 3.8 million albums by the time she was 18 (she's now 20), will appear (as an avatar) in a live, 45-minute performance this Saturday (12/9), the site announced this week. The some 6,000 "Whyvillians" expected to attend "will be able to chat with each other during the performance"; clap for Stacie; buy virtual souvenirs, tunes, and ringtones (using "clams," Whyville's virtual money); and submit questions to Stacie during the concert. "Selected kids will join Stacie on 'stage' at the site's "Greek Theater" and ask their questions, live in front of thousands of their virtual friends." Stacie will also "make several virtual costume changes during the show and auction off these virtual goods on ebay.com." All this seems very educational about concerts in "real life," including the commercial part of the music biz. More such education' is coming from Toyota. "Whyville will co-sponsor a [Toyota] Scion owner's activity - a special [concert] 'after-party' for kids who own a virtual Scion in Whyville, and their passengers," the Whyville press release says. Youth marketing expert Anastasia Goodstein explains in Business Week: Toyota "let kids buy and customize virtual Scions and taught them what happens when they miss a virtual payment" (here's more on Whyville in an earlier issue of Business Week). Anastasia describes how marketing works in other youth-targeting virtual worlds, including There, MTV's Laguna Beach, and Teen Second Life. A very different education campaign in Whyville is its joint program with the Centers for Disease Control to teach kids about disease prevention with virtual flu shots - administered to Whyvillians so they won't catch "Why-Flu," a CNET blog reports.

The upward mobile

This Korean experience will soon be reality here in the US. In "Upward Mobility," BusinessWeek.com describes the phone-based digital life of ambitious Korea University student Park Hyun-A, who watches satellite TV, reads e-books, plays games, snaps and sends photos, and – oh, yeah – text messages her friends on her mobile. The article doesn't mention that she connects to Cyworld or some other social site by phone, but she probably does that too (Cyworld's used by 90+% of South Korea's teens and 20-somethings and last summer launched in the US). Business Week goes on to take a very thorough look at just how fast-developing all the services for smartphones are. And the Washington Post looks at the American female fashionista, who "wants her technology to cut a stylish and up-to-the-minute profile" ("we're not being sexist," its sources say, just accurate). Meanwhile, CNET zooms in on a new phone service called Phling that says it can sync up the music libraries on your phone and your computer. It's "the first to offer this capability over a wireless network, which streams the music from the PC to the handset." And USATODAY reports that mobile music could be the recording industry's saving grace. At $3 a pop, the new, richer-sounding master ringtones (or "mastertones") are slated to represent $6.8 billion in revenue by 2010. "Labels are thrilled not only with the fat revenue stream but also with promotional potential," according to USATODAY.

Eating-disorder 'ed' on the Net

Young sufferers of eating disorders are getting the wrong kind of reinforcement on the Web, according to a new study in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Not only are they learning about "new weight loss or purging methods from Web sites that promote eating disorders," but also from each other on "Web sites aimed at helping them recover," Reuters reports. "The survey by researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford showed a third of patients [aged 10-22] also visited pro-recovery sites, and half of them learned new weight loss and purging methods." Here's Newsweek's coverage.

Those who play together...

…have more fun in videogames these days. Washington Post games columnist Mike Musgrove reports that in even (or especially) in shooter games, it's more fun for his friend Daniel and him to "fight the alien bad guys together" than to shoot each other. "This cooperative-play buddy feature has been catching on in action games lately and is starting to show up in other genres, as well, from the kid-friendly Lego Star Wars II to the rock 'n' roll title Guitar Hero 2." They're still fun "when played solo, but they're a lot more compelling if you can get someone to drop in and play along," says Mike. He explains how cooperative play works in Gears of War, the latest action game for the Xbox 360 and the latest versions of Guitar Hero and Lego Star Wars.

Online-child-protection law proposed

There is logic to this legislation, announced by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) yesterday. Among other measures that strengthen anti-child-exploitation law, it requires sex offenders to register their online contact info too – "their email addresses, as well as their instant messaging and chat room handles and any other online identifiers they use," says Senator McCain's press release about the Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act. The law would also require social-networking sites as well as ISPs to report child pornography, and would more clearly define what should be reported, create stiffer penalties, make failure-to-report a crime, increase recommended sentences for sex offenders, and require Net companies to preserve data 180 days in case it's needed as evidence. If the bill passes, MySpace will be able to include the required online identifiers in the national sex-offender database it's building (see this 12/5 item), and sites that use the database (which I imagine MySpace will make available to them) will be able to check it for the email addresses and screennames people use to establish accounts - another tool for keeping pedophiles off social sites. The two senators said they will introduce the bill at the beginning of the 110th Congress in January.

Chaucer in MySpace?

Now here's a boy-bites-dog story: "How the Internet Saved Literacy" at Forbes. The Internet isn't making reading go away; rather, it's turning it from a solitary experience to a collective one – not just interactive (as in person interacting with Web page), mind you, but collaborative (as in digital class participation). An example Forbes gives is a literature class's collective interpretation of "Jenny," "a poem by the 19th century British poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti," whereby students assume the roles of characters in the poem using a software program the professor helped develop. "Students are free to change their characters' actions, add stanzas and delete others. As long as they provide substantive justification - historical and psychological - all changes to the text are justified and encouraged." Picture students creating MySpace literarily correct profiles for the characters of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Could be serious fun! Forbes reports that, though "a number of studies have been released that suggested a negative correlation between Internet use and reading … [they] are now considered to have been unduly alarmist."

'Cell-veillance' & instant infamy

USATODAY tech reporter Janet Kornblum calls "cell-veillance" in "the age of citizen journalism," referring to the way comedian Michael Richards's "racist rant" could be seen nationwide within minutes because of a little videocam someone in the nightclub made a quick decision to use. She also refers to on-the-spot footage of police using a taser gun on a student in a library and teachers yelling in classrooms. Law professor Michael Geist tells in the Toronto Star of two 13-year-old students in the Ottawa area posting on YouTube.com "classroom video taken with a cellphone of their teacher yelling at a fellow student." On the one hand, transparency can be good - we're all more accountable. On the other hand, it can be badly abused. For certain, we all will be increasingly on guard knowing someone might be around wielding a digital camera of some sort. [In a sidebar, USATODAY links to the infamous videos Janet refers to.]

Etiquette for the e-connected

A teenager reading this New York Times article would probably just roll her eyebrows. But we grownups tend to move slowly enough in our tech adoption to reflect on things like proper email signoffs. While young people are indeed struggling with the social implications of who's in the "Top 8" of their MySpace friends lists and their friends' friends lists, we're trying to figure out whether to use "Warmest regards," "Yours truly," or just "Best" in our email sign-offs. Some people don't even bother with a signoff, which Letitia Baldridge told the Times is not good, too "abrupt." And in a thoughtful piece, the Wall Street Journal's Jason Fry considers the social implications of buddy-tracking and socializing on cellphones – how technology can be "subtly coercive," incipiently changing the norms by which we live and socialize. He's not talking about youth safety so much as how mobile social services just may eventually affect even us socializers who are above loopt's targeted age range of 14-25. While we're on the subject, here's Business Week on "the device formerly known as the cellphone" – a phrase it got from Motorola CEO Ed Zander.

MySpace safety news: 3 items

Popularity definitely has its downside, as MySpace well knows. Its 130 million+ profiles tend to attract the attention of all sorts, including malicious hackers and pedophiles. If the latter are registered sex offenders, though, operating on MySpace will soon get harder. "MySpace is partnering with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. to build a database containing names, physical descriptions and other identifiable details on sex offenders in the United States," the Associated Press reports, very probably beating the establishment of the national database mandated by the Adam Walsh Child Protection & Safety Act that was signed into law last July (see Wikipedia on the law). MySpace will develop technology to check profiles against that database. The site's popularity also makes it the target of malicious hacks. The latest is a worm in the form of a malicious video that "changes people's profiles when played, embedding itself [in the page] and adding links to fraudulent Web sites" that try to trick people into giving up personal info," CNET reports. Tell your kids to check the html code associated with all links on their pages and to be really careful about clicking on links in other people's pages. CNET says infected pages include a blue navigation bar that isn't on real MySpace pages. On the positive side, MySpace has established an Impact Awards program, recognizing individuals and organizations on the site who are making "a positive impact on our culture" in the areas of poverty, environmentalism, health & safety, international development, social justice, and community building.

'Mom cams' on campus?!

When I first glanced at this story, I was almost as depressed as I imagine a college student would be. Thinking it was about Webcams on campus for parental surveillance, I thought to myself, kids' lack of privacy and parental fears really have gone to extreme! But when I actually read this story in the Christian Science Monitor, I realized it's not quite the imposition on students I thought it was – at least not in the Monitor's lead about Mom calling kid and saying, "I'm on the Web site now - could you just look up at the camera atop Barnes Tower [on the Cornell University campus] and wave?" Used in this way, there's an element of free will on the kid's part. Whew! (And I was all ready to recommend The Blessing of a Skinned Knee to the Monitor writer and any parent who reads the piece!) But some of the Web cams/Mom cams shoot a little more close up, and their use can definitely be abused, as we all work out the boundaries between child protection and privacy. "The [Mom cams] trend coincides with a crop of students who are in far more frequent contact with parents than earlier generations," the Monitor reports. What got us here?, one wonders. Maybe it's the fact that many kids start having cellphones in elementary and middle school, so kids and parents are used to being in constant touch (see this about MIT professor Sherry Turkle's thoughts on "the tethered self"). The Monitor also cites the view that some parents may be monitoring their investments in expensive college educations! I'll leave that one alone. But tell me your view on this latest form of parental monitoring. You know where I am.

Models or exploited kids?

Are so-called child modeling sites legitimate businesses or child porn? Some are, some aren't, but the law is very unclear, indicates an in-depth CNET article on the subject. The FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service investigation are currently conducting an investigation "of so-called child modeling sites, which have been the subject of a series of critical congressional hearings and news reports in the last few years." CNET looks at a range of examples and perspectives, as well as the cases that helped establish the less-than-definitive definition of "child pornography" being used in law enforcement.

Virtual community, real engagement

Online community has a "direct impact on civic activism," reports education technology expert Andy Carvin in his review of the Annenberg study, which I linked to last week. In fact, the authors led with this, among more than 100 other issues covered in their 2007 Digital Future Project. So I thought parents, especially those with concerns about kids' online socializing, would want to know that – besides the informal learning that's going on, highlighted by MIT's Henry Jenkins - young people are also engaging in social activism on the participatory Web as well (e.g., see my item about Rock for Darfur in MySpace). As Andy points out, the USC-Annenberg researchers found that "just over one-fifth of online community members - 20.3 % - take action offline for a cause related to their online communities at least once a year. Nearly 65% of online community members say they now engage in civic causes that were new to them when they started going online, while an additional 43.7% say they participate in social activism more since they’ve joined their online communities. This may explain why 43% of online community members feel as strongly about their virtual life as they do about their real-world life." In his last paragraph, Andy explains why this data leaped out at him. Meanwhile, the anti-poverty World Development Movement is trying to encourage just such real-world activism, The Register reports. The WDM has put a digital counter in the Second Life virtual world of 1.5 million members. The counter provides a real-time tally of "the number of preventable child deaths since [Second Life] was first opened in 2003. A child's life is lost every three seconds."

Social Web: Picture less foggy

We digital immigrants have, I think, often mistaken the Internet for a single medium like television or film, even as our children the digital natives have been using it for so many things – communications, news, research, entertainment, self-expression, social activism, etc. To them it has long been multiple media in one convenient "package" and meant to be produced, mashed up, and socialized with as much as viewed. Of course we adults have used the term "multimedia," as in "multimedia Web site," but we've somehow seen all those Web sites as media we consume, like television. And "interactive" meant "click here" or "download this" more than using media to connect with the people behind the pages - that's what communications tools like phones and email were for.

Social networking is the biggest mash-up yet of all the media and creative and social tools the Internet represents to young people. Its huge popularity with kids has brought the participatory Web to life for us. But all the hype in the news has presented a largely negative picture of it. It's great to see a growing body of research on *all* that's happening on the social Net, reflecting the full reality – positive, negative, and neutral. We're just beginning to get a wider-angle and more granular picture not only of what the Internet is to youth but also of what means to them and all of us raising, educating, and supporting them. Pls click to this week's issue of my newsletter to see what I mean.

Socially mobile: Yahoo's version

We'll soon be remembering "the good ol' days" when all we had to worry about was what pictures our kids posted of themselves on MySpace. Now Yahoo has "quietly launched" a new mobile social-networking service called Mixd that gives groups of friends a Web site "where all the pictures, videos and messages sent through the phones will be posted for viewing later," InformationWeek reports. Like other phone-based social services, Mixd is "centered on making it easy for groups of friends to use text messaging as a way to organize a party, meet in a restaurant, attend a football game or arrange any other social activity. Yahoo expects users to form a lot of ad hoc groups around particular events, and use the service's 'reply-to-all' feature as way to communicate collectively." InformationWeek adds that Yahoo plans to market Mixd on college campuses around the country.