Social Networking With Training Wheels

I'm a big believer in the notion of a graduated Internet experience for kids. I use the analogy of a driver's license. When your child gets to be a certain age they can get a driver's license. That doesn't mean you're about to let them get in their car with five friends and drive across the country the following day, does it? Similarly, email, IM, and social networking experiences need to be phased into your children's lives based on their maturity and your own family values.

It's heartening to see this idea turn into a product. It's called imbee and it's a secure social network, photo sharing, and blogging destination that is created for kids ages 8 to 14. Think of it as a social network experience with training wheels. As a parent, you'll send your kids there with comfort; at the same time, kids will find it's a pretty rich first experience.

How can you make a social networking site secure for kids? It all starts with a credit card. To sign up, they'll need to supply a parent's card and email. (Some of the site's activities are free, but there is a monthly fee if you allow your child to blog and share photos.) Parents will receive email verification and can opt to receive notification or viewing privileges for their child's account.

Parents have a view into the site where they can specify their child's privileges. There is no searching through profiles on this site, so kids won't be able to find others unless they've been invited and approved. It's meant to be a place where friends talk to friends, not search for strangers. Because profile information is stored behind a firewall, the profiles can't be accessed using traditional search tools. Parents can choose to view their kids' posts and emails to other members or not.

Kids get access to a variety of personalization tools (color, themes, graphics, and personal profile information), they'll be able to select avatars or photos to represent themselves, blog with text and graphics, and invite friends and relatives to view their blogs. As they use the site, they'll accrue imbee points that can be exchanged for prizes and rewards. At the moment there's no advertising to kids planned for the site. A membership costs $39.95 a year, with the first three months free.

Of course, your kids may whine a bit when you tell them they can join imbee instead of Facebook or MySpace, but any parent concerned about their kids being too young to be on those sites should be adamant about this. (Besides neither Facebook or MySpace allows kids under 13 to be on the site anyhow.) Despite the "training wheels" approach there's plenty of networking and sharing to keep the kids safe, but happy.