News for the Week of January 28, 2007
Mobile social networking is a growing trend, as teens' online socializing folds in more devices and technologies, from instant messaging to phone texting and media-sharing to Web-based profiles, blogs, and virtual worlds.
Social networking's segmentation
Until very recently there were basically two kinds of mobile social networking: 1) the Web + phone kind whereby you're using a mobile phone to access your page in a social Web site, and 2) the phone + "real life" kind whereby you use your phone to locate friends' physical location and go to meet them. But the line of distinction is blurring.
Here are a couple of examples of this mashing up parents may want to know about: Helio's deal with MySpace (MySpace Mobile) used to be just the first kind, but now Helio has "Buddy Beacon," which allows its users to "broadcast their location to friends on their 'buddy' list," the San Jose Mercury News reports.
Another example: Jaxtr, a feature people can add to their MySpace, Hi5, Friendster, Piczo, etc. profile that lets visitors call them on their cellphones. "Your visitor enters his phone number and receives a call. Once he picks up, your phone starts ringing and the call is connected," explains Mashable.com. It adds that "there are tools to block unwanted callers [such as stalkers or ex-friends] or only allow certain friends to call," all of which is good, but it also raises privacy questions and offers yet another tool for unknown people to reach teen social-networkers wherever they are. Jaxtr, which can also be added to an email signature, is available for Blogger, Friendster, Hi5, MySpace, Tagged, and Xanga, Information Week reports.
More mashing up
This is just another clear sign that "old" categories are getting mashed up together, and the "Web 2.0" that we've just started to understand is changing fast. The social producing, creative networking, and pure socializing that happens on the Web happens on all the devices connecting to it, and the Web is on phones too. During any given Saturday night in a teenager's life, socializing will be both online and in person and on multiple devices when it is "online." That familiar term "online safety" is becoming obsolete too (maybe it just needs to lose the first word). A lot of the old safety tips still make sense - e.g., keeping connected devices out of kids' bedrooms (giving parents a few more clues as to what's going on) - but with connectivity so mobile, that's getting harder, and more critical thinking is demanded of our kids. See also "Cellphone social networking" and "Virtual worlds on phones".
The upside & some numbers
In "Students' new best friend: 'MoSoSo'", the Christian Science Monitor does a great job of describing how mobile social networking works on a college campus, including in the area of student security. At California State University at Monterey Bay: For students walking alone on campus late at night, mobile social-networking service Rave Wireless provides a "cyberescort linked to campus police. If the student doesn't turn off a timer in the phone, indicating safe arrival at a destination, police are dispatched to [the student's] GPS location," the Monitor reports. As for the numbers, "an estimated 63% of mobile phones sold in North America in 2007 will have GPS or assisted GPS functions, up from 55% in 2006," the Wall Street Journal reports in a brief look at phone-based social networking.
In other news...
- National sex-offender database. MySpace this week donated the US's first national sex-offender database, which it built with identity verification company Sentinel Tech Holdings, to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The database "combines close to 50 US state registries in an aim to help police keep track of an estimated 600,000 convicted sex offenders," Reuters reports. It doesn't affect sexual exploitation by those who haven't been convicted of the crime, but it's a step forward for police investigative work, the National Center said, because it adds to available sex-offender info their images and - supported by related legislation introduced in both the House and the Senate this week - their online contact information, such as emails and IM screennames.
- News sites in the classroom. News Web sites, not newspapers, are the tool of choice in US classrooms. Reuters reports that 57% of teachers use Net-based news "with some frequency," a just-released survey of more than 1,200 teachers of grades 5-12 found. That compares with 31% who use TV news and 28% who use papers. Topping the list for news sites were the BBC, the New York Times, and CNN. "Teachers prefer printed papers, but only 8% said the newspaper was a student's preferred choice," and 75% put papers at the bottom of the students' preference list.
- Do-it-yourself social sites. First there were do-it-yourself Web sites (called blogs), now there are user-created social-networking sites with the help of Ning.com, the Wall Street Journal reports. With the privacy choices Ning allows, teachers could create private mini-social sites to create class discussion around Canterbury Tales profiles their students create and social activists can generate buzz and support around their causes with a very public social-networking site. The service offers all the tools for free, only charging for upgrades like extra storage (for all those photos or videos users can upload). Ning "allows users to easily set up three different kinds of sites - a social-networking site, a photo-sharing site and a video site." What a great tool for a photography or filmmaking class! The Journal also talks about socializing around events (such as high school reunions or local arts events) with services like Google Calendar, Upcoming.org, and HeyLetsGo.com.
- Nick's virtual world for kids. Move over Nick.com and NickJr.com, make room for Nicktropolis.com, Nickelodeon's new virtual world for kids 6-14. "Nickelodeon was prompted to join the surging world of online activities for children in part by research that showed that 86% of 8-to-14-year-olds were playing games online, more than 51% were watching TV shows and videos online and 37% were sending instant messages," the New York Times reports. And - as in ClubPenguin.com and the virtual world the BBC's planning (see last week's issue), young users will navigate this virtual world with the avatars, or online characters, they create in Nicktropolis. The Times doesn't say much about safety, only that there will be no message boards, as in Nick.com, but avatars will be able to chat in real time. Nicktropolis's safety info for parents doesn't say chat is moderated, but the interaction is apparently governed by a "sanitized dictionary" with a profanity filter and no violent or threatening language.
