Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Social Network For Children - Best Practice Needed

Posted by Anonymous on 6/20/2008 at 10:25 AM ET 250 Points
Hello, I'm now working on article devoted to perspective of social network for kids (age 8-12) in Russia and need some best practice all around the world and/or cases of successful internet projects for kids.
The idea is to analyse projects where children are users (not their parents).
Your advices and recommendations would be very appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Natalie
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 6/20/2008 at 10:32 AM Accepted
    Hi Natalie!

    While this is a huge market, I believe I only have one point that I can contribute to your inquiry.

    Safety.

    Anything that has to do with kids online MUST be focused on safety. Children shouldn't post pictures, addresses, real names, phone numbers, traceable email addresses or any other information that could lead to a child predator being able to contact them in any way.

    I went through some legal hurdles here in the states makig sure that some pictures my business took at a public event were okay to post online. (We made free e-postcards of the pictures that people could access and send to friends and family.) We had to get releases signed by parents before we could even put the picture online for them to access.

    What I'm saying is that you must be very careful with anything that puts children, their likenesses, or their contact information into the public domain.

    Hope this helps.

    Safety First!

    Good luck with your endeavour!

    kris
  • Posted by jcasalou on 6/20/2008 at 10:41 AM Member
    I agree.

    A suggestion for a preventative measure would be to require a valid credit card to sign up. This would ultimately put the responsibility on the parent in a couple different ways.

    1. It shows that the parent is aware of the child's interaction with the networking site.

    2. It enables the administrator of the site to keep tabs on who joins and would make it easily traceable to find out information on a potential predator. If there's suspicious behavior from a member you can trace it back to the credit card holder and cross-reference any child predator records.

    There are more advantages I'm sure. The key is to make it safe for the children who frequent the site. Dealing with children in any regard is cause for huge liability so be careful.

    Jonathon Casalou
    Business Development & Marketing.
  • Posted on 6/20/2008 at 7:25 PM Member
    Hi Natalie

    The first two posters nailed the most critical component, safety.

    The second thing is transparency. This is true of all social networks but even more critical when focused on kids. Make your intentions clear, sincere and stated upfront. If your end-game is to harvest names for future marketing initiatives and/or flog your products, you won't succeed - kids are a lot smarter than you think.

    Thirdly was addressed by the third poster, fun. If kids like the site they will tell their friends and so on, and so on.

    Hope this helps.


  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 6/21/2008 at 9:10 AM Accepted
    Check out this document:
    https://police.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/operational-policing/social-n...

    And this article:
    https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7325019.stm
  • Posted on 6/23/2008 at 11:08 AM Author
    I would like to thank everybody for your responce to my question, your replies are really useful and interesting.
    Maybe some of you know if there is any research/tracking of children sites/portal (8-12 y.o.) - which are most popular, kid's interests & preferences, insights, etc.?
    For example, Eric said fun is very important, but what kind of fun kids looking in the web???
  • Posted by Tracey on 6/23/2008 at 12:35 PM Accepted
    Check out webkinz (www.webkinz.com) - it is a social network built around stuffed animals sold in retail stores. I don't know much about it except that it's widely popular in the U.S.
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