The Famundo Blog: Tag internet

AOL to make kids portals free

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 16:16:57 -0400

According to an article in USA Today, AOL will make it kid-oriented services free.

The teen-oriented beRed service formally launches Friday at beRed.com, while KOL for kids ages 6-12 and KOL Jr. for those 2-5 kicks off Tuesday at kol.com and koljunior.com.

When AOL started giving away its content nearly two years ago, it kept kids-oriented services restricted, figuring parents would be willing to pay for peace of mind. But after seeing its subscriber base plunge anyway, the Time Warner online unit decided in August to make those portals and other features free as well.

The shift to free will expose kids and teens to more ads â€” even for those who continue to pay as much as $26 a month for Internet access.

To read the entire aticle, click here.

CommonSenseMedia

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 06:55:00 -0400

I am very excited that Jim Steyer, founder of CommonSenseMedia, will be speaking at my son’s school next week. His talk is on The “Internet: Do You Understand How Much It Affects Your Children, How It’s Changing Their Lives and What You Can Do about It.” I’m very interested to hear his perspective on this topic especially now that I have a high schooler.

In case you are not familiar with CommonSenseMedia, get familiar. It is an incredibly valuable tool for parents, on topics covering all media, including the internet, movies TV.

You can sign up for their weekly e-newsletter, which covers all the latest releases.

I’ll report back after I hear his talk.

IM monitoring for parents

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 07:34:00 -0400

Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro talks to Jean Lee about how parents can use Web filtering software to help protect their children from online predators

See the video here. (3 min 16 sec) October 18, 2006

Some of the software mentioned in the video:

IMSafer – basic version is free

SearchHelp – $79.95 for a one year license

BeNetSafe – $19.95 per month or $79.95 per year

SnoopStick – $59.95 plus $24.95 per year