New: Kabillion!

Hey all you SKWIDS out there welcome to Kablab; your very own guide to all the newest and hottest happenings on Kabillion on Demand and our never ending website Kabillion.com. Hosted by two SKWIDS just like you, Alina Mardirossian and Brandon Balisteri, Kablab gives you the most revealing inside look at this amazing new world created for kids of all ages. It’s Kabillion indeed a brave new world, a gigantic leap forward for mankind. A place where there is truly no limit to what you can do an entire television and online network created by you!So come on over and hang out in the wild world of Kablab with Alina and Brandon. Learn how to become a Kabillionaire and take a guided tour through the endless awesome choices at Kabillion.com. See exciting sneak previews of the hottest new shows coming to Kabillion on Demand. Watch “SKWID VIDS”, fun and hilarious videos posted by SKWIDS just like you. See cool interviews with celebrity guests. And that’s just the beginning

Kabillion.com - Kablab

FYI: A new User Generated Online Meets Television adventure… actually hosted by KIDS (can you believe it?).

I’m still trying to determine the in’s and out’s of this crazy thing (mostly because I’ve just stumbled on to it)… is it a network on Comcast? Is it a block of hosted shows, day-time programming, or 24 hour cartoon/Kabillion/Kablam access? How difficult is it to get on cable? [Well, it's "On Demand" so it lives in a library of craziness where you can pick and choose shows in/out of order, or just watch one episode over and over and over.  I'd rather have tivo and stalk the programming of my choosing.]

It has Bobby’s World, which was a cartoon on Fox back in the Nineties (I loved Bobby’s World– Subway had kids meals with Bobby figurines in it– i had one for AGES attached crudely to my keychain. But my love was a ’90’s kinda love, and sadly the program isn’t as edgy as 1/2 the cartoons out these days– it’s like twinkies, I remember them tasting a heck of a lot better when I was a kid). There seems to be a handful of other so-so cartoon/kid programs associated with this “Kabillion” thing.

There’s a community section, but since Kabillion seems relatively new, there’s not much activity to it.

This site/program/enigma seems to want to seemlessly combine web, tv, and real life (aka UGC), but hasn’t got much to stand on yet (old programming, low activity, trying-hard mentality).

This concept is very “future” and the route many networks are moving in– but is it too soon for an underdog without much BANG to it’s buck? I give Kabillion PROPS for their vision of UGC, as well as their approach to the hosts (the website does a great job of presenting them).

I suppose, from a web format is– I’d like to see someone TRULY combine web & tv seemlessly. Turbonick is doing a good job. The N kinda is too– but that still has that “support system for TV, and not its own entity” vibe. MTV has “over drive” but they hate MAC users, so it’s rare I get to hang out there. Of course, I’m leaving out the TV meets Web via Virtual Worlds convo– simply because that is it’s own bag-o-beans, if you know what I mean. And really– this conversation is starting to branch out from my “Kabillion” topic. I will hopefully get a chance to write my reviews of some of the network sites, virtual worlds, etc that affect both entertainment biz & kids/tweens/teens.

Cartoon Network: Kid Empowerment Plans

Kid Empowerment through Positive Role Models!!!

So– talented kids, filmed, then vids shown on the net? Voting? Hmmm. Sounds like a mix of Disney’s bumpers (have you seen those? They interview kick’n kids who do some really great stuff and show the bits throughout the TV day) & “Nick News with Linda Ellerbee” hour-long specials.

Let’s just hope they get some awesome hosts. Cartoon Networks’ Fridays has decent cartoon block hosts –definitely better than “some” of the hosts out there. I miss Dave Aizer. He was a great Nick host. Same with Summer Sanders from Figure It Out. But enough of that….

Hopefully they’ll present this show in a way that isn’t so “classroom show and tell” and it instead provides a unique, encouraging way for “talented” kids to be active. (In other words: Not just goody-goody viewpoints, but actually gives awesome examples of kid choices/talent/etc masked by the fun/cool elements). Does that make sense? I suppose I’m (as a viewer & zealot in the pro-kid movement) interested in seeing talented kids that aren’t so poster-child-of-perfection. It would be a change for these types of programs. After rereading the description above, it sounds like they’re going the goody-goody route. Hmmm.

As always, time will tell. Best of luck, Cartoon Network!!

Kid Entertainment Online: Who is behind the Big Red Curtain?

Kid’s Privacy SealKid’s Privacy SealThe Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires by law that all businesses with any part of their website (or online service) directed to children under the age of 13 and/or websites (or online services) that collect personally identifiable information from visitors actually known to be under the age of 13, meet the COPPA regulation.

BBBOnLine’s Supplemental Children’s Assessment Questionnaire is required of all companies applying for the BBBOnLine Privacy Seal that fall under this category and was developed to help you comply with COPPA. To apply for the Kid’s Privacy Seal a company follows the same process laid out for the standard seal but is then prompted to continue to the additional Children’s Questionnaire.

* Websites or Online Services Directed To Children
* Websites or Online Services That Collect Information from Children With Actual Knowledge
* BBBOnLine Privacy Staff Determinations
* Displaying the Kid’s Seal Kid’s Privacy Seal Requirements

The BBBOnLine Privacy Kid’s seal requirements are based upon the guidelines of the Council of Better Business Bureaus’ Children’s Advertising Review Unit, the Online Privacy Alliance, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998.To meet these requirements, website or online service operators must:

* obtain parental consent before any personally identifiable information can be collected, used or disclosed;
* obtain parental consent before children are allowed to post or communicate directly with others;
* provide warnings and explanations in easy-to-understand language;
* avoid collecting more information than necessary when offering children’s games and activities;
* be careful in the way they provide hyperlinks;
* and follow strict rules when sending email. Seal participants also must provide parents reasonable access to information collected from their children, and the ability to correct or remove that information.

BBBOnLine, Inc.

Why don’t we see or hear MORE about the people who are actually working with kids/tweens/teens in these media sponsored websites that have elements of community???

WHO are the folks READING kid created comments? Who are the folks behind the big red curtain– creating user-engagement and protecting it?

I know what qualifies people to work with kids in this format– but are people actually abiding by that?

Okay, so some companies use community-peer-pressure to help them maintain, but there has to be people managing that system… who are they and why don’t we hear more about them? Tony from the now-departed “Tweenland” was great in regards to public speaking about safety, his site, and his goals/objectives. Why don’t we hear more about these people? Actually– let me rephrase that… why can’t I read the Parent Policy’s of these big entertainment websites and find information about who is handling the responsibility of kids engagement & participation online? At least say something about a well-qualified staff with an info number or SOMETHING!

OR is everyone outsourcing to companies like Lithium to do the dirty work?

Okay. So I just talked to Joi about this growing concern of mine (I’ve started looking at myself as some sort of sheriff of good intentions, with only my blog-rants as my weapon–HA!). She says that– in the late 90’s/early 00’s this sort of convo started popping up and ultimately participated in the demise of the community-exposion. Hmm. I dont’ want that to happen.

If anyone who happens upon this blog deals with kids online as an entertainment medium, I’d LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear from you.

Flaming & Blaming: Kids Communicating Online

NEW YORK: Jett Lucas, a 14-year-old friend, tells me the kids in his middle school send one another a steady stream of instant messages through the day. But there’s a problem.“Kids will say things to each other in their messages that are too embarrassing to say in person,” Jett tells me. “Then when they actually meet up, they are too shy to bring up what they said in the message. It makes things tense.”

Jett’s complaint seems to be part of a larger pattern plaguing the world of virtual communications, a problem recognized since the earliest days of the Internet: flaming, or sending a message that is taken as offensive, embarrassing or downright rude. The hallmark of the flame is precisely what Jett lamented:

thoughts expressed while sitting alone at the keyboard would be put more diplomatically — or go unmentioned — face to face.

Flaming has a technical name, the “online disinhibition effect,” which psychologists apply to the many ways people behave with less restraint in cyberspace.

In a 2004 article in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior, John Suler, a psychologist at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, suggested that several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending an e- mail message and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure.

Dr. Suler notes that disinhibition can be either benign — when a shy person feels free to open up online — or toxic, as in flaming.

…like small children, they commit mortifying social gaffes like kissing a complete stranger, blithely unaware that they are doing anything untoward. Socially artful responses emerge largely in the neural chatter between the orbitofrontal cortex and emotional centers like the amygdala that generate impulsivity. But the cortex needs social information — a change in tone of voice, say — to know how to select and channel our impulses. And in e-mail there are no channels for voice, facial expression or other cues from the person who will receive what we say. True, there are those cute, if somewhat lame, emoticons that cleverly arrange punctuation marks to signify an emotion. The e-mail equivalent of a mood ring, they surely lack the neural impact of an actual smile or frown. Without the raised eyebrow that signals irony, say, or the tone of voice that signals delight, the orbitofrontal cortex has little to go on.

Lacking real-time cues, we can easily misread the printed words in an e-mail message, taking them the wrong way.

And if we are typing while agitated, the absence of information on how the other person is responding makes the prefrontal circuitry for discretion more likely to fail. Our emotional impulses disinhibited, we type some infelicitous message and hit “send” before a more sober second thought leads us to hit “discard.” We flame.

One proposed solution to flaming is replacing typed messages with video. The assumption is that getting a message along with its emotional nuances might help us dampen the impulse to flame. All this reminds me of a poster on the wall of classrooms I once visited in New Haven, Connecticut, public schools. The poster, part of a program in social development that has lowered rates of violence in schools there, shows a stoplight. It says that when students feel upset, they should remember that the red light means to stop, calm down and think before they act. The yellow light prompts them to weigh a range of responses, and their consequences. The green light urges them to try the best response. (cont.)

Normal social restraints are weakened in cyberspace. - International Herald Tribune

Wow. W-O-W. That was FANTASTIC article. I pulled some of the more “science-specific” items out, simply because the terms were taking the eye-of-mordor off the general concept. Kids don’t understand kids (let alone THEMSELVES) when communiticating in such a removed format. This is just another reason why kids, tweens, teens need some sort of guidance online. When left to their own devices, they participate in situations that can be a liability– not only for the child, tween, teen, but for the company in which they find the tools to communicate.

Now, I DON’T mean for anyone to bubble wrap children. Figuring things out the hard way is what makes kids strong, so is exploration. All I am saying is: If you have a communication tool aimed towards the U18 set, you better be DAMN sure you’re ready for all that entails. Kids, even in the most innocent situations, can get into sticky situations.

So companies: Double check and make sure you’re happy with the way you’re engaging youth. If you’re prepared with eyes wide open, you’re going to be great.

So parents: Kids & Bikes, no matter how much you want to– you can’t hold onto their seat and guide them hands-on forever…. Make sure you’re comfortable with the amount of internet education your child has. Don’t ban you child from exploring society, just make sure they’re on the right path with excellent tools (safe web knowledge) at hand. And be prepared with eyes wide open.

p.s. I highlighted the “video” part because that is when it gets scary– considering how teens are using webcams at times, and some of the popular “bullying” senarios reported through youtube.  Then again, webcams have been great for kid empowerment through ME:TV on Nickelodeon (even with my split feelings on the show).