WebProNews

Children On Social Networking Sites

Pssst. Hey kid! Want to earn a quarter? Tell your friends about this cool new video game, and it’s yours.Silly? Not really. Not when you consider a new survey out of the UK that suggests 49% of kids aged between 8 and 17 have a social media profile.

Ofcom Finds Kids Sneaking Around Social Networks

Social networks are practically crawling with kids, according to a new report from the UK's Office of Communications.  What's more: the children are often on them in violation of the networks' rules, and their parents pay little attention.

Byron Review Will Affect UK's Game Ratings

Late last year, the British Prime Minister asked a clinical psychologist to look at the risks the Internet and video games pose to children.  Dr. Tanya Byron has now come back with several suggestions that the government has said it will follow.

GoFish's New Ad Network Angling For Children

Young children and teenagers might not have jobs, but they inevitably have money.  GoFish intends to capitalize on this fact with a new ad network focused on online youth entertainment.

MySpace Safety Efforts May Backfire

For someone who isn't 17, I have to admit that I spend a fair amount of time digging around in MySpace and trying to understand how all the pieces fit together. Indeed, MySpace help is an an important element of my tech Q&A blog too (where I offer tech support and, specifically myspace help).

MySpace's Principles for Social Networking

As promised, MySpace makes a big announcement today about “Internet safety.” And no, it has nothing to do with not tripping over your power cord. Naturally, MySpace’s Internet safety announcement is about increasing privacy and safety for its minor members. ReadWriteWeb reports that the updated features will include:

One Laptop Per Child Loses Intel

Intel announced they are leaving the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project. OLPC produces low-cost laptops for developing nations. Fighting and differences between the two couldn’t be bridged. It was six months ago Intel and OLPC founder Nick Negroponte announced they would work together to produce the laptops.

Teach Your Little Ones with Google Apps

My seven year old son wants to program online games badly. After playing Pokemon online he got the notion that he wanted to make something like that. He pestered me for days about setting him up so he could make cool games where his friends could checkout his games. I struggled for a few days trying to find a solution for him. He’s seven so there has to be some reward for the initial work he does to keep his interest. You can’t just throw a seven year old in the deep end and let him flounder.

Webkinz Ad Addition Angers Parents

Advertising on kid-friendly website Webkinz has one advocacy group up in arms and demanding the toymaker take down the ads.

Amazon Buys Extremely Rare J.K. Rowling Book

J.K. Rowling created seven handwritten, leather-bound copies of a book called The Tales of Beedle the Bard.  Six were given to close friends, and the last was sold to Amazon.com for about $4 million.