IM, Blogging, and Social Nets

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IM, Blogging, and Social Nets

• a.k.a. Kids These Days!

2
Who am I?

• Stanford BSCS, 2000 President Scholar
• Programming since I was five
• Developing IM information sharing solutions for
  my company
  
• Im a hacker.

3
The Basics

• Your kids are smarter than you.
• Kids are not taken seriously.
• Kids will do anything to be taken seriously.
• Including really stupid stuff.

4
What To Do?

• new technologies, but not a new problem!
• Rules? (curfews, time limits?)
• Technology? (locks, chastity belts)
• Punishment? (humiliation, jail)
• None of those work on their own.

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The Solution?

• Take your kid seriously.
• Give respect.
• Have awareness of what theyre doing.
• Listen and try to understand.
• When your kid goes punk, give them glue.

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What Are They Doing?

• Not just email - lots of buzzwords!
• Blog, IM, Friendster, MySpace, SMS, texting
• Publishing personal information
• Declaring friendships
• Sending long and short notes

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Social Networks

• List who your friends are!
• Popularity contest / dating service
• Friendster, Orkut, MySpace, Tribe
• Easy people searches to find new friends and see
  how theyre connected.
  
• Ability to restrict information research
  others
  
• makes this somewhat safer!
• Sidenote business networking!
• LinkedIn, Ryze, Ecademy everyones doing it!

8
Blogging

• A monologue to the world, with comments.
• An online personal journal.
• Often in tandem with social networking.
• Easy way to keep up with friends.
• Very popular / big business
• Blogger.com, LiveJournal, Xanga

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Instant Messaging (IM)

• Quick textual messages from computer to computer.
  Halfway between email voice.
  
• Four services AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, MSN
• And Google Talk
• Buddy list, voice chat, webcam, files
• Very popular in the under 25 segment
• Well over 100 million users worldwide!
• Anonymous, asynchronous, free

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Chat Rooms

• Somewhat different than IM
• But often uses same program!
• Many-to-many a virtual room
• Not a conversation, a hangout
• Many rooms / areas for sex chat
• Anonymous, predatory, dangerous

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SMS / Texting

• Short text messages sent from cell phone to cell
  phone.
  
• Works on most cell phones.
• More popular in EU, JP, KR.
• Semi-anonymous, but mapped to number
• Used to coordinate when not online
• Cheap (nickel a message)
• Has its own lingo RUOK?I

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MMOGs

• Massively Multiplayer Online Games
• World of Warcraft, Everquest, Lineage
• There.com, Second Life, Sims Online
• Fun, very addictive, social, anonymous.
• Chatting while doing.

13
IM Smarter Monitoring

• IM Smarter can be used for IM monitoring.
• Please only do this with your childs
  understanding. It is easy to circumvent.
  
• Many other CEOs wont tell you that. They will
  prey on your desire to pay money to feel like you
  control your kid.
  
• http//IMSmarter.com/

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What To Do? (Reprise)

• Understand.
• Have the computer in a public place.
• Panopticon model of behavior
• cubicles, classrooms, etc.
• Ask about computer use.
• If you do install monitoring software, tell your
  kid and explain why. Or theyll find out, hate
  you, and quietly route around it.

15
Thank You!

• David E. Weekly
• david_at_weekly.org
• http//IMSmarter.com/