Can FaceChipz Become the Facebook of Tween Social Networking?

Can social networking websites designed specifically for kids be successful? ReadWriteWeb has an interesting article on the latest entry into the social networking for kids industry, FaceChipz. Combining social networking with real-life networking, FaceChipz strikes a unique balance that could be appealing for the always difficult tween demographic.

The way FaceChipz works is that kids exchange plastic poker chips with unique web codes in real life, which can then be used to form connections on the FaceChipz website. Additionally, unlike traditional social networking websites, FaceChips has many safeguards to proect children from exposing personal privacy details. Of course, the website’s success depends on kids actually liking it, which is always a crapshoot.

Facebook is the Second Biggest Website…or the Fourth.

According to data from Compete, Facebook has surpassed Yahoo as the second largest website on the Internet with nearly 134 million unique visitors in Janurary. According to a similar data from ComScore, however, Facebook sits at 112 million visitors and is ranked fourth behind Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. The difference between the Compete and ComScore data can be attributed to the fact that half od the users surveyed in the ComScore research came from outside of the United States where Facebook is gaining, but doesn’t have as tight a death grip on the web.

UC San Diego Frat Boys See Fallout from Racist Party

The Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity at UC San Diego is in hot water after they posted details of a racially insensitive Black History Month-themed party on Facebook. The party, conceived entirely by white male students and titled Compton Cookout, invited guests to dress and behave in stereotypically “ghetto” manners. Of course, the brothers of Pi Kappa Alpha didn’t expect that their moronic event would be shared as a public event on Facebook and now they are catching much-deserved bad press.

Watch out for the Kneber Botnet

According to computer security company NewWitness, a malicious botnet has infected computers in more than 2,500 corporations around the world. From the New York Times article, “The company’s investigation determined that the botnet has been able to compromise both commercial and government systems, including 68,000 corporate log-in credentials. It has also gained access to e-mail systems, online banking accounts, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail and other social network credentials, along with more than 2,000 digital security certificates and a significant cache of personal identity information.”

While not as big as the Conficker botnet of 2008, this new botnet, called the “Kneber botnet,” has the potential to be a major problem.

What do you do if your child is the cyberbully?

We talk often about how to prevent cyberbullying and keep your children from becoming a victim of abuse, but what if your child is the abuser? In an editorial for the Boston Globe, Lyla M. Alphonse discusses how some parents are wired to ignore their child’s inappropriate behavior and accept it as “boys being boys” or “girls being girls.”