Sunday, July 5, 2009

I set up a Twitter account today. Not sure what I am going to do with it. Maybe nothing, but if you want to follow its www.twitter.com/LafayetteJP.



My kids are completely comfortable with all the different social networking sites out there. There are on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and others. As parents we know their passwords and do what we can to monitor their usage. But it is hard to be watching all the time.



Last fall, I started using a service call YouDiligence.com. For a monthly fee, they will monitor you childrens MySpace and Facebook accounts. Basically, they are monitoring the kids sites for the use of certain words and phrases. If the word appears on their profile, an e-mail is sent to me to review. So far, the word party seems to come up the most, but each time in an innocent context (ice cream party, birthday party, etc.). You can also customize the word search with your own words. I have not done this personally, but suppose that one could add names or nicknames and know who they are posting with back and forth.



I liked the service so much I wanted to find a way to tell more people about it. I had numerous discussions with one of the founders on how to best promote their service. We finally decided to set up a special web page. You can either type into your browser, www.youdiligence.com/puzzle or go to our homepage (http://www.lpfpuzzle.com/) and click on the link to Youdiligence. We are also promoting the service and websites on our packaging as a service to parents. The company would offer our customers their first month free and then a discounted monthly rate going forward.



I see this service as a tool for parents to help teach their kids how to be responsible on-line. The kids should know that the parents are subscribing to the service (you need your kids password to make this work). If there are inappropriate things going on with their accounts, this service gives you the notification you need and the opportunity to then discuss with your kids the right was to present oneself on-line.



If you have any questions, drop me a line. Otherwise, try the first month for free and see how you like it. I think you will be like me and keep your subscription going. And want to tell you friends about the service.



JP

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