Web Development Live

Minutes after attending a seminar titled “Use Social Networking to Your Professional Advantage,” I opened my e-mail and found two invitations to join LinkedIn.com networks.

One came from a person I’d had professional contact with previously. I clicked “accept” and went on to other things. I didn’t recognize the other name, so I closed the e-mail without response. And, thanks to Ellen Levy, I didn’t feel bad about the tacit rejection.

Levy, vice president of corporate development and strategy at LinkedIn.com, just presented an overview of Internet social networking sites at the Central Exchange’s annual Women’s Lyceum, an educational and networking event. Understanding that attendees came to the conference from many different backgrounds and levels of Web familiarity, Levy prefaced her user advice with a primer. First, she explained, there was Web 1.0 — the mostly one-directional flow of information over the Internet. Think of Web pages.

We’re now in the age of Web 2.0 — an era of two-way communication that in three years spawned a host of interactive social networking sites. A show of hands indicated that about half the people used LinkedIn, a professional networking Web site, to build business relationships.

Even if you’ve never been on a social networking site, you understand the concept: It’s a cyberspace handshake. It facilitates connections. It does what Rotary meetings, phone calls, cocktail parties and e-mail have done for years.

Let’s say Joe wants a job at Hallmark Cards. Joe doesn’t know anybody in the human resources department or target department where he wants to work. But he is good friends with Sally, who has a Hallmark Gold Crown store. Sally knows people in Hallmark’s retail division. One, Bill, is the main liaison with Joan in the human resources department. And Joan knows that Fred is exactly the right person for Joe to meet. Fred, meet Joe. Joe, here’s Fred, who has someone vouching for him.

I made up that scenario, but that’s the six-degrees-of-separation concept.

A professional networking Web site might help make the connections that have always been an essential ingredient in job hunting, business development and sales prospecting. (A user also can get a wealth of professional responses quickly when posting a question on the appropriate area of the site.)

Levy emphasized that Web-based networking sites are only as good as the veracity and relevance of the people using them.

A LinkedIn connection may not make sense if you accept an invitation to join one’s professional network if you don’t know the person or don’t have ties to one’s business skills or services. “It should be a tool to leverage relationships you already have,” Levy said.

And a good professional network site should never be confused with a social networking site such as Facebook. The purposes are completely different, she said.

A professional networking site can be a good way to put your business profile — basically your resume and the services you can offer — online, where they can be seen by millions of other site users. It can spread “the message of you” a lot further and faster than passing out business cards and shaking hands at meetings.

But as much as Levy championed the professional development possibilities of Web 2.0, she reminded attendees of something that most knew well: “Time is a scarce resource.” Use networking sites judiciously. Understand that others might not have the time you do to dig deep into the site. And, most of all, she said, don’t get sucked into making a contest out of how many “connections” you can list. It’s not a matter of quantity; it’s the quality that counts.

Mobile Internet devices and online communities are merging to a new kind of web diary: “micro-blogging,” where people fire off terse missives about what they are doing or thinking at any given moment.
The postings are bare-bones, on-the-go versions of online journals in which people share their lives and dreams — hence the name micro-blogging.
“Blogging has evolved and become more formalized,” said Yahoo Design Pattern Library curator Christian Crumlish, author of social networking book “The Tower of Many.”
“A beautiful blog entry is an art form, and it takes time. So, micro-blogging fits into your life where you take a minute or two to see what’s going on and go back to work.”
Hot website Twitter has attracted a large following since launching slightly more than two years ago as a way to share Haiku-like text message updates with unlimited numbers of friends instantly via mobile telephones.
The service entices users with its signature line, “What are you doing?”
Startup Utterz, publicly unveiled last year, goes a step further by allowing users to post text, video, photos or audio from mobile telephones to the Internet with a simple call.
“What are the four things you can do with a mobile phone? You can talk, you can send text, you can take pictures and send video,” Utterz president Randy Corke told AFP.
“We want to use the technology that you have in your pocket,” he said.
“We want to make blogging as easy as talking … Our users can literally take their mobile telephone out and capture the experience, and the emotion of their voice, and interview people.”
Websites where people post blogs or share pictures or videos have become ubiquitous and firms like Twitter and Utterz are positioning themselves as places to merge and manage the images and words.
The power of these technologies was unexpectedly unleashed at a recent US tech conference, SXSW, when attendees micro-blogged searing critiques of an on-stage interview of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
“The woman interviewing Zuckerberg is lame,” Utterz user Leora Zellman wrote beneath a live picture she snapped of the interviewer, BusinessWeek magazine’s Sarah Lacey, on stage during the event.
“Never, ever have I seen such a train wreck of an interview,” wrote Twitter user Jason Pontin. “Poor girl, flirtatiously awful though she was.”
Lacey “Twittered” her own response.
“Seriously screw all you guys,” she wrote. “I did my best to ask a range of things.”
Enthusiasm for micro-blogging has prompted numerous blogging and social networking sites to focus attention on ease-of-use and accessibility in a world increasingly fond of mobile net devices.
Top social networking properties Facebook and MySpace offer mobile versions of their sites to increase user accessibility.
Facebook invited Twitter to customize applications for the online community when it opened its platform to outside developers early last year.
Video-sharing superstar YouTube tailors links for mobile telephones, including a special player built into Apple’s iPhones, which combine video, music, Internet and mobile telephone capabilities.
Picture-sharing website Flickr, which added a video feature in April, encourages uploads from camera-equipped mobile telephones.
“New technologies are most accessible when they take something you need to do anyway and make it much easier and much more useful,” Corke said.

Fed up with Facebook? Miffed at MySpace? Or are you just annoyed at people who abuse alliteration?If so, feel free to express yourself on a handful of antisocial networking sites, a curmudgeon’s version of popular online places to collect “friends” and interest strangers in your tone-deaf garage band.On sites such as Snubster.com and www.Enemybook.info, users can take a big gulp of Haterade and let fly. Instead of gathering friends, you can go all Richard Nixon and make an enemies list.Snubster takes things a step further, allowing you to (a la Stephen Colbert) put people “on notice” or make them “dead to me.”In a way, this snarky backlash was inevitable, says Brian Choung, the 26-year-old software engineer from Washington, D.C., who started Snubster in 2006. It now boasts more than 16,000 users.”It just seemed ridiculous and a platform ripe for parody,” Choung says. “I decided that it would be an amusing exercise to develop a site that did the opposite. Really, it started out mostly as a joke and an exercise in Web development.”I guess it just caught on from there. People would go online to see why they were put on a list on Snubster, browse the site, get the joke and then make their own lists.”And, yes, Choung is quick to add, the site is a parody. But, like many such jokes, it also sheds light on the inherent vacuity of social networking sites.”More people I didn’t really know were putting me on their Facebook friends list,” Choung says. “I hate the awkward social situation that is created by becoming `friends’ with someone online that you barely know in person, but obviously a lot of people thrive on it.”What puzzles me even more than these `friend collections’ is all the effort to create `personal profiles’ and photos carefully picked and crafted to create a shiny persona online for all your new Internet friends to admire.”There’s nothing shiny and friendly about Enemylist and Snubster, both of which, ironically, can also be accessed as applications on Facebook.Snubster’s litany of kvetches and snide remarks ranges from the obvious (President Bush) to the seemingly innocuous (people who floss at stop lights). Besides Bush, who’s No. 1, the five most snubbed people or things include Scientologists, emo kids, MySpace and Paris Hilton.Some get mightily specific, though. For example, a user named Meredith put “Kym” on notice because “She hasn’t sent me more than one weekly e-mail although she promised to send me more this year yet still will use work as an excuse and I don’t want to hear it.”OK, then.Choung says he had hoped social networking sites could have evolved into more meaningful dialogue.”I just don’t get it,” he says. “It’s the year 2008 - I thought the Internet could do better than this. Ultimately, what are these social networking sites? A better way for teens to send smiley faces? A new way to anonymously snoop on people?”And what of Snubster? Well, Choung thinks the negativity can be cathartic.”A lot of time’s it is liberating when you get to just vent about something that grinds your gears,” he says. “And when people make connections with other people based on these real-life observations, I think it’s something special.”

Fed up with Facebook? Miffed at MySpace? Or are you just annoyed at people who abuse alliteration?If so, feel free to express yourself on a handful of antisocial networking sites, a curmudgeon’s version of popular online places to collect “friends” and interest strangers in your tone-deaf garage band.On sites such as Snubster.com and www.Enemybook.info, users can take a big gulp of Haterade and let fly. Instead of gathering friends, you can go all Richard Nixon and make an enemies list.Snubster takes things a step further, allowing you to (a la Stephen Colbert) put people “on notice” or make them “dead to me.”In a way, this snarky backlash was inevitable, says Brian Choung, the 26-year-old software engineer from Washington, D.C., who started Snubster in 2006. It now boasts more than 16,000 users.”It just seemed ridiculous and a platform ripe for parody,” Choung says. “I decided that it would be an amusing exercise to develop a site that did the opposite. Really, it started out mostly as a joke and an exercise in Web development.”I guess it just caught on from there. People would go online to see why they were put on a list on Snubster, browse the site, get the joke and then make their own lists.”And, yes, Choung is quick to add, the site is a parody. But, like many such jokes, it also sheds light on the inherent vacuity of social networking sites.”More people I didn’t really know were putting me on their Facebook friends list,” Choung says. “I hate the awkward social situation that is created by becoming `friends’ with someone online that you barely know in person, but obviously a lot of people thrive on it.”What puzzles me even more than these `friend collections’ is all the effort to create `personal profiles’ and photos carefully picked and crafted to create a shiny persona online for all your new Internet friends to admire.”There’s nothing shiny and friendly about Enemylist and Snubster, both of which, ironically, can also be accessed as applications on Facebook.Snubster’s litany of kvetches and snide remarks ranges from the obvious (President Bush) to the seemingly innocuous (people who floss at stop lights). Besides Bush, who’s No. 1, the five most snubbed people or things include Scientologists, emo kids, MySpace and Paris Hilton.Some get mightily specific, though. For example, a user named Meredith put “Kym” on notice because “She hasn’t sent me more than one weekly e-mail although she promised to send me more this year yet still will use work as an excuse and I don’t want to hear it.”OK, then.Choung says he had hoped social networking sites could have evolved into more meaningful dialogue.”I just don’t get it,” he says. “It’s the year 2008 - I thought the Internet could do better than this. Ultimately, what are these social networking sites? A better way for teens to send smiley faces? A new way to anonymously snoop on people?”And what of Snubster? Well, Choung thinks the negativity can be cathartic.”A lot of time’s it is liberating when you get to just vent about something that grinds your gears,” he says. “And when people make connections with other people based on these real-life observations, I think it’s something special.”

Fed up with Facebook? Miffed at MySpace? Or are you just annoyed at people who abuse alliteration?If so, feel free to express yourself on a handful of antisocial networking sites, a curmudgeon’s version of popular online places to collect “friends” and interest strangers in your tone-deaf garage band.On sites such as Snubster.com and www.Enemybook.info, users can take a big gulp of Haterade and let fly. Instead of gathering friends, you can go all Richard Nixon and make an enemies list.Snubster takes things a step further, allowing you to (a la Stephen Colbert) put people “on notice” or make them “dead to me.”In a way, this snarky backlash was inevitable, says Brian Choung, the 26-year-old software engineer from Washington, D.C., who started Snubster in 2006. It now boasts more than 16,000 users.”It just seemed ridiculous and a platform ripe for parody,” Choung says. “I decided that it would be an amusing exercise to develop a site that did the opposite. Really, it started out mostly as a joke and an exercise in Web development.”I guess it just caught on from there. People would go online to see why they were put on a list on Snubster, browse the site, get the joke and then make their own lists.”And, yes, Choung is quick to add, the site is a parody. But, like many such jokes, it also sheds light on the inherent vacuity of social networking sites.”More people I didn’t really know were putting me on their Facebook friends list,” Choung says. “I hate the awkward social situation that is created by becoming `friends’ with someone online that you barely know in person, but obviously a lot of people thrive on it.”What puzzles me even more than these `friend collections’ is all the effort to create `personal profiles’ and photos carefully picked and crafted to create a shiny persona online for all your new Internet friends to admire.”There’s nothing shiny and friendly about Enemylist and Snubster, both of which, ironically, can also be accessed as applications on Facebook.Snubster’s litany of kvetches and snide remarks ranges from the obvious (President Bush) to the seemingly innocuous (people who floss at stop lights). Besides Bush, who’s No. 1, the five most snubbed people or things include Scientologists, emo kids, MySpace and Paris Hilton.Some get mightily specific, though. For example, a user named Meredith put “Kym” on notice because “She hasn’t sent me more than one weekly e-mail although she promised to send me more this year yet still will use work as an excuse and I don’t want to hear it.”OK, then.Choung says he had hoped social networking sites could have evolved into more meaningful dialogue.”I just don’t get it,” he says. “It’s the year 2008 - I thought the Internet could do better than this. Ultimately, what are these social networking sites? A better way for teens to send smiley faces? A new way to anonymously snoop on people?”And what of Snubster? Well, Choung thinks the negativity can be cathartic.”A lot of time’s it is liberating when you get to just vent about something that grinds your gears,” he says. “And when people make connections with other people based on these real-life observations, I think it’s something special.”

Fed up with Facebook? Miffed at MySpace? Or are you just annoyed at people who abuse alliteration?If so, feel free to express yourself on a handful of antisocial networking sites, a curmudgeon’s version of popular online places to collect “friends” and interest strangers in your tone-deaf garage band.On sites such as Snubster.com and www.Enemybook.info, users can take a big gulp of Haterade and let fly. Instead of gathering friends, you can go all Richard Nixon and make an enemies list.Snubster takes things a step further, allowing you to (a la Stephen Colbert) put people “on notice” or make them “dead to me.”In a way, this snarky backlash was inevitable, says Brian Choung, the 26-year-old software engineer from Washington, D.C., who started Snubster in 2006. It now boasts more than 16,000 users.”It just seemed ridiculous and a platform ripe for parody,” Choung says. “I decided that it would be an amusing exercise to develop a site that did the opposite. Really, it started out mostly as a joke and an exercise in Web development.”I guess it just caught on from there. People would go online to see why they were put on a list on Snubster, browse the site, get the joke and then make their own lists.”And, yes, Choung is quick to add, the site is a parody. But, like many such jokes, it also sheds light on the inherent vacuity of social networking sites.”More people I didn’t really know were putting me on their Facebook friends list,” Choung says. “I hate the awkward social situation that is created by becoming `friends’ with someone online that you barely know in person, but obviously a lot of people thrive on it.”What puzzles me even more than these `friend collections’ is all the effort to create `personal profiles’ and photos carefully picked and crafted to create a shiny persona online for all your new Internet friends to admire.”There’s nothing shiny and friendly about Enemylist and Snubster, both of which, ironically, can also be accessed as applications on Facebook.Snubster’s litany of kvetches and snide remarks ranges from the obvious (President Bush) to the seemingly innocuous (people who floss at stop lights). Besides Bush, who’s No. 1, the five most snubbed people or things include Scientologists, emo kids, MySpace and Paris Hilton.Some get mightily specific, though. For example, a user named Meredith put “Kym” on notice because “She hasn’t sent me more than one weekly e-mail although she promised to send me more this year yet still will use work as an excuse and I don’t want to hear it.”OK, then.Choung says he had hoped social networking sites could have evolved into more meaningful dialogue.”I just don’t get it,” he says. “It’s the year 2008 - I thought the Internet could do better than this. Ultimately, what are these social networking sites? A better way for teens to send smiley faces? A new way to anonymously snoop on people?”And what of Snubster? Well, Choung thinks the negativity can be cathartic.”A lot of time’s it is liberating when you get to just vent about something that grinds your gears,” he says. “And when people make connections with other people based on these real-life observations, I think it’s something special.”

Fed up with Facebook? Miffed at MySpace? Or are you just annoyed at people who abuse alliteration?If so, feel free to express yourself on a handful of antisocial networking sites, a curmudgeon’s version of popular online places to collect “friends” and interest strangers in your tone-deaf garage band.On sites such as Snubster.com and www.Enemybook.info, users can take a big gulp of Haterade and let fly. Instead of gathering friends, you can go all Richard Nixon and make an enemies list.Snubster takes things a step further, allowing you to (a la Stephen Colbert) put people “on notice” or make them “dead to me.”In a way, this snarky backlash was inevitable, says Brian Choung, the 26-year-old software engineer from Washington, D.C., who started Snubster in 2006. It now boasts more than 16,000 users.”It just seemed ridiculous and a platform ripe for parody,” Choung says. “I decided that it would be an amusing exercise to develop a site that did the opposite. Really, it started out mostly as a joke and an exercise in Web development.”I guess it just caught on from there. People would go online to see why they were put on a list on Snubster, browse the site, get the joke and then make their own lists.”And, yes, Choung is quick to add, the site is a parody. But, like many such jokes, it also sheds light on the inherent vacuity of social networking sites.”More people I didn’t really know were putting me on their Facebook friends list,” Choung says. “I hate the awkward social situation that is created by becoming `friends’ with someone online that you barely know in person, but obviously a lot of people thrive on it.”What puzzles me even more than these `friend collections’ is all the effort to create `personal profiles’ and photos carefully picked and crafted to create a shiny persona online for all your new Internet friends to admire.”There’s nothing shiny and friendly about Enemylist and Snubster, both of which, ironically, can also be accessed as applications on Facebook.Snubster’s litany of kvetches and snide remarks ranges from the obvious (President Bush) to the seemingly innocuous (people who floss at stop lights). Besides Bush, who’s No. 1, the five most snubbed people or things include Scientologists, emo kids, MySpace and Paris Hilton.Some get mightily specific, though. For example, a user named Meredith put “Kym” on notice because “She hasn’t sent me more than one weekly e-mail although she promised to send me more this year yet still will use work as an excuse and I don’t want to hear it.”OK, then.Choung says he had hoped social networking sites could have evolved into more meaningful dialogue.”I just don’t get it,” he says. “It’s the year 2008 - I thought the Internet could do better than this. Ultimately, what are these social networking sites? A better way for teens to send smiley faces? A new way to anonymously snoop on people?”And what of Snubster? Well, Choung thinks the negativity can be cathartic.”A lot of time’s it is liberating when you get to just vent about something that grinds your gears,” he says. “And when people make connections with other people based on these real-life observations, I think it’s something special.”

Dubbed digital housekeeping, the online clean-up is one of the issues trend-spotters say will emerge in 2008 as the public wakes up to the potential dangers of social sites, blogs and online reviews.
American company Reputation Defender is spearheading the trend and has five Kiwi customers on its books. Director Michael Fertik says four of them are paying the company US$9.95 a month to undertake detailed internet searches hunting for inappropriate, hurtful or inaccurate information and negotiating its removal if required.
Fertik says customers mainly use the service to ensure they impress employers who routinely check social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace before going ahead with job interviews. But many clients are also concerned about potential dates digging up dirt that could damage a blossoming relationship.
In New Zealand, recruitment agencies are running online background searches.
Its becoming incredibly common, says Julie Cressey, organisational development manager for Madison Recruitment. Facebook is one of the common sites her agency checks, using it to see who potential employees network with.
Cressey says expressing your personality online is fine but the red flag comes out for those posting inappropriate photos or making outlandish commentary.
New Zealand-based public speaker and author of Reputation Branding Hannah Samuel says people need to be educated about the long-term effects of internet content especially young people and their parents, who are often blissfully unaware of the real consequences of the virtual world.
Internet users can at least control what sites they join and what they post about themselves.
Samuels checklist includes asking how parents, employers or a potential life partner would feel about the material and: would I cringe in embarrassment or be ashamed if it appeared again?
But once material is online, removing it becomes difficult.
Nothing is secret and whatever you put out there can stay out there forever, says Eaden McKee, director of web development company Webforce.
Fertik says Reputation Defender staff have a broad suite of solutions available, from asking for content to be removed to legal action.
And internet users are taking the initiative themselves, in some cases voluntarily shutting down their online profiles. In what has been dubbed Facebook suicides, some Facebook users leave notes or give their friends one final poke before leaving their profiles behind. The Facebook Mass Suicide Club website says: Fed up with Facebook? Dont like having your info shared with the world? … Have you ever thought about just deleting your account and freeing yourself? If Facebook is controlling and consuming your life then this is a group for you.
McKee says individuals or businesses can use Google Alerts to notify them when any relevant material is posted.
But experts agree the best protection is not posting inappropriate pictures or comments in the first place.

Lets face it: if youre over 30, your kids are probably more technically savvy than you.
And if you think your kids are too young to bother with the internet, think again. According to experts, we should be educating our children from as young as four or five on the dangers they can encounter on the net.
So, what are these dangers, and what can be done to minimise the risk?
According to the Internet Safety Groups website at www.netsafe.org.nz, young people might encounter chain letters that threaten harm if not forwarded, scary, rude and violent images, racist, age-restricted and inappropriate material.
They might be sent these against their will, or might search for them — through lack of awareness or curiosity. And with social networking sites encouraging children as young as six to join up, there is a real risk of stranger danger.
While software that blocks children from accessing inappropriate sites is useful, Lee Chisholm, operations manager for Netsafe, says its also important that children are educated so they dont go looking for inappropriate material, and know what to do if they come across it.
Many children are able to get around filters. The Australian Government recently spent $A84 million developing a free filter, and it took a 16-year-old 30 minutes to crack it.
Its important to be a part of your childs cyberworld and to show an interest. Not allowing children to use the internet isnt the best option — theyll just go elsewhere to friends, internet cafes or libraries, Chisholm says.
Netsafe runs courses for schools and parents, and receives about 150 calls a month from children concerned about what they are receiving on their cellphones and email.
A lot of the calls are about harassment and bullying.
Martin Rogers (not his real name), knows all about the dangers of online bullying and the effects it can have on a child and their family.
Until recently his 14-year-old son used the internet for predominantly research and general surfing. Rogers and his wife set strict guidelines on appropriate sites and installed filters on the home computer, which is kept in the family room, but were blissfully unaware of the existence of social networking sites.
A couple of months ago, our son became very anxious and worried, and finally fronted up to the fact that he had registered with a website that introduced him to new friends.
Hed been very naive and had given too much information about himself and where he lived etc, and had attracted some undesirable responses. It panicked him and we were shocked when he showed us the sorts of things hed been sent.
The problem was that we just werent educated as to what the internet offered in terms of introductions. Hes now taken himself off the site and only interacts with people we know.
Initially we were going to ban him from the internet, but after talking to other adults who had faced similar situations we realised that that wasnt the solution.
Angela White, head of the middle school at St Margarets College, agrees.
They organised an evening for students, their parents, grandparents and others on internet safety, letting the children educate the parents.
It was a very powerful way of educating parents as it demonstrated that their children are online whether (parents) like it or not — if not at home then at school, or at friends or cafes. They are digital natives and we adults are digital migrants, she says.
Rob Clarke, associate principal at Fendalton Open Air School has led the school in developing an internet safety programme.
Its a complex area and Fendaltons perspective is about keeping up with new technologies and ensuring the children are equipped with the skills, attitudes and habits to make sure they are safe.
If schools are grappling with it, then its certainly an issue for the wider community, so we offer our parents education opportunities as well, explains Clarke.
In the home, its a good idea to treat the internet as you would a book: show an interest in what your children are looking at. Its about developing a trusting relationship with your kids.
SAFETY TIPS
Take your childs internet life seriously.
For most children, the internet is more of a social interaction tool than it is a research tool. Try not to assign blame when children come across inappropriate material. Blame may stop them from coming to you next time.
Keep computers in communal areas of the house, not bedrooms.Start educating children from a young age as to the potential dangers of online social networking and surfing.Use filters, but not as the only safety tool. Visit the sites that your children visit.
ON THE WEB
Hectors World is software that provides kids with a dolphin cartoon to cover bad material. See: http://www.netsafe.org.nz
Google Fendalton Open Schools website for the schools advice for parents and its internet safety programme.
Get the kids to check out http://www.cyberkidz.co.nz
http://www.netguide.co.nz has tips for kids and adults.

Lets face it: if youre over 30, your kids are probably more technically savvy than you.
And if you think your kids are too young to bother with the internet, think again. According to experts, we should be educating our children from as young as four or five on the dangers they can encounter on the net.
So, what are these dangers, and what can be done to minimise the risk?
According to the Internet Safety Groups website at www.netsafe.org.nz, young people might encounter chain letters that threaten harm if not forwarded, scary, rude and violent images, racist, age-restricted and inappropriate material.
They might be sent these against their will, or might search for them — through lack of awareness or curiosity. And with social networking sites encouraging children as young as six to join up, there is a real risk of stranger danger.
While software that blocks children from accessing inappropriate sites is useful, Lee Chisholm, operations manager for Netsafe, says its also important that children are educated so they dont go looking for inappropriate material, and know what to do if they come across it.
Many children are able to get around filters. The Australian Government recently spent $A84 million developing a free filter, and it took a 16-year-old 30 minutes to crack it.
Its important to be a part of your childs cyberworld and to show an interest. Not allowing children to use the internet isnt the best option — theyll just go elsewhere to friends, internet cafes or libraries, Chisholm says.
Netsafe runs courses for schools and parents, and receives about 150 calls a month from children concerned about what they are receiving on their cellphones and email.
A lot of the calls are about harassment and bullying.
Martin Rogers (not his real name), knows all about the dangers of online bullying and the effects it can have on a child and their family.
Until recently his 14-year-old son used the internet for predominantly research and general surfing. Rogers and his wife set strict guidelines on appropriate sites and installed filters on the home computer, which is kept in the family room, but were blissfully unaware of the existence of social networking sites.
A couple of months ago, our son became very anxious and worried, and finally fronted up to the fact that he had registered with a website that introduced him to new friends.
Hed been very naive and had given too much information about himself and where he lived etc, and had attracted some undesirable responses. It panicked him and we were shocked when he showed us the sorts of things hed been sent.
The problem was that we just werent educated as to what the internet offered in terms of introductions. Hes now taken himself off the site and only interacts with people we know.
Initially we were going to ban him from the internet, but after talking to other adults who had faced similar situations we realised that that wasnt the solution.
Angela White, head of the middle school at St Margarets College, agrees.
They organised an evening for students, their parents, grandparents and others on internet safety, letting the children educate the parents.
It was a very powerful way of educating parents as it demonstrated that their children are online whether (parents) like it or not — if not at home then at school, or at friends or cafes. They are digital natives and we adults are digital migrants, she says.
Rob Clarke, associate principal at Fendalton Open Air School has led the school in developing an internet safety programme.
Its a complex area and Fendaltons perspective is about keeping up with new technologies and ensuring the children are equipped with the skills, attitudes and habits to make sure they are safe.
If schools are grappling with it, then its certainly an issue for the wider community, so we offer our parents education opportunities as well, explains Clarke.
In the home, its a good idea to treat the internet as you would a book: show an interest in what your children are looking at. Its about developing a trusting relationship with your kids.
SAFETY TIPS
Take your childs internet life seriously.
For most children, the internet is more of a social interaction tool than it is a research tool. Try not to assign blame when children come across inappropriate material. Blame may stop them from coming to you next time.
Keep computers in communal areas of the house, not bedrooms.Start educating children from a young age as to the potential dangers of online social networking and surfing.Use filters, but not as the only safety tool. Visit the sites that your children visit.
ON THE WEB
Hectors World is software that provides kids with a dolphin cartoon to cover bad material. See: http://www.netsafe.org.nz
Google Fendalton Open Schools website for the schools advice for parents and its internet safety programme.
Get the kids to check out http://www.cyberkidz.co.nz
http://www.netguide.co.nz has tips for kids and adults.