In my computer class, my teacher, recently Symbaloo.com. In short Symbaloo place and maintain access to all the labels that are on your side, you page.Your Symbaloo WebMix, where you can save a bit 'of links and bookmarks, for example. There are 60 cards on the tiles webmix.To indicators, you can find any site.
Symbaloo has all the popular sites, but if the site you want, you can create your own favorites to create a label. You WebMix as you want and edit them, add background music and change. This WebMix can be shared with friends.
The WebMix for each class, are now in my life, personal effects and music are no longer my school.
Symbaloo is one of the easiest to use, simple instructions are step by step everything. I think the most useful services, because I can make your bookmarks from any computer. Every stone and labels, the site name and logo on the side. For example, my record of the leading candidates Shop Guitar Center logo.
The big advantage is that you are looking for other Symbaloo WebMix. Suppose you want to invest in U.S. history WebMix, but do not want the time to find all the favorites to take over. Well, you can go; WebMix Search and type in U.S. history. So all WebMix other people involved in U.S. history is coming. In addition WebMix votes that has been raised and the number of people receiving WebMix.
General Symbaloo very useful website that is easy to use because it is becoming increasingly popular, is on the ground. For more information about how the service works, check out the video below:
In my computer class, my teacher, recently Symbaloo.com. In short Symbaloo place and maintain access to all the labels that are on your side, you page.Your Symbaloo WebMix, where you can save a bit 'of links and bookmarks, for example. There are 60 cards on the tiles webmix.To indicators, you can find any site.
Symbaloo has all the popular sites, but if the site you want, you can create your own favorites to create a label. You WebMix as you want and edit them, add background music and change. This WebMix can be shared with friends.
The WebMix for each class, are now in my life, personal effects and music are no longer my school.
Symbaloo is one of the easiest to use, simple instructions are step by step everything. I think the most useful services, because I can make your bookmarks from any computer. Every stone and labels, the site name and logo on the side. For example, my record of the leading candidates Shop Guitar Center logo.
The big advantage is that you are looking for other Symbaloo WebMix. Suppose you want to invest in U.S. history WebMix, but do not want the time to find all the favorites to take over. Well, you can go; WebMix Search and type in U.S. history. So all WebMix other people involved in U.S. history is coming. In addition WebMix votes that has been raised and the number of people receiving WebMix.
General Symbaloo very useful website that is easy to use because it is becoming increasingly popular, is on the ground. For more information about how the service works, check out the video below:
Studies of the Foursquare Gospel, the use of position, has more internal hackathons weekend you will find a series of historical context to bring the check-in. If users are now back at the check-in not only their images but also images of friends who were also registered for the event, to be taken?
Sound familiar? The color has a similar experience for the user, but it is easier to get to shoot in color Foursquare Foursquare convince users that the consumers of color.
What is it like? The company describes in his blog:
We never accepted that it is who you are, it was hard to take pictures of friends, events. The way to keep in mind that if you blink 'iPhone 3G for restaurant terrible, was not visible at dusk or at a critical moment during a birthday party, when his nephew treasure pants on his head? [...] It works great for events, snacks, prepared, and things like concerts. Other background images and memories. And if your friends are watching the same screen, they see their friends who were with her and pictures of people. All in one place.
The color has a similar experience, but has a different approach to the terminals. Instead of focusing on explicit links - that is, the popular social networks - seems to be closer to users and to create the tabernacle. Friendship resist social networks, instead of determining people's friends, persistent connections, social ties based on the color in this area. More photos in the person of a close relationship ever. Four square posts with standard Yes, my friend; method. This means that the color was more pictures, Foursquare, but have a meaning? Maybe.
Facebook has recently occurred and mobile application characteristics. Is there an easy way for the rapid exchange of photos to your mobile phone check-in case it would be easy to enter the room and competition. With the popularity of Facebook in the city center, share photos and events with friends, would probably step in and supported as a location for this type of cooperation, the creation of a photographic memory. .. but we want to, depending on the Foursquare.
Color, it seems that if the application is based on an interesting technology, but I'm not so sure you can convince people to use it enough to make it interesting, though. And if people see that beautiful picture he had to start using the application a straightforward experience of friendship, captured in color. It can be seen in action in history next to the Foursquare Gospel by clicking on the check-in to see more details.
Studies of the Foursquare Gospel, the use of position, has more internal hackathons weekend you will find a series of historical context to bring the check-in. If users are now back at the check-in not only their images but also images of friends who were also registered for the event, to be taken?
Sound familiar? The color has a similar experience for the user, but it is easier to get to shoot in color Foursquare Foursquare convince users that the consumers of color.
What is it like? The company describes in his blog:
We never accepted that it is who you are, it was hard to take pictures of friends, events. The way to keep in mind that if you blink 'iPhone 3G for restaurant terrible, was not visible at dusk or at a critical moment during a birthday party, when his nephew treasure pants on his head? [...] It works great for events, snacks, prepared, and things like concerts. Other background images and memories. And if your friends are watching the same screen, they see their friends who were with her and pictures of people. All in one place.
The color has a similar experience, but has a different approach to the terminals. Instead of focusing on explicit links - that is, the popular social networks - seems to be closer to users and to create the tabernacle. Friendship resist social networks, instead of determining people's friends, persistent connections, social ties based on the color in this area. More photos in the person of a close relationship ever. Four square posts with standard Yes, my friend; method. This means that the color was more pictures, Foursquare, but have a meaning? Maybe.
Facebook has recently occurred and mobile application characteristics. Is there an easy way for the rapid exchange of photos to your mobile phone check-in case it would be easy to enter the room and competition. With the popularity of Facebook in the city center, share photos and events with friends, would probably step in and supported as a location for this type of cooperation, the creation of a photographic memory. .. but we want to, depending on the Foursquare.
Color, it seems that if the application is based on an interesting technology, but I'm not so sure you can convince people to use it enough to make it interesting, though. And if people see that beautiful picture he had to start using the application a straightforward experience of friendship, captured in color. It can be seen in action in history next to the Foursquare Gospel by clicking on the check-in to see more details.
Shown with the exposure of interest is a must for those who frequent presentation in public. One of the factors supporting a good presentation is an interesting view, therefore, required template charming. If you already bored with the standard view powerpoint and want to try a new look, here are some websites that provide free powerpoint templates for download.
Shown with the exposure of interest is a must for those who frequent presentation in public. One of the factors supporting a good presentation is an interesting view, therefore, required template charming. If you already bored with the standard view powerpoint and want to try a new look, here are some websites that provide free powerpoint templates for download.
Spirit is an unfortunate robot that is stuck in the sand on Mars last year, but sedentary in their months has made a great discovery: evidence of subsurface water on the planet.
Recall that the Spirit ended its mission in 2004 and was embarked on an extra task, but in April 2009 was stuck in the sand. While he tried to leave, followed jammed and seven months after it broke a second round. Now is a scientist as stationary.
To take advantage of the situation, they let this young scientists introduced an underground conduit for sampling. The tests varied compositions found in the soil layers under the Spirit, insoluble materials near the surface and soluble below. This has led scientists to believe that there is water in the form of frozen or melted snow on the Martian surface.
Our friend is in hibernation while supporting the hard winter and as soon as possible (in March) shall operate its solar panels.
Spirit is an unfortunate robot that is stuck in the sand on Mars last year, but sedentary in their months has made a great discovery: evidence of subsurface water on the planet.
Recall that the Spirit ended its mission in 2004 and was embarked on an extra task, but in April 2009 was stuck in the sand. While he tried to leave, followed jammed and seven months after it broke a second round. Now is a scientist as stationary.
To take advantage of the situation, they let this young scientists introduced an underground conduit for sampling. The tests varied compositions found in the soil layers under the Spirit, insoluble materials near the surface and soluble below. This has led scientists to believe that there is water in the form of frozen or melted snow on the Martian surface.
Our friend is in hibernation while supporting the hard winter and as soon as possible (in March) shall operate its solar panels.
Internet forums are the longest established form of onlinesocial media. They most commonly exist around specific topics and interests, for example cars or music. Each discussion in a forum is known as a thread, and many different threads can be active simultaneously.This makes forums good places to find and engage in a variety of detailed discussions. They are often built into websites as an added feature, but some exist as stand-alone entities. Forums can be places for lively, vociferous debate, for seeking advice on a subject, for sharing news, for flirting, or simply for whiling away time with idle chat. In other words, their huge variety reflects that of face-to-face conversations.
The sites are moderated by an administrator, whose role it is to remove unsuitable posts or spam. However, a moderator will not lead or guide the discussion. This is a major difference between forums and blogs. Blogs have a clear owner, whereas a forum’s threads are started by its members. Forums have a strong sense of community. Some are very enclosed, existing as ‘islands’ of online social activity with little or no connection to other forms of social media. This may be because forums were around long before the term ‘social media’ was coined, and in advance of any of the other types of community we associate with the term. In any event, they remain hugely popular, often with membership in the hundreds of thousands. Forum search engine BoardTracker monitors over 61 million conversation threads across almost 40,000 forums8, and it is by no means a comprehensive index.
Internet forums are the longest established form of onlinesocial media. They most commonly exist around specific topics and interests, for example cars or music. Each discussion in a forum is known as a thread, and many different threads can be active simultaneously.This makes forums good places to find and engage in a variety of detailed discussions. They are often built into websites as an added feature, but some exist as stand-alone entities. Forums can be places for lively, vociferous debate, for seeking advice on a subject, for sharing news, for flirting, or simply for whiling away time with idle chat. In other words, their huge variety reflects that of face-to-face conversations.
The sites are moderated by an administrator, whose role it is to remove unsuitable posts or spam. However, a moderator will not lead or guide the discussion. This is a major difference between forums and blogs. Blogs have a clear owner, whereas a forum’s threads are started by its members. Forums have a strong sense of community. Some are very enclosed, existing as ‘islands’ of online social activity with little or no connection to other forms of social media. This may be because forums were around long before the term ‘social media’ was coined, and in advance of any of the other types of community we associate with the term. In any event, they remain hugely popular, often with membership in the hundreds of thousands. Forum search engine BoardTracker monitors over 61 million conversation threads across almost 40,000 forums8, and it is by no means a comprehensive index.
Wikis are websites that allow people to contribute or edit content on them. They are great for collaborative working, for instance creating a large document or project plan with a team in several offices. A wiki can be as private or as open as the people who create it want it to be.
The most famous wiki is of course Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia that was started in 2001. It now has over 2.5 million articles in English alone6 and over a million members. In 2005 the respected scientific journal Nature conducted a study7 into the reliability of the scientific entries in Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. No one was surprised that Encyclopaedia Britannica was the more reliable of the two – what was remarkable was that it was only marginally more accurate. The Encyclopedia Britannica team issued a 20-page rebuttal of the study a few months later.
Others observed that while Encyclopaedia Britannica had no entries for wiki, Wikipedia has a 2,500 word article on Encyclopaedia Britannica, its history and methodology. But Wikipedia is more than a reference source. During a major breaking news story, especially one which affects large numbers of people directly, such a natural disaster or political crisis, Wikipedia acts as a collective reporting function.
Trying out wikis…
Everyone knows Wikipedia, here are some other examples of large wiki projects that you can take a look at and even participate in:
Wikia
A community of wikis on different subjects
wikiHow
A practical ‘how to’ manual for everything from making coffee to writing business plans
Wikinews
Wikipedia’s news project
You can start your own public wiki in the Wikia community, or look at the technology’s possibilities for team working by trying out the services from companies like JotSpot and Socialtext.
Wikis are websites that allow people to contribute or edit content on them. They are great for collaborative working, for instance creating a large document or project plan with a team in several offices. A wiki can be as private or as open as the people who create it want it to be.
The most famous wiki is of course Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia that was started in 2001. It now has over 2.5 million articles in English alone6 and over a million members. In 2005 the respected scientific journal Nature conducted a study7 into the reliability of the scientific entries in Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. No one was surprised that Encyclopaedia Britannica was the more reliable of the two – what was remarkable was that it was only marginally more accurate. The Encyclopedia Britannica team issued a 20-page rebuttal of the study a few months later.
Others observed that while Encyclopaedia Britannica had no entries for wiki, Wikipedia has a 2,500 word article on Encyclopaedia Britannica, its history and methodology. But Wikipedia is more than a reference source. During a major breaking news story, especially one which affects large numbers of people directly, such a natural disaster or political crisis, Wikipedia acts as a collective reporting function.
Trying out wikis…
Everyone knows Wikipedia, here are some other examples of large wiki projects that you can take a look at and even participate in:
Wikia
A community of wikis on different subjects
wikiHow
A practical ‘how to’ manual for everything from making coffee to writing business plans
Wikinews
Wikipedia’s news project
You can start your own public wiki in the Wikia community, or look at the technology’s possibilities for team working by trying out the services from companies like JotSpot and Socialtext.
Social networks on the web are like contained versions of the sprawling blog network. People joining a social network usually create a profile and then build a network by connecting to friends and contacts in the network, or by inviting real-world contacts and friends to join the social network.These communities retain the interest of their members by being useful to them and providing services that are entertaining or help them to expand their networks. MySpace, for instance, allows members to create vivid, chaotic home pages (they’ve been likened to the walls of a teenager’s bedroom) to which they can upload images, videos and music.
MYSPACE
MySpace has built a lot of its popularity around its music services. There are said to be over three million bands and musicians registered on it, trying to attract a fan base from the 200 million registered accounts. According to Hitwise, in September 2006 MySpace was the 8th largest referrer of traffic to HMV.co.uk, more even than the MSN search engine.
FACEBOOK
In 2007, Facebook, a social network that originated in US colleges, became available for public use in the UK. Its popularity quickly rocketed.Part of Facebook’s success is its creators’ decision to ‘open up’ and allow anyone to develop applications and run them on Facebook - without charging them. This has seen Facebook users able to play each other at Scrabble and Chess, compare each others’ tastes and send ‘virtual gifts’, among any number of new ideas vying for attention.
BEBO
Bebo, which is popular among school-age children, actually has the most members, perhaps helped by the fact that it is grouped around schools and colleges.Crucially, the growth in the use of social networks by young people in recent years has come at the expense of their consumption of traditional media such as TV and magazines. This switch in behaviour was one of the drivers behind the biggest deal in social media to date, when Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace for US $580 million. Marketers have also increasingly begun to experiment with trying to reach the members of MySpace and other social networks. Bebo hosts pages for many children’s authors for instance, while MySpace has seen a rush of marketing efforts from Toyota to the US Army.
Perhaps the most ‘grown-up’ of the popular networks is LinkedIn, which allows users build their business and professional contacts into an online network. It has been criticised for not being open enough and for charging for too many of its services – but next to Facebook it is still the most popular online social network among people aged 25 and over. The huge success of the ‘opening up’ of Facebook,as mentioned above, could be a challenge to LinkedIn’s ‘closed’ approach in the future.
Social networks on the web are like contained versions of the sprawling blog network. People joining a social network usually create a profile and then build a network by connecting to friends and contacts in the network, or by inviting real-world contacts and friends to join the social network.These communities retain the interest of their members by being useful to them and providing services that are entertaining or help them to expand their networks. MySpace, for instance, allows members to create vivid, chaotic home pages (they’ve been likened to the walls of a teenager’s bedroom) to which they can upload images, videos and music.
MYSPACE
MySpace has built a lot of its popularity around its music services. There are said to be over three million bands and musicians registered on it, trying to attract a fan base from the 200 million registered accounts. According to Hitwise, in September 2006 MySpace was the 8th largest referrer of traffic to HMV.co.uk, more even than the MSN search engine.
FACEBOOK
In 2007, Facebook, a social network that originated in US colleges, became available for public use in the UK. Its popularity quickly rocketed.Part of Facebook’s success is its creators’ decision to ‘open up’ and allow anyone to develop applications and run them on Facebook - without charging them. This has seen Facebook users able to play each other at Scrabble and Chess, compare each others’ tastes and send ‘virtual gifts’, among any number of new ideas vying for attention.
BEBO
Bebo, which is popular among school-age children, actually has the most members, perhaps helped by the fact that it is grouped around schools and colleges.Crucially, the growth in the use of social networks by young people in recent years has come at the expense of their consumption of traditional media such as TV and magazines. This switch in behaviour was one of the drivers behind the biggest deal in social media to date, when Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace for US $580 million. Marketers have also increasingly begun to experiment with trying to reach the members of MySpace and other social networks. Bebo hosts pages for many children’s authors for instance, while MySpace has seen a rush of marketing efforts from Toyota to the US Army.
Perhaps the most ‘grown-up’ of the popular networks is LinkedIn, which allows users build their business and professional contacts into an online network. It has been criticised for not being open enough and for charging for too many of its services – but next to Facebook it is still the most popular online social network among people aged 25 and over. The huge success of the ‘opening up’ of Facebook,as mentioned above, could be a challenge to LinkedIn’s ‘closed’ approach in the future.
Now let’s take a look at each of the main types of social media, and how they work. These explanations are intentionally very general, because with social media every rule seems to have an exception. In fact, among the defining characteristics of social media are the blurring of definitions, rapid innovation, reinvention and mash-ups. Each explanation also has a section on how to try out that form of social media yourself, with pointers on both how to find social media that’s relevant to you and how you might go about creating it. If you want to really understand how social media works, there’s no better way than to take part in it.
Mash-ups the combination of two or more pieces of content (or software, or websites) is one of the phenomena in social media that make it at once so exciting, fast-moving and sometimes bewildering. Mash-ups are possible because of the openness of social media – many websites and software developers encourage people to play with their services and reinvent them.
There are literally hundreds of mash-ups of the Google Earth service, where people have attached information to parts of the maps. For instance there is a UK rail service mash-up where you can track in real time where trains are on the map. Fans of the TV series 24 have mapped locations from the shows’ plotlines on to a Google Earth map.
A popular type of mash-up cannibalises different pieces of content, typically videos and music. Popular videos on YouTube can spawn hundreds of imitations, homages and (frequently) comic reinterpretations. In communities like this, the number of mash-ups a piece of content spawns is often an indicator of its popularity.
Now let’s take a look at each of the main types of social media, and how they work. These explanations are intentionally very general, because with social media every rule seems to have an exception. In fact, among the defining characteristics of social media are the blurring of definitions, rapid innovation, reinvention and mash-ups. Each explanation also has a section on how to try out that form of social media yourself, with pointers on both how to find social media that’s relevant to you and how you might go about creating it. If you want to really understand how social media works, there’s no better way than to take part in it.
Mash-ups the combination of two or more pieces of content (or software, or websites) is one of the phenomena in social media that make it at once so exciting, fast-moving and sometimes bewildering. Mash-ups are possible because of the openness of social media – many websites and software developers encourage people to play with their services and reinvent them.
There are literally hundreds of mash-ups of the Google Earth service, where people have attached information to parts of the maps. For instance there is a UK rail service mash-up where you can track in real time where trains are on the map. Fans of the TV series 24 have mapped locations from the shows’ plotlines on to a Google Earth map.
A popular type of mash-up cannibalises different pieces of content, typically videos and music. Popular videos on YouTube can spawn hundreds of imitations, homages and (frequently) comic reinterpretations. In communities like this, the number of mash-ups a piece of content spawns is often an indicator of its popularity.
At this time, there are basically six kinds of social media. Note, though, that innovation and change are rife.
Social networks these sites allow people to build personal web pages and then connect with friends to share content and communication. The biggest social networks are MySpace, Facebook and Bebo.
Blogs perhaps the best known form of social media, blogs are online journals, with entries appearing with the most recent first.
Wikis these websites allow people to add content to or edit the information on them, acting as a communal document or database. The best-known wiki is Wikipedia4, the online encyclopaedia which has over 2 million English language articles.
Podcasts audio and video files that are available by subscription, through services like Apple iTunes.
Forums areas for online discussion, often around specific topics and interests. Forums came about before the term “social media” and are a powerful and popular element of online communities.
Content communities communities which organise and share particular kinds of content. The most popular content communities tend to form around photos (Flickr), bookmarked links (del.icio.us) and videos (YouTube).
Microblogging social networking combined with bite-sized blogging, where small amounts of content (‘updates’) are distributed online and through the mobile phone network. Twitter is the clear leader in this field.
At this time, there are basically six kinds of social media. Note, though, that innovation and change are rife.
Social networks these sites allow people to build personal web pages and then connect with friends to share content and communication. The biggest social networks are MySpace, Facebook and Bebo.
Blogs perhaps the best known form of social media, blogs are online journals, with entries appearing with the most recent first.
Wikis these websites allow people to add content to or edit the information on them, acting as a communal document or database. The best-known wiki is Wikipedia4, the online encyclopaedia which has over 2 million English language articles.
Podcasts audio and video files that are available by subscription, through services like Apple iTunes.
Forums areas for online discussion, often around specific topics and interests. Forums came about before the term “social media” and are a powerful and popular element of online communities.
Content communities communities which organise and share particular kinds of content. The most popular content communities tend to form around photos (Flickr), bookmarked links (del.icio.us) and videos (YouTube).
Microblogging social networking combined with bite-sized blogging, where small amounts of content (‘updates’) are distributed online and through the mobile phone network. Twitter is the clear leader in this field.
A 10-minute YouTube video called "The Yippity Yo Cooking Show" falls somewhere to the left of "Saturday Night Live" at its most surreal: The host, "Zaylee Jean," alternates between extreme seriousness and manic outbursts, with diction so slurred that it's subtitled (in the cartoonish Comic Sans font).
Among other antics, she smears the mix for a batch of chocolate chip cookies all over her face, nibbles ingredients off the counter, and routinely pauses to scream something like "I LOVE COOKIES!" at the top of her lungs. A key point: Zaylee Jean is 3 years old. The plucky toddler in a flowered sundress and wispy blond ponytail has become YouTube's most unlikely new hit, with a steady cult following of offbeat hipsters fast propelling it to the milestone of 100,000 views. Like so many videos of cherubic youngsters before her, the clip can prompt a dual reaction: on one hand, she's delightful; on the other, in a few years when Zaylee enters the social Hades known as "middle school," the video will likely still be there. "We definitely wouldn't have a problem taking it down in two seconds," said Zaylee's 30-something dad, who goes by Zane -- he prefers not to make the family name public -- in an interview with CNET. "We did this for fun and love. It's not about fame and fortune."
But videos like "Yippity Yo" don't come without a hefty dose of criticism and controversy. When online videos of a kid become unexpected viral sensations, the parents are subject to perceptions, warranted or otherwise, that they're engaging in a kind of Digital Age "stage parenting" in which kids are being pushed into the spotlight, child-actor style. "My daughter and I just did this on a whim," said Zane. "On a Saturday, we bought some chocolate chips and I found an old one-hour unused video tape and pulled out the video camera. She'd wanted to do this for so long." Zane says that Zaylee's safety was his top priority throughout the creation of the video, which he originally intended to just share with family and close friends, and that he was more or less flabbergasted when it became a cult hit on YouTube. "We had an e-mail from a (television) producer," he told CNET.
"I'm just skeptical. We're in Minnesota; it's not like we're stage parents out to exploit our kid on YouTube ... I've seen comments saying my wife and I should be arrested for child endangerment. I think we're kind people."
Blogs about parenting, many of them deeply personal, have become a huge sensation with readers and advertisers alike. Many of their authors have also become known for espousing strong opinions about how to raise kids. And with that popularity comes the invariable question of how much,
if at all, children should be exposed in the process -- an issue of both safety and good taste. Some parenting bloggers don't shy away from bringing their kids into their blogging lives: Ree Drummond, author of the wildly successful "Confessions of a Pioneer Woman" blog and spin-off cookbook, uses frequent, beautifully crafted photographs to accompany stories about her four children (she affectionately calls them her "punks") and their life on a ranch in Oklahoma. On the other hand, Catherine Sanderson, who turned her expat-themed blog Petite Anglaise into a memoir and a novel, referred to her young daughter by the codename of "Tadpole" and did not post pictures.
Christine Koh, editor of BostonMamas.com, does not post photos that reveal her daughter's face and doesn't post pictures of her husband either. But she says it's usually an issue of personal preference rather than right and wrong.
n a photograph from several decades ago, the author of this blog post poses in a costume that now makes her eternally glad that YouTube didn't exist in the '80s. "I think I might have a higher filter than some people," Koh told CNET. "I feel like there are two things that help guide what I post, and one thing is, if it were me, if I were my daughter looking at this 10 years from now or if I were in her position as an adult, what would I feel reading about this stuff?...(Second), if I get a real twinge that something feels wrong about posting on a particular topic, I don't do it. Some things I've even consulted with my husband about because they're a bit sensitive." Liz Gumbinner, the woman behind Cool Mom Picks and Mom 101, told CNET that it's usually tough to make judgment calls when it comes to bloggers talking about their kids or parents putting family videos online.
"I don't think it's easy to say what single line can be drawn, because I think every kid is different," Gumbinner, who has two daughters aged three and five, told CNET. "When I put my children on my blog, I'm always asking them, 'Are you OK with this? Do you like this? Are you happy with this?' But also as a parent I have to look out for their safety, and their well-being, and the greater impact in their social life to come." It's especially complicated because many of the most popular YouTube videos of kids were not made by parenting bloggers who have been carefully crafting their family story over time, but by parents like Zane who honestly didn't think that anyone would find them on a site where 24 hours of video is uploaded every minute.
This was indeed the case for the kid who's quite likely the biggest YouTube star under the age of 10: little David DeVore, who at the age of seven was videotaped sitting in the back seat of his parents' car, freaking out on the aftereffects of knockout drugs given to him during dental surgery earlier that day. "David After Dentist" now has more than 57 million views on YouTube, and DeVore's father, also named David, has built a Web site in which he sells T-shirts and chronicles media hits. He's now raised more than $6,000 for charity and is hoping to also raise eventual college tuition for David, who is now nine years old.
DeVore (the dad) said he taped the video of his son a year before it ever hit YouTube and that he'd hoped to use it to show David that the dentist's office is nothing to be scared of. "It was a pretty big deal for him, getting surgery and everything," DeVore told CNET. "I'd just gotten a Flip video camera and I wanted to show David afterward that it hadn't been so bad after all...I just didn't know how funny it was going to be." Over the following months, DeVore said he asked his son what he would think about putting the video on YouTube. A typically outgoing kid, David concurred. "The fact that I even taped it at all was really because of David's personality," DeVore said. "If he were a sensitive child or was embarrassed easily or didn't see the humor in things, I wouldn't have taped it from the beginning." Reactions to "David After Dentist" ranged from people who say it's the video they watch whenever they need a pick-me-up on a stressful day to critics who say it's in poor taste.
Among those critics is Koh, who said that "David After Dentist" left her "a little bit horrified." As she told CNET, "That dentist video really tweaked a nerve because that's something where the child is in a vulnerable position...At one point he starts screaming. I had to hop off because I could not take it anymore." Critics may be a little reassured by DeVore's assertion that David himself thinks the video is hilarious and that the kid is happy to talk about it, too. "He wants to make a video responding to it, saying that his parents are good parents and that we didn't do anything wrong," DeVore explained.
David's schoolmates know him as the kid from the video, but DeVore said they don't particularly care. Their attention spans have long since moved on. Regardless, DeVore says that the reaction to "David After Dentist" made him think about child fame in a new way. "After the video, our experience probably caused me to pause for a few extra minutes. Like with the Falcon Heene thing," he said, referring to the infamous "Balloon Boy" incident in which a 6-year-old's parents, gunning for a reality-show deal, claimed that the child had flown away in a homemade hot-air balloon.
"It sure looked like a prank to me, but people were quick to judge us, so I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt." He paused and chuckled. "That ran out pretty quick." 'Scarface' goes to grade school More recently, the Web was captivated by a YouTube video that depicted elementary school students performing the "Say hello to my little friend" machine gun scene from "Scarface," except with a massive pile of popcorn on the table instead of a mount of cocaine, and the substitution of "fudging" for that other word that begins with an F. It's pulled in well over 3 million views. As it turns out, it wasn't actually a full-fledged school production of "Scarface" but an orchestrated parody by a music video director who had hired child actors.
DeVore said that this was another instance where he became one of the critics. "I respect the creativity and how the guy went about it and all that and the fact that these were child actors maybe toned it down a bit for me, but it still kind of makes me cringe a little bit," he said. Zaylee Jean's father brought up the "Scarface" video, too, saying, "I was a bit shocked." But when speaking about their respective kids' YouTube fame, Zane and DeVore both bring up a strong point: these critics don't know them personally and yet are more or less telling them how to raise their kids. And that can be even worse than the claims that the naysayers make. "It should be discussed," DeVore said. "We don't shy away from the controversy, we just look at it as an opportunity to explain it. We're a bit biased and admittedly think ours is kind of unique. I think that if people just sit down and talk to us, they'll see that David's handling it well and that's usually the reaction that we get."
"You just have to let it roll off your back," Zane said. "The safety of the kid, I think that's the number one thing." Mom blogger Gumbinner says that the debate over how much of a kid's life to share online is something that's changing now that social media has made its full transition from early-adopter and youth craze to an element of mainstream family life. "We're going to have to learn, as parents, how to talk about the Internet and anonymity very early, because that's part of life and it goes well beyond putting your kid on YouTube," Gumbinner said. "This is one piece of the story of how we're going to have to nurture and protect our kids going forward in a world of technology."
A 10-minute YouTube video called "The Yippity Yo Cooking Show" falls somewhere to the left of "Saturday Night Live" at its most surreal: The host, "Zaylee Jean," alternates between extreme seriousness and manic outbursts, with diction so slurred that it's subtitled (in the cartoonish Comic Sans font).
Among other antics, she smears the mix for a batch of chocolate chip cookies all over her face, nibbles ingredients off the counter, and routinely pauses to scream something like "I LOVE COOKIES!" at the top of her lungs. A key point: Zaylee Jean is 3 years old. The plucky toddler in a flowered sundress and wispy blond ponytail has become YouTube's most unlikely new hit, with a steady cult following of offbeat hipsters fast propelling it to the milestone of 100,000 views. Like so many videos of cherubic youngsters before her, the clip can prompt a dual reaction: on one hand, she's delightful; on the other, in a few years when Zaylee enters the social Hades known as "middle school," the video will likely still be there. "We definitely wouldn't have a problem taking it down in two seconds," said Zaylee's 30-something dad, who goes by Zane -- he prefers not to make the family name public -- in an interview with CNET. "We did this for fun and love. It's not about fame and fortune."
But videos like "Yippity Yo" don't come without a hefty dose of criticism and controversy. When online videos of a kid become unexpected viral sensations, the parents are subject to perceptions, warranted or otherwise, that they're engaging in a kind of Digital Age "stage parenting" in which kids are being pushed into the spotlight, child-actor style. "My daughter and I just did this on a whim," said Zane. "On a Saturday, we bought some chocolate chips and I found an old one-hour unused video tape and pulled out the video camera. She'd wanted to do this for so long." Zane says that Zaylee's safety was his top priority throughout the creation of the video, which he originally intended to just share with family and close friends, and that he was more or less flabbergasted when it became a cult hit on YouTube. "We had an e-mail from a (television) producer," he told CNET.
"I'm just skeptical. We're in Minnesota; it's not like we're stage parents out to exploit our kid on YouTube ... I've seen comments saying my wife and I should be arrested for child endangerment. I think we're kind people."
Blogs about parenting, many of them deeply personal, have become a huge sensation with readers and advertisers alike. Many of their authors have also become known for espousing strong opinions about how to raise kids. And with that popularity comes the invariable question of how much,
if at all, children should be exposed in the process -- an issue of both safety and good taste. Some parenting bloggers don't shy away from bringing their kids into their blogging lives: Ree Drummond, author of the wildly successful "Confessions of a Pioneer Woman" blog and spin-off cookbook, uses frequent, beautifully crafted photographs to accompany stories about her four children (she affectionately calls them her "punks") and their life on a ranch in Oklahoma. On the other hand, Catherine Sanderson, who turned her expat-themed blog Petite Anglaise into a memoir and a novel, referred to her young daughter by the codename of "Tadpole" and did not post pictures.
Christine Koh, editor of BostonMamas.com, does not post photos that reveal her daughter's face and doesn't post pictures of her husband either. But she says it's usually an issue of personal preference rather than right and wrong.
n a photograph from several decades ago, the author of this blog post poses in a costume that now makes her eternally glad that YouTube didn't exist in the '80s. "I think I might have a higher filter than some people," Koh told CNET. "I feel like there are two things that help guide what I post, and one thing is, if it were me, if I were my daughter looking at this 10 years from now or if I were in her position as an adult, what would I feel reading about this stuff?...(Second), if I get a real twinge that something feels wrong about posting on a particular topic, I don't do it. Some things I've even consulted with my husband about because they're a bit sensitive." Liz Gumbinner, the woman behind Cool Mom Picks and Mom 101, told CNET that it's usually tough to make judgment calls when it comes to bloggers talking about their kids or parents putting family videos online.
"I don't think it's easy to say what single line can be drawn, because I think every kid is different," Gumbinner, who has two daughters aged three and five, told CNET. "When I put my children on my blog, I'm always asking them, 'Are you OK with this? Do you like this? Are you happy with this?' But also as a parent I have to look out for their safety, and their well-being, and the greater impact in their social life to come." It's especially complicated because many of the most popular YouTube videos of kids were not made by parenting bloggers who have been carefully crafting their family story over time, but by parents like Zane who honestly didn't think that anyone would find them on a site where 24 hours of video is uploaded every minute.
This was indeed the case for the kid who's quite likely the biggest YouTube star under the age of 10: little David DeVore, who at the age of seven was videotaped sitting in the back seat of his parents' car, freaking out on the aftereffects of knockout drugs given to him during dental surgery earlier that day. "David After Dentist" now has more than 57 million views on YouTube, and DeVore's father, also named David, has built a Web site in which he sells T-shirts and chronicles media hits. He's now raised more than $6,000 for charity and is hoping to also raise eventual college tuition for David, who is now nine years old.
DeVore (the dad) said he taped the video of his son a year before it ever hit YouTube and that he'd hoped to use it to show David that the dentist's office is nothing to be scared of. "It was a pretty big deal for him, getting surgery and everything," DeVore told CNET. "I'd just gotten a Flip video camera and I wanted to show David afterward that it hadn't been so bad after all...I just didn't know how funny it was going to be." Over the following months, DeVore said he asked his son what he would think about putting the video on YouTube. A typically outgoing kid, David concurred. "The fact that I even taped it at all was really because of David's personality," DeVore said. "If he were a sensitive child or was embarrassed easily or didn't see the humor in things, I wouldn't have taped it from the beginning." Reactions to "David After Dentist" ranged from people who say it's the video they watch whenever they need a pick-me-up on a stressful day to critics who say it's in poor taste.
Among those critics is Koh, who said that "David After Dentist" left her "a little bit horrified." As she told CNET, "That dentist video really tweaked a nerve because that's something where the child is in a vulnerable position...At one point he starts screaming. I had to hop off because I could not take it anymore." Critics may be a little reassured by DeVore's assertion that David himself thinks the video is hilarious and that the kid is happy to talk about it, too. "He wants to make a video responding to it, saying that his parents are good parents and that we didn't do anything wrong," DeVore explained.
David's schoolmates know him as the kid from the video, but DeVore said they don't particularly care. Their attention spans have long since moved on. Regardless, DeVore says that the reaction to "David After Dentist" made him think about child fame in a new way. "After the video, our experience probably caused me to pause for a few extra minutes. Like with the Falcon Heene thing," he said, referring to the infamous "Balloon Boy" incident in which a 6-year-old's parents, gunning for a reality-show deal, claimed that the child had flown away in a homemade hot-air balloon.
"It sure looked like a prank to me, but people were quick to judge us, so I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt." He paused and chuckled. "That ran out pretty quick." 'Scarface' goes to grade school More recently, the Web was captivated by a YouTube video that depicted elementary school students performing the "Say hello to my little friend" machine gun scene from "Scarface," except with a massive pile of popcorn on the table instead of a mount of cocaine, and the substitution of "fudging" for that other word that begins with an F. It's pulled in well over 3 million views. As it turns out, it wasn't actually a full-fledged school production of "Scarface" but an orchestrated parody by a music video director who had hired child actors.
DeVore said that this was another instance where he became one of the critics. "I respect the creativity and how the guy went about it and all that and the fact that these were child actors maybe toned it down a bit for me, but it still kind of makes me cringe a little bit," he said. Zaylee Jean's father brought up the "Scarface" video, too, saying, "I was a bit shocked." But when speaking about their respective kids' YouTube fame, Zane and DeVore both bring up a strong point: these critics don't know them personally and yet are more or less telling them how to raise their kids. And that can be even worse than the claims that the naysayers make. "It should be discussed," DeVore said. "We don't shy away from the controversy, we just look at it as an opportunity to explain it. We're a bit biased and admittedly think ours is kind of unique. I think that if people just sit down and talk to us, they'll see that David's handling it well and that's usually the reaction that we get."
"You just have to let it roll off your back," Zane said. "The safety of the kid, I think that's the number one thing." Mom blogger Gumbinner says that the debate over how much of a kid's life to share online is something that's changing now that social media has made its full transition from early-adopter and youth craze to an element of mainstream family life. "We're going to have to learn, as parents, how to talk about the Internet and anonymity very early, because that's part of life and it goes well beyond putting your kid on YouTube," Gumbinner said. "This is one piece of the story of how we're going to have to nurture and protect our kids going forward in a world of technology."
