Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this free tween social networking site takes many cautions to make sure it is a safe place for kids. Parents must approve kids' memberships for them to participate and there is a parental monitoring and editorial capabilities. Day-to-day parental involvement is not required, though, so kids can post inappropriate content.
Families can talk about what events and subjects might make a good blog entry, and which family members and friends should be invited to join. This is also another great opportunity to discuss Internet safety.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Jean Armour Polly
Does your tween want to blog, email, and social network like the big kids, but there's no way you'd let her get an account on MySpace or any of the other popular online meeting places? Enter IMBEE, a product from IndustriousKids.com that was created with just that scenario in mind.
Imbee is a closed community. Not only that, it's a closed circle of friends. You can't see who's online unless they're in your circle. You can't communicate with anyone else unless they're in your circle. (You'd better have interesting friends, then, because you're not going to meet anyone else here.)
Users can create blogs, have online photo galleries, email others in their circle of approved friends, and collect Imbee points. The site is still in beta mode, but it says that the points will eventually be used "for cool Imbee upgrades like premium themes, avatars, and Imbee cards. You can also redeem points for great gifts like Imbee T-shirts, caps, skateboards and more!" Accumulate points by posting in your blog, referring a friend to Imbee, replying to another person's blog post, and so on.
Parents apply for an Imbee account and then create additional "child" accounts from there. How does Imbee know you're really an adult? Although the site is free, the company asks for a credit card number, figuring that a child won't have one. If you don't have a credit card, there are alternatives. You can print and fax a form and attach a copy of a government-issued photo ID. You can also request Imbee to call you for verification, or you can call them (no 800 number is available).
Once verified, parents have control over much of their child's Imbee experience. For example, they can choose to approve every post a child wants to put in her blog. Or they can just monitor the entries instead. They can approve or monitor photos the child uploads, as well as comments placed in the child's blog by others, and they can even approve or monitor the child's "friends" requests, among other things. In Imbee-speak, this is called "choosing how you would like to assist your child on Imbee." Parents may decide to get reports immediately, once a day by email, or as a message to the parent's own Imbee account.
Imbee users can change the way their blog looks, adjusting color themes and adding pictures, but there's no way to add any HTML links to the page or use any kind of HTML at all. If you try, the HTML is disabled. A child could type in a URL so that another child could see it, but it won't be clickable. The same thing happens with messages. Any HTML tags that a child may have typed are rendered useless.
Parents may set up accounts for their kids, but will Imbee have the fun potential that will make kids flock to it and use it?
Reviewed: 10/01/2006
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CommercialismA points system exists to help get kids Imbee merchandise (although the merchandise wasn't for sale at the time of this review). |
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Educational ValueBlogging and messaging help kids develop writing and organizational skills. |
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