• Is it age appropriate?

  About our ratings

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  Not age appropriate for kids under 0, age appropriate for kids over 8; suggested age 9.

• Is it any good?

  1.0

• Common Sense says

  Poorly executed social site offers no reason to visit.

Why We Rated This for Ages 9 and Up

The good stuff

• Educational value:

  Kids can tease their brains with the handful of puzzles and learn a few scientific facts, but the content here is so sparse there are few teaching moments. In fact, some of the "essays" -- actually urban myths discredited by Snopes -- impart incorrect information.
• User-created content:

  The site gives kids the basic tools to submit drawings and creative writing but content is almost nonexistent. What’s there seems mostly patched together by adults in an attempt to jump start things: poems praising India, retellings of morality tales and "essays" that are actually urban myths copied from chain emails.  Some of the puzzles and quizzes are cute, but photos and videos are grainy and boring. 
• Messages:

  The site promotes creativity by encouraging children to submit stories, poems, videos, photos, drawings and puzzles. Submissions that receive the highest star ratings from other users are featured as most popular.

What to watch out for

• Violence:

  Not an issue.
• Sex:

  Not an issue.
• Language:

  Not an issue.
• Consumerism:

  Ads aren’t intrusive but they’re junky looking and not age appropriate. Some have fuzzy or squished graphics and misleading links, advertising one product but leading to another site (usually an upscale online boutique for baby items called The Dapper Baby). The creator of Kidgurus, Sounder Dilipan, also advertises his Web design and marketing business on the site.
• Drinking, drugs, & smoking:

  Not an issue.

How safe is it?

• Personal privacy:

  There's little privacy protection here, starting with invasive registration questions that require name, school, and grade, and ask for phone numbers. The site FAQ says moderators hand check submissions before allowing them to be posted, but our "story" appeared on the site instantaneously. Users can't edit or remove items once submitted.
• Online interaction:

  There are so few ways to interact that it's hard to gauge the tenor of the community. Email doesn't work and the chat rooms were empty every time we visited. The few entries submitted appear to have been posted mostly by adults (e.g. photo albums of new cars, new babies, etc.).  Visitors are encouraged to flag objectionable content but there's no easy way to do this, just a contact email address.
• Parental controls:

  There are no parental control options.

What Parents Need to Know

About Kidgurus

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