Piczo is different. It doesn’t permit searching of members, which can help create a safer environment. But it also makes it harder for teens to find each other when they are looking for friends from camp, their old town or even their current town.

There are ways to protect teens from predators without prohibiting search. You can provide education and awareness on their roles in protecting themselves by being more responsible and thinking before they click. You can also teach them to look out for their friends online.

While a great deal of hype has been made about predators seeking teens and preteens online, we need ot understand that to my knowledge, to date, in each and every case, the teens and preteens have gone willingly to every meeting offline. They may have thought they were meeting a cute 14-year old boy, but they knew that they were meeting someone they didn’t know in real life.

Our teenangels (teenangels.org) volunteers are experts in their own right, having been trained in all aspects of safe, private and responsible interactive technology use.

They have set up their own profile on flip and are fighting over who can use it next. They find it fun, exciting and creative.

I have set up my own profile there as well, in wiredsafety capacity. I had a blast using it, and trying to figure things out (the teens taught me )

I donate my time running this charity, but used to represent most of the kids Internet industry. I’d put my money on this site. It’s easy to use, encourages creativity and puts safety first. They are adopting new technologies that add something special. They are also asking teens what they want and getting their help building it. It will be more content rich than Piczo, which is designed for networking with existing friends.

Not many sites allow us to be a watchdog from within. Piczo does. And now Flip does too. They have adopted all best practice requirements we set as a condition to using our tips and working with us. We’re tough. Sites willing to bite that bullet have to be serious about safety.

It’s not myspace. It’s controlled, monitored and still small enough that we can keep an eye on growth and help teach teens to look out for each other and themselves. It will attract many teens who are disenchanted with MySpace and no longer happy with a facebook open to everyone. I suspect it will take traffic from facebook more than myspace, and be a site the kids will use in addition to some others to hang out.

Will teens act out? sure. that’s their job. But hopefully we’ll create an atmosphere where “kewl” can exist alongside safe. It won’t be easy, but we’re there to help. And so are our expert teens.

my 2 cents.

Thanks,
Parry Aftab

Granted, I think a few of the new media players (PopSugar, Glam, us hehe) maybe have a bit more of a foothold on their market than what they should have allowed, but it’s still fun to watch this all develop no less!

Very cool!

are teens actually interested in connecting based on no information about age or location???? i took a quick look the other day and had not noticed it yet, but would not be surprised to see “layla13NYC” type names showing up

per an earlier comment/question, Conde owns ym.com which had a decent sized and actve community at one point.

- Allow users to set privacy permissions on their flipbooks, to share only with friends (or no one) if they choose
- Do not ask for or display first and last name, email, cell phone numbers, or IM handles
- Unable to search members by location, real name or age.
- All flipbook assets hosted by Flip; unable to reference outside services. Gives Flip the ability to view and take down any assets.
- Hands-on team of moderators on the site 24/7, assisted by sophisticated moderation tools and scanning technologies to find and remove content that may be of concern
- Links on flipbooks profiles and clubs so users can report content that may be of concern
- Partnered with WiredSaftey.org and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to review advise us on our safety measures as well as, The Teen Angels, a youth advocacy group to develop flipbooks for their peers about Internet Safety.

I hope this helps give more context. As Flip grows and evolves, safety will remain a top concern that we’ll continually evaluate and improve on.

It will all depend to what an extent they can do moderation.

If reddit is a digg clone, then Digg is a slashdot clone (or at least kuro5hin clone)

either way, i dont see the market with teen girls. where are the revenues coming from?

but i’m more inkling on the flop side; flip will flop – it just seems/feels diluted and not very substancy