KidZui – Internet with Training Wheels
What a great idea. Normally, I wouldn’t tout another product or piece of software, but this one just seems to make sense. You may have heard of it – it’s called KidZui and it’s like a special Internet with training wheels.
Here’s the gist: KidZui is a new web browser designed for kids ages 3 to 12 years old. The browser is subscription based and builds a special Internet for kids from the ground up. So rather than filtering the vast adult Internet, this one starts with nothing, and a staff of teachers and parents, running 24/7, selects, adds and approves content every day. If the content is not added – your child will never see it.
The site is starting with about 500,000 Web sites, pictures and videos, and access to their favorite games or the best sites for kids. KidZui was created in such a way that the experience will be easy for children, and in ways that will help them personalize it.
While that may not sound like such a big web compared to the adult net, this is certainly a good start for pre-pubescent children, whom many feel shouldn’t be on the Net at all. This, at least, is a good practice area for the technology enthusiast families.
Built for both PCs and Macs, KidZui is available for a free 30-day trial period. Parents who sign up following that trial can take advantage of a special subscription rate of $4.95 per month, or $49.95 per year, which is a 50% reduction over the usual monthly and annual rates of $9.95 and $99.95.
I applaud the program’s ideas and the service it is providing. But I must say that a normal price of $100 per year seems a bit high. Effectively, if you start a 5 year old on this and keep them on for 5 years, that its $500 you are spending to let them access the Internet. While you can’t put a price on child safety, the $50/year they are offering now is more like it…
Either way, this is a great way to start kids getting involved with the Internet. Then, later on, you can use PC Pandora monitoring software to monitor their dabblings on the adult Internet.
March 21st, 2008 at 6:24 PM
Great concept! Despite the rates being on the higher side, the idea does indeed make sense given the current state of affairs.
March 21st, 2008 at 6:30 PM
This certainly did take me by surprise.. but yes given the reports that one gets to hear day in and day out, it certainly is worth the $100/year for the sake of our children