Almost All Teens Online A recent study shows almost all teens in the U.S. participate in social networking at least once a week.

Social Sites chase members: NetIDme

A recent study by Alloy Media & Marketing found that a massive 96 percent of U.S. teens and tweens go online to participate in a social network at least once a week. more

Cyworld, the social networking platform that lets you create your own virtual home space, has recently added Live Chat to its service.

You can see which of your neighbours are online at the same time, and start a new, live chat with them immediately. A chat link displays in your list of friends online, along with the option of sending a message (Cygram).

A concern is that you won’t be sure who you are speaking to.  A NetIDme account lets you swap your own personal, virtual ID card with other NetIDme members in order to check their age, gender and general location before deciding to chat to  neighbours.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre has launched its first year figures. Amongst the announcements today is that news that the Centre has delivered ThinkUKnow education training to over 750,000 UK school children with sessions looking at online internet safety. 1 million kids will have attended by the end of the academic year. This is a great achievement for CEOP which was set up in April 2006. Its mandate, first and foremost, is child protection: Enpower, Protect, Enforce. This includes using a multitude of resources to focus on tackling high risk, high impact offenders.

There’s an interesting article in Information Week on the issues surrounding digital identity, OpenID & online ‘reputation’ systems. The article highlights the need for an online authentication system that offers a workable solution for both individuals & businesses.

OpenID, and the concept of a decentralised system is definitely a step in the right direction. NetIDme is currently developing a verified OpenID service for its members. As the adoption of OpenID grows, the service will allow web users to securely login to websites that support OpenID without having to create any new user names or passwords. Check out the article if you’d like to find out more about the issues involved in designing a workable solution.

The Portman Group has today launched a comprehensive and authoritative set of best practice marketing guidelines for drinks producers.

The Best Practice Guidelines cover a range of marketing topics including unit labelling, the promotion of drinkaware.co.uk and website age verification pages.  The Guidelines are based on best practice initiatives which Portman Group member companies have pioneered and implemented.  (more)

Parents are being urged to keep a closer watch on their children’s internet access after new research showed most were “completely oblivious” to the online activity of their sons and daughters.

A new study has revealed that one in five young people had met up with someone they first encountered on the internet. While only 7% of the 500 parents surveyed  said they were aware that their children were contacting people online, and then meeting them. The survey was conducted by Garlik, a provider of online information  protection services.

Meeting ‘internet friends’ is never a good idea. Without physical information – seeing the person you are talking to, or hearing their voice, positive identification is extremely difficult. Therefore, we need to empower young people with the knowledge, skills and tools to protect themselves online, in the same way we would in the real world. NetIDme provides an age and identity verification service for online communities that want to ensure their members ‘are who they say they are’.

The NetIDme launch campaign has scooped a top european PR award, with PR partner, Weber Shandwick. The firm has won the pretigious SABRE award (Superior Achievement in Branding & Reputation) in the product media relations category. The award ceremony took place on 24th May at the Maritime Museum in Barcelona.

Alex Hewitt, chief executive and founder of NetIDme commented on the win: “Obviously with a new product it was vitally important that we got the PR right from the start.  What we achieved was a real boost to the product and the business.  Making an impact in countries like Canada, Australia, UK and USA is a superb achievement that has allowed us to develop the business and attract potential investment on a worldwide scale.”

Press Release

Age and identity verification for the online world.
All websites that offer an online meeting space or age dependent content are increasingly facing regulatory and political pressure to implement age, or identity verification. In particular, concern over the safety of children online has exposed the need for more effective ways to authenticate people, and regulate access to particular websites.

NetID Authenticate is a secure age & identity verification solution for online services such as; social networking, online dating, and eCommerce. NetID Authenticate is the only identification service that provides a solution for identifying both adults and minors. The service validates user data by confirming information such as age, gender, name, and location against secure data sources. Its fast, reliable, and extremely simple to implement.

Business Benefits
Quickly confirm users’ age or identity during sign-up, or login.
Facilitates responsible community growth, and reputation protection.
Uses web services, therefore no hardware, or compatibility concerns.
Easily integrates into existing architecture, minimal IT requirements.
Provides a cost-effective age and identity verification solution.

User Benefits
Verification requires explicit user consent.
Consumer privacy is respected, personal details remain secure.
Personal data is not transferred, only a match code is provided.Data Protection and Privacy
Privacy and the protection of personal information is a high priority.
Data is never collected, stored, sold, or shared for marketing purposes.
Results are based on information from secure, trusted data sources.