Tech Bitch

Parents, do you have a clue about how your kids are spending their time online? Are they talking to strangers? Do they like their online friends better than their offline friends? Wonder how they compare to kids in the rest of the world?

Symantec, famed for its Norton security software, wanted to know how Internet users and their families spent their time online, so it commissioned Harris Interactive to ask thousands of children and adults across the globe about their online behaviours. Specifically, it surveyed Internet users in the U.S., UK, Australia, Germany, France, Brazil, China and Japan about anything and everything ‘Internet’ (yes, they even asked adults about prOn sites!).

Symantec discovered that about half of adult Internet users (52%) around the world report having made friends online, leading to believe that the old adage of ‘don’t talk to strangers’ doesn’t apply when in online worlds. More surprising was that about half of users who made friends online (46%) said they enjoyed those relationships as much or more than friendships made offline. Sad! Other online activities ranking high around the world are dating (23%), using social networking sites (50%), and playing games (72%).

Moms and dads, think you know what your kids are doing online? Consider this … parents in the U.S. think their kids are online two hours a month, but in reality, kids report spending 20 hours a month online! And, 41% of U.S. teens ages 13-17 years old agree that their parent have no idea what they are looking at online.

Kids are actually making friends (35%), social networking (76%), shopping online (35%), getting requests for personal information (42%), and being approached by strangers (16%). On average, only a third (33%) of parents worldwide set parental controls and monitor their children’s online activities.

But more interestingly, more men (26%) globally than woman (19%) report that they have dated online, and about 4 in 10 online adults in all countries report visiting pornographic Web sites (41%), with about one-half of Chinese (51%) and Brazilians (55%) reporting doing the same. Globally, men (58%) are much more likely to visit porn sites than women (18%). You should all be ashamed : )

Phanfare, probably the best image sharing site you’ve never heard of, is going through pretty significant transition. The business started in 2004, with the goal of enabling and empowering families to share and preserve photos and videos. The owners said they founded the company because they had nowhere they wanted to put their photos and videos.

They were willing to pay to have high-quality photo and video hosting, but over time it’s clear no-one else was. Phanfare offered premium photo and video hosting with no ads, phone support and an orientation that made each Phanfare customer a self-publisher with a direct URL, no branding and a simple email-based invitation system to see photos and videos. The system even uses synchronising desktop client software for Mac and PC.

Since 2004 the site grew to 11,000 customers. But the sad truth is that it’s going nowhere fast. The number of people willing to pay for anything online hosting of their photos and videos is too small. What’s more, its size limited its ability to do the integrations that it wanted wanted: wireless integrations, camera integrations, and digital frame integrations. At the same time, it looked at what it had created and realised it was not nearly collaborative enough. Phanfare was not exploiting the power of the Internet. Instead, it had built 11,000 little silos, each with its little audience.

Phanfare 2.0 was born! Pitched as a standard upgrade, but much more, Phanfare is now a social network rather than Web hosting. There are some important reasons why this makes sense. It should allow more collaboration between creators and viewers, increase the utility of Phanfare as it attracts more people, and is easier to use if you are connected with multiple people. Was it just me who found it cumbersome to remember the multiple URLs and passwords in Phanfare 1.0? Phanfare now comes with 1GB of free storage. Long term, it wants to monetise through some sort of advertising on the Phanfare 2.0 dashboard, but without running ads on personal albums as they ruin the experience and don’t work anyway. Give it up to the underdogs at www.phanfare.com.

It’s easy, it’s convenient, and you can do it naked. But how many of the UK’s 27 million e-shoppers actually know a secure Web site when they see one? Not a lot as it turns out.

We’re all concerned about the security of data. And I’m not just making it up - a survey conducted by managed hosting company NetBenefit reveals that over 80% of consumers are concerned over the security of their financial data when shopping online. While approximately half of those surveyed said they would be prepared to spend up to £500 online, 70% of shoppers don’t understand the significance of the green browser bar and 20% of those questioned do not understand what the golden security padlock represents.

Secure Web site technology has been in place for some time now and the industry has put standards in place to provide the online shopper with confidence, but in actual fact many shoppers simply do not have a clue. To cut a pretty long a boring story short, look out for the golden padlock in your browser. This will be displayed next to the browser bar and it contains details of the Web site’s security report.

If you have any doubts about the Web site that you are visiting (prOn sites are excused), look for the golden padlock and just right click to find out whether the certificate owner and the Web site match. If the security certificate has an extra level of validation in the shape of an Extended Validation certificate then the browser bar will turn green. It’s a shame the UK’s 62,000-plus Internet traders don’t take our safety concerns more seriously.