4 ms·

I will commit to doing the “Social Network for Children” if YC puts me in the next batch; this is not a random offer, I have thought about this before and have

I will commit to doing the “Social Network for Children” if YC puts me in the next batch; this is not a random offer, I have thought about this before and have a solid idea of how to merge the parent’s role in oversight and the child’s right to privacy. If YC has a baseline to reach before considering an app for this topic, please let me know. Thanks!

neogodless 9y ago
I've thought about it a lot. For a while, I had a somewhat social, mostly private family and friends web site, and then everyone had all these kids, and the ideas started to percolate. I never took the time to think through all the implications of safely granting access, giving the children some room to breathe, while keeping the parents at arm's length. Definitely an interesting challenge. I think of the fun post-pal relationships I had growing up, and I think there's room for something like that in the online world.
- wonderous 9y ago
  Reason I thought about it was a reasoning for more privacy within social networks and the average person would often not get the demand for this, but would quickly agree that kids need it; basically, to me this is a door to more meaningful private social networks.
lytol 9y ago
I was a senior engineer at a startup that evolved into this space – basically, we started as a browser for kids and slowly started adding more "social" features. I thought I'd add a few notes in case you (or someone else) goes down this road: - Monetization is hard. As much as parents vocally _desire_ a safe space for their kids online, it doesn't translate to their wallet. If you end up going for more indirect revenue (ads, branded experience, etc), you'll find yourself in ethical gray areas quickly. - Read up heavily on COPPA. It is by no means insurmountable, but it adds more work and restricts what you can/can't do. - Social interaction needs to either be severely limited or heavily moderated, both of which have serious problems. You can't just throw a kid into peer-to-peer chat rooms or private chat for obvious reasons. Likewise, a kid gets bored quickly with a pre-determined set of "emotes" or canned text. Finding a balance between the two is very difficult. - Parents care less than they think they do. Every parent, from casual conversation to focus groups, will light up at the idea of a kid-safe internet/social network. However, we found parent engagement to severely drop after initial sign up, despite how active the kid might be. We did weekly reports on kid activity and interests, ways to share content and engage with your kid, etc – all of which was rarely used. Granted, it's quite possible (probable) that we missed the mark, and that we just didn't have the right timing/vision/execution, but there was enough friction that I came out the other end with a strong bias against working in the kids' space again.
- wonderous 9y ago
  Completely agree with all of your points, thanks for sharing! Guess for starters, based on what little I know about browser-based startups is that they’re problematic. Good example of a company that had success [1] in social networks for children would be the app: https://musical.ly/ https://musical.ly/ Though they have some potientally very serious moderation & privacy issues in my opinion. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15669727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15669727
- jakobegger 9y ago
  If your product depends on parent supervision, it's not going to work. As a parent, the last thing I want to do is spend more time looking after my kids! If you work on a kid product, make sure that kids can use it on their own, without supervision.
  - lytol 9y ago
    It's not so much parent supervision but just parent buy-in. If you're a game, no problem, you just need to appeal to the kid. If you're trying to be a safe portal to the wider internet, you probably need parents onboard.
redeploy-test 9y ago
I find something unsettling about the idea of a social network for children. But social media is not going away. There should be a way to introduce people to it in a way that maximizes the value to the entire network. It would be cool if there were a network where children can interact only with people close by IRL (school, neighborhood, etc.) Other participants are either simulated or are a filtered sample of the wider internet. Privilege to interact with a wider group and content is based on achievement in gamified lessons specific to understanding social media: etiquette / discourse politeness avoiding negativity supporting others how to communicate for respect how not to argue a point critical thinking determining the credibility of content political and commercial motivations for fake content recognizing specific trolling techniques being aware of dangers bullying brigading doxing herd mentality to name a few ... would it be possible to also gamify teaching the difference between your and you're, or TO versus TOO, etc. I mean, what does it take.

neogodless 9y ago

I've thought about it a lot. For a while, I had a somewhat social, mostly private family and friends web site, and then everyone had all these kids, and the ideas started to percolate. I never took the time to think through all the implications of safely granting access, giving the children some room to breathe, while keeping the parents at arm's length. Definitely an interesting challenge. I think of the fun post-pal relationships I had growing up, and I think there's room for something like that in the online world.

wonderous 9y ago
Reason I thought about it was a reasoning for more privacy within social networks and the average person would often not get the demand for this, but would quickly agree that kids need it; basically, to me this is a door to more meaningful private social networks.

lytol 9y ago

I was a senior engineer at a startup that evolved into this space – basically, we started as a browser for kids and slowly started adding more "social" features. I thought I'd add a few notes in case you (or someone else) goes down this road: - Monetization is hard. As much as parents vocally _desire_ a safe space for their kids online, it doesn't translate to their wallet. If you end up going for more indirect revenue (ads, branded experience, etc), you'll find yourself in ethical gray areas quickly. - Read up heavily on COPPA. It is by no means insurmountable, but it adds more work and restricts what you can/can't do. - Social interaction needs to either be severely limited or heavily moderated, both of which have serious problems. You can't just throw a kid into peer-to-peer chat rooms or private chat for obvious reasons. Likewise, a kid gets bored quickly with a pre-determined set of "emotes" or canned text. Finding a balance between the two is very difficult. - Parents care less than they think they do. Every parent, from casual conversation to focus groups, will light up at the idea of a kid-safe internet/social network. However, we found parent engagement to severely drop after initial sign up, despite how active the kid might be. We did weekly reports on kid activity and interests, ways to share content and engage with your kid, etc – all of which was rarely used. Granted, it's quite possible (probable) that we missed the mark, and that we just didn't have the right timing/vision/execution, but there was enough friction that I came out the other end with a strong bias against working in the kids' space again.

wonderous 9y ago
Completely agree with all of your points, thanks for sharing! Guess for starters, based on what little I know about browser-based startups is that they’re problematic. Good example of a company that had success [1] in social networks for children would be the app: https://musical.ly/ https://musical.ly/ Though they have some potientally very serious moderation & privacy issues in my opinion. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15669727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15669727
jakobegger 9y ago
If your product depends on parent supervision, it's not going to work. As a parent, the last thing I want to do is spend more time looking after my kids! If you work on a kid product, make sure that kids can use it on their own, without supervision.
- lytol 9y ago
  It's not so much parent supervision but just parent buy-in. If you're a game, no problem, you just need to appeal to the kid. If you're trying to be a safe portal to the wider internet, you probably need parents onboard.

redeploy-test 9y ago

I find something unsettling about the idea of a social network for children. But social media is not going away. There should be a way to introduce people to it in a way that maximizes the value to the entire network. It would be cool if there were a network where children can interact only with people close by IRL (school, neighborhood, etc.) Other participants are either simulated or are a filtered sample of the wider internet. Privilege to interact with a wider group and content is based on achievement in gamified lessons specific to understanding social media: etiquette / discourse politeness avoiding negativity supporting others how to communicate for respect how not to argue a point critical thinking determining the credibility of content political and commercial motivations for fake content recognizing specific trolling techniques being aware of dangers bullying brigading doxing herd mentality to name a few ... would it be possible to also gamify teaching the difference between your and you're, or TO versus TOO, etc. I mean, what does it take.