The S Word

All Blog Posts (16)

WISE KIDS in WALES

I've just returned from 2 weeks in Wales and London (with a few days in North Yorkshire) and I wanted to say a few words about Wales and the WISEKIDS/WISP Conference in Swansea and Bangor.

The conference was well organised - really impressive. … Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on February 15, 2010 at 7:46pm — No Comments

Gaming in 1980

I just found this jpg of a game I was completely addicted to in 1979 and 1980 while "working" at Duke University. I took a 3 month post as an administrative assistant and had about 1 hour of work to do each day so naturally I spent 7 hours a day playing "Adventure." This was an early computer game developed by Will Crowther. I was completely enamored with this game, which was text based. A far cry from today's gaming, that's for sure.

… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on September 7, 2009 at 9:02pm — No Comments

Why I left Building and Managing Communities for the Software Dev Industry

I spent 1/3 of my life in building and managing online communities and a fair amount of time in the 80s building and managing offline communities as well. If someone had predicted I'd be working for a software development company, I would have put all my AOL stock (aka lunch money) on that bet. I love working in community and feel like the luckiest person on the planet to be a professional in the field. I now feel like lightning struck twice and I have the best of both worlds - being part of tea… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on August 24, 2009 at 9:16am — No Comments

SXSWi Panel Picker - Vote early, Vote often!

SXSWi panel picker closed: (sxsw.com)

Title of Panel: Hi ###, What's ###? Filters, Technology & Behavior Management Panelists include: Linda Criddle, Tamara Littleton, Stephen Kline, yours truly. URL: http://bit.ly/19wTeY This panel discussion will examine the technical, social and legal challenges of UGC, behavior management and communicating w… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on August 23, 2009 at 6:00am — No Comments

Suicide and Online Communities - iFroggy Network

http://tinyurl.com/nc4jck Dealing with Suicide on Your Online Community or Forums: How You Can Help and Protect Everyone. My friend Patrick O'Keefe over at iFroggy.com (and the author of "Managing Online Forums" http://www.managingonlineforums.com) has written a really good article on dealing with suicide threats in forums or communities. This is Child Safety Week in the US, and though the emphasis is mainly on offline safety, I think this is a great article to spotlight for the online world.… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on June 24, 2009 at 6:08pm — 1 Comment

Summer 2009 Update - really brief

I'm at CrispThinking.com as Head of Safety. I just got back from a really great week in London where I attended the CEOPs session (amazing!), FOSI sessions (round table) and ENISA Awareness Conferences (presented). Met some fabulous people. The connections have been really good during the past 2 months. More on that later. Probably best to find me at e-mint@yahoogroups.com or watch CrispThinking.com as we're going to start blogging soon and I'd rather blog once than twice :) Don't forget to foll… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on June 22, 2009 at 5:11pm — No Comments

TRAVEL FORUMS

Many travel websites now include forums or message boards, where readers can exchange information, give travel tips, ask questions and provide answers. Forums are a great way to share information and advice, and many of them are very active and popular. Our own forum Travel Forum covers a wide variety of topics, from information about specific destinations and accommodation, to questions about remote locales and special travel interests. We hope to have fresh… Continue

Added by Pat O'malley on January 29, 2009 at 4:00am — No Comments

Kids are Customers Too

I've spent the past week dealing with our subscription queries sent to our Membership CS (Customer Service - interlude: don't you hate it when people use acronyms and never explain them? Especially when they make them up. Argh!). It's been a year or more since I've spent this much time on payment issues (subscription, membership, a rose by any other name...). We're facing the issues I've seen at companies for the past 15 years. Nothing new to report in this blog, sorry to say. We're seeing all t… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on January 28, 2009 at 5:00pm — No Comments

Subscription Models, Kids' sites, and Human Mob Mentality: Fair or Unfair?

We launched our subscription (premium service) at Moshi Monsters nearly a week ago. This is my third launch in 15 years and like the last two, it was completely predictable. Young or old, there are always a handful of very noisy users who feel charging for a service, especially a web service, is "unfair" and creates social divides. It's fascinating to see how mobs work in online communities. They're not really any different from traditional offline communities, in my experience. There are the "… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on January 22, 2009 at 5:00pm — 2 Comments

Giving Thanks for Constant Change

This is the one time of the year I am truly grateful to be an American. Well, now with a new President, I think I'll be able to feel good about being American again. It's been 8 years or so since I've been out of the US closet! Thanksgiving is a somewhat dubious holiday, in retrospect. It's not exactly PC and probably hasn't been since about 1650 or so. Regardless, we still celebrate it and I've come to terms with it and found a way to enjoy and celebrate Thanksgiving without feeling apologetic… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on November 26, 2008 at 6:30pm — No Comments

ENISA White Paper on Children and VWs: What Parents Should Know

I'm in a rush so nothing fancy to say except here's the link to a white paper I co-authored with a few folks for ENISA (EU organisation). "Children on Virtual Worlds: What Parents Should Know." Click Here for a PDF file of the paper. Enjoy! More soon... Becs Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on October 3, 2008 at 12:00pm — No Comments

The Moshlings Have Arrived

This is just a quick update to spread the word that the Moshi Monter's Moshlings (pets for the pet monsters) have arrived and taken OVER Monstro City. There are 30 + out there to be captured via your new Moshi Monsters garden. Some are quite rare, others are more common (no offense to the common moshling intended). They're all spectacular and do fun things when you capture and click (capture and click, capture and click...). You can only keep 2 at a time so you'll need to let one go free if you… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on September 12, 2008 at 7:58pm — No Comments

Chrome-ium in 10 Seconds or Less

Google came out with their "chrome" browser beta test and I was a convert in less than 10 seconds. The features are superb. It looks great. It was unbelievably easy to download and install. I'm pretty sure it took less than 10 seconds. That's where they had me - at the first step. It doesn't get any better than that in the business of selling products. Winning your customer at step 1 is like reaching the top of Mount Everest… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on September 3, 2008 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Hey! Be My Friend - I'm Really Cool!

My title is a bit misleading as a certain percentage of kids are very badly behaved online but then that's true of adults as well. I moderate our forums at www.moshimonsters.com as often as possible. It helps me keep my finger on the pulse of the community (literally) and it keeps my skills sharp in community as well. One of the largest topics in kids communities, in my experience, is "looking for" or "needing" friends. It's fascinating how open kids are about this need or want. They simply po… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on August 21, 2008 at 2:39pm — No Comments

Cyberwars: A Community of Hacktevists

Engaging the hacking/hacktevist community in cyberwarfare is not new. We have good communities and we have not-so-good communities of people, offline and online. Globally bringing together the like-minded in a matter of minutes is what the internet does well. It also allows internet users to collaborate and make things happen - again, for the good of humanity or to our collective detriment. Leaving aside the moral issues, it's fascinating to see how quickly communities mobilize when the "bell ri… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on August 13, 2008 at 11:30am — No Comments

Online Community - My Brief History and AHA Moments

There's a reason I tagged myself as "The Reluctant Blogger." In my experience, about 90% of blogging is non-information and really more about proselytizing than what I would call "true editorial content." I think we should leave the editorials to the trained or naturally gifted journalists. And there is a propensity for humans to believe anything that's in print (virtual or otherwise). Therefore, I think blogging is problematic. In fact, many "blogs" are regurgitated versions of what someone el… Continue

Added by Rebecca Newton on August 8, 2008 at 6:30pm — No Comments

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