Children’s Channels: Staying Safety Aware

I am a big fan of young people having their own online presense. I’m a bigger fan of teaching them how to create an online audience in collaboration with adults who “get it”. I’m also a big fan of doing this in a smart and safe fashion.

So a pause today. Deep breath. Here is a link lallapalooza of online safety sites for young people and adults.

Oprah’s online article on Safety Rules for kids

http://kids.yahoo.com/parents/online-safety

FBI’s Online Safety Guide

Netsmartz.org

The Milstein Child Safety Center

“Filmmaker + Distribution Channel = Audience” said the 5 year old…

I was invited to a local film center to help organize “clay animation day” this past weekend. Young people ages 5-12 were given modeling clay, pipe cleaners, and about ten minutes under a camera stand with a real animator to produce a short piece of animated business.

Worth noting is how many asked, “this is going to be on Youtube, right?” Five year olds asked. Ten year olds asked. The parents didn’t. The kids came through the door as distributors already, couldn’t wait to show their “audience”. The parents were glad to be killing a Saturday afternoon.

The young people “got it” immediately. For most of them, this was their first ever experience with animation. But they were veterans of the new media distribution system. They’d been watching other people’s short films on Youtube since birth. It was time to create their own. Their enthusiasm was riotously infectious.

Something tells me this one activity will generate as much traffic as anything else the film center has posted on Youtube. When fifty young producers get the chance to get the word out via email, facebook, etc., and their agents (parents) put topspin on the process, their audience of loved ones will adore their efforts, however limited.

This dynamic, for those of you who’ve followed my rants for the past two years, is the basic thrust of this blog, ie. whether you are a doctor, a collector, or a grandma – you are a channel with the opportunity to produce and distribute relevant, anticipated, content for your audience…however small, however non-traditional.

The animations below will be unbearable for those of you who don’t know the filmmakers. But for those who do. They are priceless.  Have a niche day.

Obama vs McCain on Youtube…Who Won?

As Seth points out, you can’t email a TV ad to a friend. It takes time to scan a newspaper into your computer, and a radio ad still comes on when someone else programs it. But you can forward a youtube video, instantly.

After the Presidential election, look at who’s channel was being forwarded the most: