CareSquare: Babysitting 2.0
Babysitters scare me. The concept of giving my child over to the care of a young (usually) person I barely know is utterly terrifying. That's why word-of-mouth referrals are so important for child care. But talking to friends to find a sitter? That's old-fashioned.
CareSquare finds babysitters by schedule.
(Credit: CNET Networks)A new site, CareSquare, is a social network and scheduling utility for parents, babysitters, and nannies. On this system, you can review babysitters' profiles and see reviews from the community at large or from other parents in your network.
More importantly, you can search for child care by date and time. This is the really cool part. You specify when you need help, and the system tells you who is available. You can view schedules (and rates and feedback comments) and book babysitting time right on the system.
For this to work, of course, child care providers have to use the system, and it appears that CareSquare hopes to rely on them to get the word out. The system recommends that caregivers invite their current customers to the network under the guise of easier scheduling. Then they'll hopefully post feedback, invite their friends online, and the network will grow.
Scheduling grid
(Credit: CareSquare)But forget the social network angle. From my perspective, just having our sitter share her availability calendar with us would be a great help. It doesn't look like the system can be used in this private mode, but the site is very new (some interface bugs were fixed since last night), and I expect it will evolve quickly.
If you have kids, CareSquare is worth a try. If you don't find what you need on it, I'd recommend coming back again in about a month after its creators have had some time to shake out the feature set and, hopefully, grow the network. The site is currently free.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe. 
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I was going to send the site link to those I know who often need responsible child care. However, I just looked over the site, and the security measures are vague and certainly incomplete.
Although parent profiles can be limited to what information is seen, complete information still exists on some database somewhere. Also, it seems that anyone is able to create a caregiver profile without any ID verification, enabling him/her to gain information on someone's children.
Names, contact info, and references are easily forged, stolen, or otherwise misrepresented. This scares me.
Predators go where the children are, and parents providing any information about their children on the internet is dangerous - I don't care how much security is in place. Further, without some sort of ID verification for caregivers, this site simply aids and abets child predators, not to mention any other type of criminal.
In general, everybody knows internet security is questionable. Compromises range from financial sites to My Space. On the user side, even if we use all the most up to date protections, we know we're still at risk.
Security is utmost when it comes to our children, and voluntarily placing our children's information on the internet is downright stupid. I would advise all parents to question the security measures at CareSquare and to contact local law enforcement for further guidelines. I would also advise the CareSquare people to consult law enforcement and security experts and put into place the most stringent security measures available with continuous updates and monitoring.
I know the site is in beta, but as it stands now, it is unbelievably naive. What responsible parent would present such a service, and what responsible parent would participate in it?