Parents' jobs are extremely difficult. From time to time, it's nice to get a little help from technology to make the job just a little easier. That's why I decided to sift through Apple's App Store to find applications that help parents monitor and ensure the safety and well-being of their kids. Some of the apps listed below are for young children, while others are designed for teenagers. But in the end, this roundup is for any parent with an iPhone.
Get parenting help from the iPhone
Baby Monitor Since some baby monitors don't have the kind of range parents hope for, the Baby Monitor iPhone app will deliver.
Baby Monitor provides a relatively simple experience. You can place the iPhone next to the baby while the application is open. You'll also need to input a phone number. When the baby starts making noise, the Baby Monitor places a call to the number you input into the application, so you can listen from another phone. It's a great way to monitor what your baby is doing, but beware that it costs $4.99.
The Baby Monitor lets you listen in while your kids are sleeping.
(Credit: Baby Monitor)Baby Soothe Sometimes getting your child to go to sleep can be a difficult task. That's where Baby Soothe comes in.
Like Baby Monitor, you'll need to put the iPhone next to the baby for it to work properly. When you do so, you can pick from several different sounds that, according to the app's developer, will help your baby go to sleep. You can choose from relaxing water sounds, like a waterfall or rain. You can also choose a heartbeat option, which mimics the sound babies will hear in the womb. The app also features white noise, like fans and static. All the app's audio features high-quality sound that should appeal to most babies. Even better, it's affordable at just $0.99.
Baby Soothe helps your kids get some sleep.
(Credit: Baby Soothe)
Several sources close to InterActiveCorp (IAC) have told CNET News.com that, contrary to rumors, the media conglomerate is not purchasing youth-oriented social-networking site MyYearbook. The rumor was originally reported by Valleywag on Wednesday.
The misconception arose, one source said, because MyYearbook was one of multiple start-ups that were invited to do "mock pitches" to IAC chairman and CEO Barry Diller as part of a session at this week's exclusive Quadrangle conference (hosted by the eponymous private equity firm) at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan. Essentially, it was like moot court for entrepreneurs.
MyYearbook was founded by a pair of teenage siblings from New Jersey while on their spring break in 2005, and has since raised $4.1 million in venture capital from U.S. Venture Partners and First Round Capital. Representatives from the social network did not respond to a request for comment.
An additional source within an IAC-owned brand, when asked about the possible acquisition, was unfamiliar with any such deal. And indeed, the timing would be rather awkward--in an attempt to refocus its sprawling array of media, e-commerce, and retail brands, IAC announced on Monday that it would be splitting into five separate publicly traded companies. The core IAC company will now consist primarily of advertising-supported online media brands.
Bolt.com, best known as a video sharing site that didn't really catch on, has filed for bankruptcy and shut down. The site had been in acquisition talks with GoFish, which would have been able to cover the $10 million settlement in a copyright infringement case with Universal Music. Earlier this month, the acquisition fell through, and Bolt was essentially doomed.
But it was really MySpace, not YouTube or copyright woes, that struck the first blow to Bolt. Before it shifted its focus to video, Bolt was a teen-oriented social networking site in the days when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was probably getting beat up on a playground somewhere. You could create a profile, talk with other members in chat rooms and message boards (this was the pre-webcam era), and engage in other forms of 1998-vintage "interactivity," like online quizzes and polls.
Bolt circa 2001, thanks to the Internet Archive.
(Credit: The Internet Archive)I was a teen in the '90s and had a Bolt profile out of curiosity, but those were the days when Internet social networking was still a very restricted phenomenon for a number of reasons: first, it was still seen as "weird" (and from parents' perspectives, dangerous) for teenagers to be socializing online rather than in real life; and second, AOL was still a juggernaut in those days. Its chat rooms and message boards, not to mention Instant Messenger, were the go-to place for kids who didn't feel like doing their homework. Then there was the fact that chatting and message board posting was, thanks to the limitations of dial-up connections, more or less all you could do. The infectious draw of viral videos and streaming music was still out of reach for many.
The critical mass wasn't there, so there was no real bandwagon effect to help Bolt grow. Then MySpace came along with its originally music-focused model--if My Chemical Romance has a social networking profile, it can't be just for losers, right?--and online social networking lost much of its "a/s/l?" stigma (that's "age/sex/location," one of the Web's oldest pickup lines, for you newbies). Bolt probably could've found some way to "evolve" and get the word out, but it didn't--the video-site makeover flopped amid the current glut of YouTube clones.
User voting for the Webware 100 awards closed this morning. Thanks to everyone who voted!
We will announce the winners next week, on June 18, if all goes according to plan. We're going to use the week to write up the winners and go through our voting database to make sure all the votes are legit.
Meantime, some early observations: There were 489,467 votes cast in the Webware 100. The most popular category was Community, due in large part to the overwhelming number of votes cast for the teen social network, Gaia Online. In the entertainment category, Stardoll, another site with a teen-girl demographic, demolished its competition. It's a good thing there will be 10 winners in each category.
And with that in mind, I am considering the launch of Webware's first spinoff site: Webware OMG, to cater to what is clearly the real power demographic on the Web.
Parents of teens already dread getting their monthly cell phone bill, and it could get even worse. The reason comes from an unlikely source: soda pop.
In the coming weeks, Coca-Cola will bring "Sprite Yard" to the U.S. market, a social-networking site that targets cell-phone-toting teens (is that redundant?), with such features as personal profiles, photo sharing and online chat, according to the New York Times.
Jonathan Sackett, the head digital officer at Arnold Worldwide, makes this observation in the report: "Coke could see trouble if teenagers run up high data charges on their phones using Sprite Yard."
- prev
- 1
- next
