I took a look at ZuiTube yesterday. It’s a new video sharing site just for kids and in my book it’s a big #fail #fail #fail.
ZuiTube sort of looks like the love child of YouTube and Dora the Explorer. Basically it’s YouTube with all the good features turned off. No community, no commenting, no rating. You can share – but only be email or posting to another site. There’s no embed feature. What’s more there’s not even a volume control on the video, you can mute or have sound. Why, I can’t imagine since every child over three has mastered volume control.
There is search and a big ginormous blurb on the parents page parents on why sharing is important and what all the important features of their search are and how they’ll help your kid.
The videos are all pre-selected by parents and educators – no word on the deets of that process, but it’s supposed to put your mind at easing knowing that someone who has qualified as a parent have screened everything in advance. Your child is now safe… assuming you don’t see quality and commercialism as a potential danger to your kid.
The social media features have also been exorcized in the name of web safety. Let’s keep our kids in hermetically sealed environments so we have to worry about what they’re doing while they’re on the web. Unless of course they open another tab and sign up for Facebook.
You can get a few more of the social media features like rating and anemic versions of sharing, friending and status updating by downloading KidZui – “an Internet browser just for kids”. Even the tags are pre-selected for your safety.
The free version of the browser is ultra-ultra-limited and we can imagine that the subscription version is only ultra-limited. You still can’t communicate with anyone else in your own words, only by selecting from amongst pre-digested status updates or by sharing the parent-approved content.
KidZui doesn’t produce its own content so what you get are Miley Cyrus and Jonas Brother channels, WB channels, Disney channels, Mattel channels etc etc.
I’m all for safe kids, but not by locking them up digitally. And I’m in favour of curated content, but screen it for quality, not just for violence, nudity and language.
Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure ZuiTube and KidZui are destined to make a lot of money.
