AnnesDiary.com, run by Toronto based LogicaHoldings, is taking a Webkinz style approach to the children’s online entertainment market. Their twist? A fingerprint scanner!
To sign up a child for Anne’s Diary a parent must fill out an application and provide contact information for a sponsor who can attest to the child’s gender (female) and age (6-14). A sponsor must meet several requirements, the most curious being that he or she must be a recognized professional from a list of 46 including: Funeral Director, Christian Science Practitioner, and Member of Parliament.
2-3 weeks later two packages will arrive: a welcome kit (which includes a fingerprint scanner and a copy of the book Anne of Green Gables) at the parents home and a password card at the sponsors home. The sponsor then must call the parents to reveal the password. And that is just the sponsorship piece.
You’ll also have to install the fingerprint scanner and scan a few of your child’s fingerprints (in case the child looses or injures one finger)! All this adds up to a few things not the least of which is a barrier to adoption.
A subscription to Anne’s Diary costs $119.99 a year. For comparisons sake, Club Penguin costs $60 a year and Webkinz $15. The games on Club Penguin are actually pretty fun and you get to play with other penguins! With Webkinz, you get a physical stuffed animal even before you register!
With Anne’s Diary, you get an online journal (more fun than MS Word) and every Christmas a print out of all the journal entries (sweater alert). There are some more features: a few solo games, a birthday calendar, an amazon affiliate site, and a basic instant messenger.
So what does being “the first biometrically-secured social networking site for children in the world” mean in terms of security? We’re not exactly sure… The issue is content not authentication. What’s to stop Uncle Lester from using a logged in but unattended computer?
Monitoring the chat, blocking certain words, and regularly booting bullies should be enough, which is by the way what they do on Club Penguin (now a Walt Disney Company). Anne’s Diary claims to block out dirty words, but using their demo account I was able to draft my own version of The Aristocrats.
Club Penguin and others have proven that there is a huge market in this demographic and that parents absolutely will pay for security and a solid product. The Anne of Green Gables brand license is certainly valuable, time will tell if Logica Holdings is in this for the long haul. Losing the sponsor process and fingerprint scanner would be a good start.
“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” – Anne Shirley
An alternative might simply involve sending parents a daily email of their child’s communication online with keywords flagged and webspeak translated.
An alternative might simply involve sending parents a daily email of their child’s communication online with keywords flagged and webspeak translated.
Hi Jonas and Jevon – thanks for your piece on annesdiary.com
Just wanted to clarify a few points about the site and how the system works – and most importantly to address your suggestion that we “lose the sponsor process and fingerprint scanner”.
To do this would mean that we are no longer offering the most secure environment for children available, and put annesdiary.com in the same category as all of the other social networking sites which offer only a very basic level of protection (if any). What is unique about our site is that by asking each and every member to complete a registration process involving a professional sponsor and by providing a personal fingerprint reader, we know the age and identity of all of our members. As with the passport application process, sponsors are professionals who must provide us with a work address and contact number where we can contact them directly.
As you say, this process can take up to a couple of weeks, but all of our customers know that this is a small price to pay for the peace of mind of a secure environment for their children.
You may also be interested to know that we have also revised our pricing structure thanks to a positive initial launch phase, and are now offering the service for just $4.95 per month. That’s less than 17 cents per day, hopefully making the service available to even more families.
Re the chat monitoring and word blockage, this is something which is in place within the production site and if children do experience inappropriate behaviour or feel threatened in any way, they have a ‘report abuse’ button which lets us know immediately that there is a problem. Because we know the identity and location of each user, we have the ability to suspend the account of any user who is behaving in an inappropriate manner until the issue has been resolved. The Chatroom on the demo version of annesdiary.com was taken down on December 17th due to misuse by adults so I assume that you tried it out before then or, if not, perhaps you are referring to the diary itself? You can, as you discovered, write whatever you wish within the diary as this is a private area belonging to each individual member where they are encouraged to express their ideas and feelings freely. Mum and dad can request to see entries though if they wish. The system does have a time-out which logs children out of the secure bedroom if they step away from the computer for a period of time, and they can only log back in again using their unique fingerprint. You’re right to point out that no system is fool-proof, but we are confident that this site offers a level of security which goes way beyond that which is otherwise available.
Hopefully this goes some way to answering your questions about annesdiary.com. The site is adding more features each week and we also now have a resident safety advisor for parents and children in Robyn MacEachern, an OPP sergeant and member of the Youth Crimes Prevention division. For further info please get in touch at [email protected]
Hi Jonas and Jevon – thanks for your piece on annesdiary.com
Just wanted to clarify a few points about the site and how the system works – and most importantly to address your suggestion that we ?lose the sponsor process and fingerprint scanner?.
To do this would mean that we are no longer offering the most secure environment for children available, and put annesdiary.com in the same category as all of the other social networking sites which offer only a very basic level of protection (if any). What is unique about our site is that by asking each and every member to complete a registration process involving a professional sponsor and by providing a personal fingerprint reader, we know the age and identity of all of our members. As with the passport application process, sponsors are professionals who must provide us with a work address and contact number where we can contact them directly.
As you say, this process can take up to a couple of weeks, but all of our customers know that this is a small price to pay for the peace of mind of a secure environment for their children.
You may also be interested to know that we have also revised our pricing structure thanks to a positive initial launch phase, and are now offering the service for just $4.95 per month. That?s less than 17 cents per day, hopefully making the service available to even more families.
Re the chat monitoring and word blockage, this is something which is in place within the production site and if children do experience inappropriate behaviour or feel threatened in any way, they have a ?report abuse? button which lets us know immediately that there is a problem. Because we know the identity and location of each user, we have the ability to suspend the account of any user who is behaving in an inappropriate manner until the issue has been resolved. The Chatroom on the demo version of annesdiary.com was taken down on December 17th due to misuse by adults so I assume that you tried it out before then or, if not, perhaps you are referring to the diary itself? You can, as you discovered, write whatever you wish within the diary as this is a private area belonging to each individual member where they are encouraged to express their ideas and feelings freely. Mum and dad can request to see entries though if they wish. The system does have a time-out which logs children out of the secure bedroom if they step away from the computer for a period of time, and they can only log back in again using their unique fingerprint. You’re right to point out that no system is fool-proof, but we are confident that this site offers a level of security which goes way beyond that which is otherwise available.
Hopefully this goes some way to answering your questions about annesdiary.com. The site is adding more features each week and we also now have a resident safety advisor for parents and children in Robyn MacEachern, an OPP sergeant and member of the Youth Crimes Prevention division. For further info please get in touch at [email protected]