washingtonpost.com: Good afternoon Bob and thanks for joining us today. To start today's dialogue, let's talk about how you were inspired to write this story. Did you see this kind of marketing to kids on the Internet with your own daughters? How did you go about reporting the piece?

Bob Thompson: Thank you, and I'm glad to be here. No, I didn't find this story through my own daughters--they're not really online yet, except a bit at school. What happened was, I heard about a conference called Digital Kids, which was for people doing sites for kids, and pursuaded my editors to send me. It was a revelation: the enthusiasm for the new medium was really high, both among people creating content and among people looking to market to kids.

Washington, D.C.: Did you look into programs that protect kids from various sites, like Net Nanny? Can they screen out these kinds of marketing plans?

Bob Thompson: Washington -- I didn't really look at Net Nanny and the other screening program, but I don't think they'd help much with marketing. They're mostly designed to help parents deal with adult content on the Net, and I was looking at content created specifically for kids. Incidentally, many of the people working on kid sites argue that there's a need for them precisely because the Internet as a whole can be so problematic

Arlington, VA: What kinds of privacy issues does this raise?

Bob Thompson: Arlington, your question about privacy's a good one--the Net is such a great medium for marketing precisely because it allows for easy collection of lots of personal information. This is the problem that the FTC has been addressing; I talk about it some in a sidebar to my story. The short answer is: it's a big problem, and it's not resolved yet. The recent FTC ruling requires parental consent before information is collected from kids, which is a first step. But the ruling doesn't apply to teenagers, and it's not clear how it will be enforced.

Washington, D.C: What was your favorite site? What do you recommend for kids? What is a digital allowance?

Bob Thompson: Re my favorite site: There were a number I thought were extremely interesting. One, called MaMaMedia, is based on and interesting and persuasive theory of how kids learn by doing, by constructing things themselves, rather than by passively receiving information. Headbone and Zeeks are two other sites that do a good job connecting with kids.
A digital allowance is a way for parents to give kids a kind of virtual debit card, so they can buy products online without having a credit card. several companies offer versions of this.

washingtonpost.com: What their an especially blatant example of Internet marketing to kids you found?

Bob Thompson: There were a lot of blatant examples, though everyone's got a different idea of what blatant means. MaMaMedia, which as I said is actually one of my favorite sites, prides itself on keeping the Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks logo onscreen for as long as fifteen minutes while kids are engaged in an engaging activity. Other sites draw kids into commercial interactions through a variety of games and contests. I wasn't really so concerned with rating the most or least blatant examples, however; I thought it was more important to show generally how marketers are using the new medium.

Silver Spring MD: What is your advice to someone looking to start a kids web site ? What do you look for in web sites that you reccomend to your kids ?

Also are there any web sites you know of that provide info on marketing trends for kids.

thanks

Bob Thompson: Good question Silver Spring, but slightly out of my territory (the advice for starting a site, I mean). The first thing, obviously, is to look at what's out there. The second might be to think about how you're going to finance it, and if you're planning to carry advertising or do e-commerce, think whether you'd be comfortable with that.

As for the marketing trends: The iCanBuy.com site, which I talk about quite a bit in the story, offers some information about the kids market on its site. Jupiter Communications, an Internet research firm (www.jup.com, I think), has more information on this topic, though they don't give it away for free.

Dupont Circle, DC: Bob- since kids are growing up with the Internet, do you think they will be primarily Internet shoppers?

Bob Thompson: Re Internet shopping--yes, I think kids will shop online; I don't know about primarily, but the landscape is changing very fast. kids may never go to a physical bank, for instance, because banks may be so heavily online by the time they're ready for them.

Dupont Circle, DC : Do you think Baby Boomers will ever be completely comfortable with on-line shopping? Are you?

Bob Thompson: Completely comfortable? No way. A lot of Boomers (I'm 49 by the way, so I qualify) have been figuring the online stuff out, but as a group, we'll never catch up to our children. We're cyberdinosaurs. As for me personally: I shop at Amazon but haven't branched out yet; I've got some privacy concerns, and I'm kind of a late adopter by temperament

Mt Airy, Md: If there were a smart card payment system set up that protected kid's privacy and was palatable to parents, would kid ecommerce sites be willing to give it a try?

Bob Thompson: Mt. Airy -- I'm not sure what you mean by smart card payment system. Some of the digital allowance companies--iCanBuy, for instance--do protect privacy, and work hard to be palatable to parents, and yes, many ecommerce sites are willing to work with them (though some resist iCanBuy's insistence on modifying their sites to exclude inappropriate merchandise). If you mean smart card like a phone card, I think that's coming. The problem there (for parents) is that they'll be usable anywhere, including adult sites.

Alexandria, Virginia: What's going to happen to the Clickerati when they become teenagers?

Bob Thompson: Excellent question, Alexandria. The good news is, they'll should be really comfortable in the technological universe (which they'll need to be in order to succeed). They'll need a lot of maturity and savvy, though, because the online universe for teens is much less protected than the one they will have grown up in.

Alexandria, VA: What about the healthy -alternatives- to the sites mentioned in your story, such as PBS Online?

Bob Thompson: Re healthy alternatives: There are a lot of sites with good content out there, and I didn't explore them all. You mention PBS, which is trying to do good things -- but they're subject to a lot of financial pressure these days, and one public interest group I talked to pointed out that kids can get from the PBS site to a commercial site with just a couple of clicks.

washingtonpost.com: What did parents you interviewed think about digital allowances, e-commerce and their kids on the Net?

Bob Thompson: My focus in the story was mainly on the creators of the kid sites and the people using them for marketing, so I didn't talk to many parents -- in fact, I'm really interested to hear what parents out there think. I did interview the mother of the 12-year-old who's in the story's lead, and her attitude was basically that she wanted to encourage her daughter's growth and independence, and felt that iCanBuy's digital allowance system was a good way to do that. Obviously, there's a difference depending on your kids' ages--the parents of 6 year olds may feel very differently from the parents of teens.

Mt Airy, Md: Besides parental comfort with payment systems and privacy, what do you see as barriers for kids using the Internet?

Bob Thompson: Well, one of the big barriers for kids using the Internet is something I didn't discuss in the story: It takes money, and many families don't have the resources to give their kids Internet access. There's been a lot of work done on getting computers into schools to help address this, but it's still a big problem. The other big barrier is adult content; again, this wasn't the focus of my story, but it's a huge problem, and gets in the way of a lot of the benefits the Net can offer kids.

Frederick, MD:

While I agree that is a noble cause to restict marketing to kids via the internet, one wonders why Congress does not push for similar legislation for televison or radio. Both mediums have kid clubs which do not require parental permission to join. It seems there is an invasion of privacy there as well. Any thoughts?

Bob Thompson: Interesting question, Frederick. I'm not that familiar with the tv and radio end of things, but one thing to remember is that the horse is out of the barn there. Few people, I think, would see the history of childrens' television as a good model for dealing with kids and the Internet; there's a chance -- though it may be a slim one -- that we as a society can do a better job with this new medium.

Mt Airy, MD: Bob,
I'm the author of "Making the Internet Family Friendly" and interested in starting a vertical portal for kids. I have some unique natural language search technology integrated with a human-like animated guide and 3-d navigation. Who at Nickelodean could I call on to gage interest in partnering or licensing my technology? Regards, Bill Wilson

Bob Thompson: You're out of my depth, Bill--I didn't get into the technological end with the Nickelodeon folks. Not long ago, as part of their big new Project Nozzle, they bought a Web technology company in California whose name escapes me, but whose job it was to figure out the technical aspects of the new site. There were news stories about this last February or so, I think, so you could probably track the name down.

Mt. Airy, Md: Do you see a willingness among the big players in the kid's online industry to be early adopters of new technology that will help attract kids and make it easier for them to use the Internet?

Bob Thompson: Mt. Airy, re willingness among the big players, I'm not quite sure what you mean--did you have a specific technology in mind? In general, yes, absolutely, they're looking to make Internet use easier for kids and are willing to invest heavily to do so.

Frederick Md: Did any of the content providers express a concern over difficulty of web navigation for kids?

Bob Thompson: Yes, definitely. And the sites work hard to make navigation easier. There are sites, for example, whose audience is non-readers (they tend to navigate from their parents' laps), so they're given a lot of visual cues

Dupont Circle: Hey Bob- is this your first on-line show? How's it feel? Are you getting comfortable in the medium? Will any of us older folks?

Bob Thompson: Yes, first online show. Feels okay--I like the feedback, and the interaction. But as a specialist in looooong stories that I try to put together carefully, I do feel that I'm shooting a bit from the hip here, and worry about that.

Mt Airy, Md: I think that is profound, what you said about doing better with kids than we did with tv-radio in the internet medium. But the difficulty with pornography and hate sites certainly poses problems in kid usery and viewership.

Bob Thompson: I agree, it's a huge problem. Not going to go away, though, and I don't think we can deal with it by keeping kids away from the medium indefinitely. If you come up with a good solution, let me know before my own kids become teens!

Bob Thompson: Looks like my time's up -- thanks again for joining us.

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