DD (10) wants to start a blog. I know nothing about blogging, nada.
If any of your kids have blogs, what hosting sites do you recommend? What things do you recommend I look for when choosing a site?
I'm pretty well versed in security; she'll have to sign a user contract with us, emails will route to me, I have to have all passwords, there is to be no personal information or identifying information provided, etc.
ETA - it will be private and I will approve anyone following her. She wants to blog about cooking and fashion and share with friends and family.
Any other tips blog savvy moms could give me would be appreciated as well!
A blog by a 10 year old that no one else reads is a diary. That's all and the only reason she needs. Would you read your child's diary? As long as she owns the content and there are not privacy concerns why not let her?
I would not what so ever call myself blog savvy despite blogging for a while. But for security I would also make it so she has to approve her readers and make her blog private.
For what purpose? At 10 I wouldn't want my child to write something that would be viewed by strangers or searchable in any way. So basically he/she would be writing on a blog that wouldn't be able to be accessed by anyone else. In addition since I would be a little uncomfortable with the situation I'd want access to everything so nothing written would really be private.
So ask your daughter why she wants to blog to figure out what's best. If she wants to journal she can type up anything on the computer, print it out, and put it in a lock box to keep everyone else from reading.
I think Annlea and Veruca made the same suggestions I would have.
My nephew has a blog on blogspot which is private and can only be viewed by those he has invited directly.
You know, my sister is her son's 'editor' and reads over the posts just to make sure there's nothing which could cause trouble for him socially -- just in case someone does see it who isn't invited. And yes, no deep personal information should be on it.
Here's an article which reiterates some of this-- be sure your daughter sees that it's not just mom who has this good advice:
http://www.getsafeonline.org/social-networking/blogging/#...
OH, one last thing to add- look at the terms of service and ensure that your daughter owns the rights to her work, not the blogging platform. For example, anything a person posts on Facebook, even privately, becomes the property of Facebook. So, then that poster becomes vulnerable-- images and posts can be compiled and sold. If I remember correctly, Blogspot (which I blog on) allows bloggers to own their content.
We have a blog on blogspot.com and another on wordpress.com
As long as you're involved and use the proper security, it should be fine. But these are ones we run as a family, so for us, it's always with supervision.
