FaceChipz: A Social Network With Kid Mentality and Parental Protectiveness
With its candy-colored emoticon graphics and remarkable ease of use, FaceChipz ™ serves as a holiday gift that will outlast most of the presents parents might buy. This is because it offers something its grown-up counterpart, Facebook, cannot — a community made of kids with abundant safety features and no chance kids can wander to inappropriate pages or have inappropriate adults trying to log on to their profiles. Because of this, it allows kids to be children and parents to breath easier if they are concerned (and there’s plenty of reason to be worried) that Facebook is just not safe enough — even with some decent protective layers that parents can use — for their sophisticated grade-schooler, tween, or teen.
The FaceChipz ™ team has collected every safey certification imaginable (including the Socially Safe Seal of approval). And collecting is a key mechanism for the social networking site. Here’s how it works: Once a child signs up for FaceChipz ™ with a parent (both must have logins), the child can set up a page at which the kid can chat, play games, get e-mail, share pictures, etc. To get a friend to join, the child must purchase and register the code of a FaceChip, which looks like a poker chip only cuter. Then, the child can deliver or send the chip to a friend, who also registers the chip. In this way, only a child given a physical chip by another child can be a friend on FaceChipz ™. This kind of safety does have a price, albeit a small one, as the FaceChipz cost $7.99 for a pack of 5. But the concept is ingenius because it incorporates kids’ love of collecting with high-end Web technology. You can also earn points with the FaceChipz ™ with which kids can buy stuff on the Web site.
This really is a terrific invention that is already growing quickly and will continue to evolve to keep up with kids’ demands. As a sort of a bridge between Club Penguin and Facebook, it makes a safe home (kids can even block members who are mean to them) in a world of social networking that is a staple of contemporary children’s lives. It’s an indoor activity worth checking out, particularly with the extra time many of us will have over the holidays and the cold winter months.
I’m a widowed dad with two sons who are 9 and 11 — the 11 year old brought home a package of these facechips from a birthday party he attended — ever since then its been one trip after the next to get more from Toys are us. Then his younger brother wanted them too — back to TRU… The boys think the chips are really cool — it actually is quality collectible (otherwise i would have never made the third trip to TRU. I’m also Ok with them being on this social network — it looks very safe — I was happy to pay the $1 knowing that they’ll be safe. Thank god for family man — keeps me sane at this time of the year.
Comment by Evan — December 9, 2009 @ 11:09 pm
Our boy scout troop recently distributed these chips to all the kids — they are indeed a big hit. A couple of the boys who had sneaked facebook accounts actually dropped their accounts to sign up — it must be something special.
Comment by Andrew — December 11, 2009 @ 1:08 am
My boys originally saw the chips and thought they were poker chips — it took them all of about a minute to totally digest what they were used for — i went online with them and helped them create thier accounts (which is a good thing because I have access to thier accounts) — they’ve been online ever since — all their buddies are on too. I think this facechips thing makes so much sense, because i don’t want them talking to any creeps online.
Comment by DanDare — December 13, 2009 @ 9:46 am
Hey Family Man, my boys love these facechipz!!! Thanks for the recommendation. I bought them a bunch to give their cousins this Christmas. Rare to find something under 5 bucks these days.
Comment by DadEoh — December 20, 2009 @ 4:11 pm