Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Yesterday MySpace deleted the profiles of 29,000 sex offenders from the site.  It was a good PR move for the company, and more motivated by wanting to be seen to be "taking action" by politicians and the public than anything else.  After all, it would be a simple enough task to gain access to the registered sex offender database, compare emails to registered emails on MySpace, and then delete the accounts.  No doubt any real predators who want to target MySpace users will simply create another account.

It generated a fair amount of debate.  Stephanie Booth pointed out that prudish sex offender laws in many states lump acts between consenting adults into the same category as those preying on children.  You can read her full post, but let's just say that it's hard to imagine that most adults haven't, at one time or another, committed one of these acts.  That's why what MySpace and grandstanding Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal have done is nothing more than a placebo perpetuated on an unsophisticated public that really just wants to protect kids.  Their actions are a fraud.

Brandon Watson, the CEO of IMSafer, wrote an impassioned and lengthy post also. His point? Predators go where they prey is.  He backs it up with some statistics designed to show that the incidence of predation on MySpace may be higher than in society at large.  Like Stephanie, he also notes that it's not the young kids that are vulnerable, but the teens, quoting University of New Hampshire's David Finkelhor:

So these are not mostly violence sex crimes, but they are criminal seductions that take advantage of teenage, common teenage vulnerabilities. The offenders lure teens after weeks of conversations with them, they play on teens’ desires for romance, adventure, sexual information, understanding, and they lure them to encounters that the teams know are sexual in nature with people who are considerably older than themselves.

Given the wide scope of definition around the term sex offender, it's nearly useless for identifying predators and for protecting the vulnerable in society.  Tools like the ones that Brandon's company, IMSafer, provides are whatreally help to keep kids safe.  IMSafer uses sophisticated pattern matching algorithms to look for text that might be considered dangerous in IM messages, and then alert parents to the conversations.  It goes right to the heart of the problem, which are conversations between our kids and strangers.  At the same time, it's not an intrusive or privacy busting solution because it only alerts parents when a potentially dangerous situation is occurring.  The rest of the time, kids privacy is preserved.

Brandon dropped me a note last week to say that since their launch they are now monitoring over 2,000,000 relationships, and have scanned 100 million messages.  What IMSafer is doing is far more meaningful than MySpace's decision to delete a few user accounts.  If you have reason to be concerned about your children's safety online, then you owe it to yourself to check out IMSafer.

Yesterday's comparison (via TechCrunch) of iPhone to Blackberry was fun, if predictable. Dave Winer weighs in as well, describing his experiences.  The net of it: if you want a business class mobile, with email and calendar, and a keyboard you can type on, skip the iPhone.  Blackberry's your choice.

Chatting with a friend of mine at RIM, he offered up that the iPhone is for the power media consumer, rather than BlackBerry's target audience.  I'm not so sure I agree, however.  As someone who is both a power media consumer, and a business user, I want it all.  Today, I carry three devices:

• The BlackBerry Curve, which I like very much.  What's missing?  WiFi, GPS, a decent camera, and good integration with my music software — Windows Media Player 10.  It's got great corporate email, and acceptable media handling capabilities, but with a small screen.
• The Nokia N95.  What's missing? Email integration, and a full size keyboard.  However it has Wifi, GPS, a great camera, and a really nice media suite.
• The Nokia N800.  What's missing?  A phone.  However, it is hands down the best media and internet device I've used.  Why would I want an iPhone when this device lets me Skype, access my GMail, supports up to 32G of storage, with a larger screen, etc etc etc?

I'd like one device.  Any of these devices, if backfilled with the features missing from the other devices, could satisfy me and take on iPhone.   Unfortunately it appears that RIM and Nokia's product strategies are very similar – not the products, but the strategies themselves.  By producing different products with different features sets for various segments of the market, they overlook the prosumer segments that are most likely to buy, love and evangelize a "does-all" product.

Interest in new telephony features supplied at the end point seems to be at an all time high.  After all the noise about Ooma last week, Aswath Rao dropped me a note pointing out the ZTE Bavo, a product from his company.  Today Aswath has written about it himself, as well as another of his company's products on his blog.

Bavo really is a swiss army knife.  It's a broadband router or a mobile router (supports EVDO), print server, two port "PBX" including support for an optional bluetooth phone, ethernet or WiFi LAN (with multiple SSID's for guest access), and more.  RfWeL offers it for sale for $229, and gives these 10 reasons to buy.

• Wireline Internet: A 100BaseT Ethernet Port can connect to DSL or Cable Modem and provides primary Internet Access while EV-DO/UMTS provides backup, realizing 24/7 Internet Connectivity
• WLAN for Host and Guest: You can offer a standalone WLAN to your guests using the Gateway’s multiple SSID capability. Your hospitality will be appreciated while your own network is protected.
• Mobile Internet: Works with various Wireless Broadband Cards and allows sharing Internet Access Anywhere, at home, at office or on the road.
• Print Server: Since the Home Gateway is an always-on device in your network, it is the best place to serve as a printer server or file server. Connect a printer to the Gateway; every PC in your network can print any time they need to. No PC needs to stay on.
• Internet Safety: Parental Control, Intrusion Detection and Prevention and Stateful Packet Inspection Firewall protect your network as well as your family.
• Multiple Lines via VoIP and PSTN: The Gateway allows one PSTN and two VoIP lines; your teen or co-workers can make simultaneous calls. Call-waiting, Call-forwarding, Caller Id and many more calling features enhance your voice experience.
• Intercom - SOHO or Large Home: The POTS (analog) phones and Bluetooth Cordless phones in your home may call each other, just like Intercom in offices.
• Emergency Calling: Gateway can intelligently route your emergency calls to PSTN, to leverage its E-911 capability. Both analog phones fail over to PSTN when power is lost.
• High Performance with QoS: The Gateway provides up to 100Mbps throughput with Ethernet Up-link or up to 2.4Mbps with EVDO Uplink. Combination of Priority and WRR queuing ensures QoS for VoIP and other mission critical traffic
• Remote Manageability: Manage the device via its built-in web interfaces, or let experts remotely manage using TR069/SNMP.

I haven't tried it, but it certainly looks cool.