The study found that the percentage of youth receiving unwanted online sexual requests declined from 13 percent in 2005 to 9 percent in 2010. Youth experiencing unwanted pornography exposure declined from 34 percent to 23 percent over the same period.

On the other hand, youth reports of online harassment increased slightly from 2005, up from 9 percent to 11 percent.

The study, “Trends in Youth Internet Victimization: Findings From Three Youth Internet Safety Surveys 2000-2010,” was recently published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health. It is based on national surveys of youth ages 10 through 17 conducted in 2000, 2005, and 2010.

“The constant news about Internet dangers may give the impression that all Internet problems have been getting worse for youth but actually that is not the case,” said lead author Lisa Jones, research associate professor of psychology at the UNH Crimes against Children Research Center. “The online environment may be improving.”

She Also mentions a couple other good points.

1. The drops in rates, including “unwanted sexual solicitations are down more than 50 percent since 2000″ seem to have a lot to do with the attention being given to this problem and the solutions being presented via technology and awareness.
2. That unwanted sexual solicitation online are believed to not come from adults only, but potentially half of them are from other youth.
3. That while online harassment is rising slightly, it seems to be because it’s a problem that was slow to be identified and brought to attention.

Overall, good news!

After several days of meetings and wireframes and witeboarding and sitemapping, I think we finally got it.  The answer, that came just before I had to leave to pick up one of the kids was some simple and easy that it’s exciting to get back into the whiteboard room (yes, the walls are all white boards) and explore this option.  Essentially, we scaled the database application way back and instead of having it in 3 major sections of the site, we discovered how we can only have it in one section of the site.  So far, all user’s needs are met and the site map and user flow has become much more easier to understand and follow.

Often times, what looks like you need a complex solution to work, can be solved with the simplest of ideas. It’s worth going back to the one, main issue you’re trying to solve and when you solve that, chances are, it’ll solve other issues too.

Yesterday, I gave another talk to a fantastic group of young women and their moms about interent safety.  I think it’s safe to say that we covered some items that many of them hadn’t known or thought of before.  That’s my goal.  Even if only one person learns something new, then it was a success.  Yesterday was definitely a success.  A couple of the eye-openers yesterday were Social Mapping and how to manage location-based services and Chat Rooms.  After talking about this, I looked at the parents in the back of the room and almost all of them had just taken out their iPhones and were checking their Location settings.

After discussing location services, most people decide that it’s important for them to leave it on, but that they need to be careful when they send out photos to make sure that any location data on the photo doesn’t lead back to their homes or some other identifying place.  For instance, see where I took photos on my recent trip to the Denver zoo via my phone’s GPS to the right.

Let me know how I can help.  I have several talks on this topic for kids, parents and both kids and parents.  You can find out more here. And you can contact me here.

“Facebooking” and “YouTubing” are no longer just a “cute” thing kids do for fun to pass the time. Not understanding the risks associated with the many social media outlets poses a huge potential problem to the safety and well-being of our children.

To keep them safe, online activity is something that needs to be monitored closely. To fully understand the potential dangers, we, as parents/teachers/child advocates need to educate ourselves and then stay aware of what our children are doing online.

Read more: Tips for parents to combat cyberbullying – The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/outwest/ci_20509504/tips-parents-combat-cyberbullying#ixzz1tdXPYrCi
Read The Denver Post’s Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Awesome Keeper Hole!

2010 population of Evergreen, CO according to Siri

I’ve recently been asked by several local business to help them increase web and social media traffic for their businesses. It’s been really fun to help them and see the gains they’ve realized in terms of web traffic and sales. I’ve helped many businesses grow with additional marketing efforts over the last 15+ years and, sometimes, just by answering some questions.  It’s not always huge effort or expense you need to incur to be successful, but smaller changes over time can make all the difference.  Granted, sometimes it does take more effort, but my goal is the least amount of effort to bring about the greatest gains.

We’re in a unique market here in our little (big) town of Evergreen.  There are lot’s of people around here.  According to Siri, our estimated 2010 urban population is 10,527 people.  What’s more important is the “Metro Area Population” that estimates 2.552 million people around Denver, Aurora, Broomfield and Metro Area. And, what’s maybe even more important is the population of the closest town, Lakewood.  Almost 145,000 people within 20-30 minutes of Evergreen.  Now, ask yourself this question.  How many of these people drive up I-70 to the mountains weekly or monthly?

Probably a lot of them.

And wouldn’t you like them to come and visit you?

We have a great opportunity to market our community and business to all of these folks who go play in the mountains or come to Evergreen for some reason – maybe lunch on a Sunday drive or a quick hike in Elk Meadow.  Let’s give them something else to do up here or a reason to stop by on their way to or from the mountains.  I live up here and love living here and really want to help our community thrive.

Give me a call or drop me a line and I’ll tell you how I can help you drive more business via social media and internet marketing.  If’ you’re a local business, You’ll get the local-only discount.  And if everyone does a little bit, then everyone benefits.

http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740

Setting it up as a gmail account may work, and in fact has for me on several occasions, but every once in a while, it just doesn’t work.

This is what Google says right from the link in the Forwarding and POP/IMAP link:

Why do you suppose it’s different?

In the internet world, there’s a strong polarity between companies that create “Proprietary” software that is kept secret, developed by employees and that you have to pay for and “Open Source” software that is written by contributors around the world and is given away.  Shawn Coyne authored an article on stevenpressfield.com, called The Bubble Men that pretty much sums up the difference between ”Open Source” and ”Proprietary”.

But, one one friend of mine emailed me after reading this sums up this article even better;

“I wonder how many times in one day we each accidentally walk past a person, whose heart we could very easily reach out and touch.  I think I’ll look out with different eyes tomorrow…”

It’s definitely worth a read. Find it here.

And, if you haven’t read any of Mr. Pressfield’s books yet, I suggest starting with The War of Art and Do The Work.  Also, find him here

Brad Meltzer's website, circa 2000

I recently saw this Ted Video by Brad Meltzer called How to Write Your Own Obituary, which I highly recommend.  Brad was a client of mine from 2000-2005 in the days of small, narrow, author websites (see screenshot to the right).  We say howdy via email every couple of years, and I guess it’s about time to say hi again.  So, “Hi Brad, loved the website! Let’s have lunch next time you’re in Colorado!”

Anyway, I’d like to add a bit to his legacy that he can choose to use in his obituary or not.

Early on in our relationship, at about the time when The First Counsel had come out, He had a book signing in Denver at the Tattered Cover.  I jumped in the car and headed down there. He was a client from the DC area at this point and I’d never met him in person and wanted to finally meet him.  I enjoyed the book reading and the quick chat we had in the long line afterwards.  Since my Mom had just finished reading The Tenth Justice and really liked it, I purchased The First Counsel and Brad gratefully autographed it for my Mom.  He didn’t know my Mom, but that was ok.  He said just the right thing that a Mom wants to hear about her son.  It shows just how much that a “Mom” means to Brad and I’m very grateful for it (as a side note, it’s a nice compliment to me too! Thanks again!).  It supports everything he talks about in the video about his Mom and what I’ve heard from him about her since her passing.

In his Ted talk, he speaks about his mother and her impact on his life as part of her legacy after her passing.  There’s much that he says about his mother that I could say about mine, but you can view his talk below.

Jump ahead 11 years.

Last January, my Mom passed away too.  In being home in VA and helping my family go through some things, I discovered The First Counsel on the book shelf and opened it up to see the inscription that had been there for more than 10 years and had to smile.  It brought back the memory of meeting Brad and working with him over the years.  I also still have a post card he sent promoting another book with a handwritten note on it about my Mom. It’s so easy to not take the time for a personal note, but so meaningful when you do.

A couple days later as I was waiting in the airport for my flight home, I started reading it.  Unfortunately, at the book signing, I only bought the one copy and had neglected to get a copy for myself, but was grateful to have a chance to read it… finally.  I read almost all of it on my 2 flights across the country (and a long layover in Atlanta) and, Brad, this is a long time coming, but I loved it!  Keep ‘em coming! I’m working through the ones I’ve missed.

So, Thanks to Brad for increasing his legacy by making an impact in my life and my Mom’s life (and being a great client).  I know she was a fan of your books and I wish you could have met her – and I wish I could have met your Mom too (who knows, maybe there’s a place for them to meet and share stories about us).

It’s amazing what a simple inscription to a fan in a book can do.  And that night at the Tattered Cover, you weren’t a client, but you certainly turned me into a fan (and I still am).

So, as part of finishing Brad’s Obituary: “He was a… son who loves his Mom.”

Thank you!

P.S. here’s Brad’s great talk:

TEDxMIA – Brad Meltzer – How To Write Your Own Obituary

Why is that?  Well, 3 reasons.

1. Users are looking for something that meets their needs.
2. You are looking for users that are interested in what you have to offer.
3. You really want to build a relationship with your users and your users want to build a relationship with you.

The online dating community purports to be pros at compatibility.  They all say that they have the best way to match you and someone else.  Their primary function is to build a relationship between 2 people, to show information about one that is interesting to the other and to build understanding and trust in order to inspire one to make a commitment of some sort to the other.

How is this different from what you’re trying to do on your website?  Probably more so than it should be.

Think about it.  What are you trying to do online?  Unless you really don’t care if anyone listens or sees whatever you’re doing online, you’re probably looking for customers, donors or readers to to take some sort of action.  And how do you inspire commitment?  By getting your readers to learn about you, to feel comfortable with you and start a relationship with you – just like dating.  If they’re not comfortable with what they see and learn from you, then they’ll move on to someone else – just like dating.

So do yourself a favor and have another look at your own website and compare it to some dating websites to see how you stack up against these common qualities from some of these online dating sites.

• Character
• Passion
• Intellect
• Humor
• Energy
• Kindness
• Confidence
• Education
• Honesty
• etc…

Are you exemplifying qualities that will inspire someone to make a commitment to you?  If not, maybe you should be.

1. How do I change the feed address without losing my subscribers? since I didn’t want to add the addresses again.
2. If I needed to add the addresses again, could I import them via CSV?
3. If I can change the address, and keep my subscribers, when Feedburner runs, will it send the new posts since it last ran. or will it send ALL posts in the specific category?

Question 1 was easy. At the top of the Feedburner account page, Google says this:

You should not change “Original Feed” unless you move your original feed to a new domain or a new location on your existing server. Also, changing “Feed Address” will require you to update your feed subscribers with your new address; the previous feed address will no longer work.

After I read this sever times, I understand it means that you can change the ORIGINAL FEED address and keep your subscribers.

But, if you change the FEED ADDRESS, you’ll lose your subscribers.

Question 2 was even easier.  After searching a while, I found many responses to this question from Google over the last few years saying “no, you can’t import as it would be a spam/security hole.” and I certainly didn’t want to manually enter all the addresses again, so I wasn’t going to touch the FEED ADDRESS.

Question 3 was more difficult to find.  In fact, I never saw anything definite about it. So I tried some tests and changed some mostly abandoned feeds to see what would happen. Since I wasn’t confident that my tests were going to be 100% accurate, I didn’t put a lot of faith in them.  But, it looked like the feed was going to send more than just the last post.

We ultimately decided that we could manage the issue of readers potentially getting several posts again in a single Feedburner email and wrote a post to that effect so the readers would get that too.  So, we changed the Original Feed and waited…

After a couple hours, after dinner and after the kids went to bed, the feeds started coming in.  I signed myself up for all 5 feeds we transferred and, (spoiler alert) all 5 feeds sent the last 10 posts in their respective categories, and not the only ones posted since the last feed was delivered.

Ultimately, it’s pretty easy to manage in Feedburner, but a couple things would be more helpful.  Especially, if Google could remove many of the REALLY OLD posts that don’t seem to help much anymore.

If you have questions, let me know.