Scoble writes about his experience’s with Second Life, and the fact he has been basically forced to stop his 12 year old son using it.

Now he talks about the Nanny State and the fact that we have to many rules from above. Can’t say I disagree with him on that one. Western Australia is the ultimate in nanny states, and Australia as a whole isn’t much better.

The drinking and gambling ages in the US are a complete joke. You can die in Iraq at 18 but you can’t have a drink until 21. It’s stupid.

But I’ve got to ask. Is it right that Scoble exposes his 12 year old son to virtual porn and gambling?

I can remember last year I read that he let his son listen to the Dawn and Drew Show. Now personally, I quite enjoy the Dawn and Drew show, but it ain’t suitable for kiddies. I was going to write about it at The Blog Herald at the time, but I was already in the middle of a flame war on another topic and didn’t want the grief.

Now I read that he allows his son to play the Adults Only Second Life, a world which I’m personally quite into, but again, it’s AO.

Now I’m all for teaching your kids about this stuff….eventually. I’m certainly no prude. But Scoble’s son isn’t even a teenager yet, and he’s being let lose in a world which made headlines last week because some of its participants are engaging in virtual sex acts where one plays the role of a child. Yep, virtual paedophilia.

Writes Scoble:

The thing is, I don’t necessarily buy into the rules of society, or the rules of Linden Labs. If I don’t mind my son getting into a Poker game, or seeing a virtual sex act, isn’t that my right as a parent to let my son experience those things?

Actually you know what, I honestly don’t believe it is. A 12 year old is not ready to be exposed to this sort of thing. Personally I think it’s totally wrong. Indeed, in Australia you’d probably end up being investigated by Child Services (or similar bodies depending on your state) for allowing these things to happen.

Of course, we all know from our own childhoods that, particularly as teens, we all eventually get up to some no good. But we aren’t even talking about a teen here, we are talking about a pre-pubescent child. Children do need protecting, and I’m even going to dare to suggest that in this case, I’d think Scoble’s son may need protecting from him.

How do you feel. Would you let your 11 or 12 year old child view porn and gambling? Flame away if you must, but I can tell you my son will be a fair bit older before I start teaching him about this sort of thing. Kids should be allowed to be kids whilst they still can be, and nothing positive can come from exposing a 12 year old to virtual sex acts.

Tags: robert scoble

Jeff Jarvis calls for Open Source advertising and metric solutions to help bring Advertisers and Bloggers together. A rather socialist suggestion from a right wing blogger I’d think. But I can’t help that think that maybe Jeff Jarvis doesn’t know enough about the advertising industry, because there is no way in hell that you are going to get ad execs to agree on open standards, particularly just for blogs. Some firms might, and good on them, but the industry as a whole? Very, very wishful thinking.

The irony. An ad agency tries to sue a blogger who criticised on of it’s campaigns. 1 month later the ad agency folds.

From Media Post:

WARNER KREMER PAINO ADVERTISING, THE ad agency that last month filed a puzzling lawsuit against a blogger for having criticized the agency’s online ad efforts, has folded. After widespread media coverage, Warner Kremer Paino Advertising, or WKPA, withdrew its suit–though too late to escape near-universal derision.

Blogosphere 1, Stupid Moronic Advertising Executives 0.

Trevor Cook refers to the latest subscriber email from Australian Sh*t sheet Crikey that concludes that blogs and blogging are dying:

What most realise is that blogging is the illusion of connection, publishing into a void and thus doubly isolating. Those blogs that survive will and are evolv(ing) into multi-person sites, some with collective and decentred ways of uploading, others with hierarchies essentially identical to paper editing.

Bizarre. Crikey criticises politicians for being out of touch. Me thinks that Stephen Mayne may be totally out of touch, or maybe it’s just in his interest to down play a threat to the business?

Interesting story at Boston.com on Blog Plagiarism. Honestly I didn’t know it was a big problem, after all the real problem is just plain and simple content theft. Apparently though, some of these low lifes are getting crafty and changing names in posts. Personally I don’t see why they’d bother.

Tags: Blog Plagiarism

I’ve held back on blogging topics here at duncanriley.com, because at the end of the day I don’t want to compete with my former site, The Blog Herald, or b5media’s Problogger, but I thought I might share a little money making advertiser I’m having great success with, both with my personal sites, and with b5media as well, at that’s Text Link Ads

Some of you would know I had great dealing with Adzaar back in the days. I’m not sure what went wrong with Adzaar, rumor had it that they are skint, but anyhow when I lost a lot of my contracts with these guys I gave Text Link Ads a try, and I’ve got to say I’m happy.

They don’t work on every site. But they do work well on high traffic sites and on decent PR sites. Nice ads, compatible with Adsense, give them a shot by clicking here

As part of the impending Australia TV tour, while I’m in Sydney I feel obliged to go an jump around Martin Place with a large sign for Sunrise, as many American would do for the NBC Today Show.

But talking of Mel and Kochie, I also looked into attended Where are they Now, only because I’ve got an empty intinery so far, but the recording is the same time as The Chaser. Don’t know if anyone caught it last Sunday, but I saw a little bit of it during an ad break for Big Brother. They re-united the original Home and Away cast. Now Home and Away started in 88, the Bicentential Year, the year I started High School and Year 7. Nicole Dickson was on the show. Her character was “Bobby”. What can I say. With some people age is kind. With Nicole….jeeeeeeeeeeeeeezus. Rough as Guts. Perhaps it’s best I’m not there 🙂

SEO Black Hat blog reports that Expedia is spamming Google’s search results for terms including Viagra.

I’m not sure exactly what the corporate structure is at Expedia these days, but the use to be owned by IAC Corp, the very same people that own Ask.com (previously Ask Jeeves) as well as other sites such as Hotwire.

Wonder if Google will take action?

The CBS Public Eye blog is reporting on a NBC news story on blogging….but if you want to watch it online, don’t bother unless you’ve got IE!

The story itself is pretty general….Im just annoyed that if you want to view NBC view online you have to use IE.