Vycarious

Vycarious
Threat Level- Low

Vycarious Is a social-media app that is available for iOS (future android and other system compatibility are coming) The app lets you create, follow and comment on friends experiences, ranging from a two-week vacation to fixing breakfast. This social experience focuses on one event and categorizes them as such.

On download, it requires access to Facebook like a lot of other social apps are doing. Once you grant access, it generates your account for you. All you have to do is give your account a username for people to find you. After this, you are ready to let others see your experiences you create.

You begin by creating an experience with creating a cover photo and description of what you are going to share, you create up to 5 hashtags for others to be able to search. You then select your start date and description of your experience.

For example, users create an “experience description,” such as “cooking Breakfast.” They then choose a photo or video as the lead image, denote a starting date and time, and include hashtags to make their experience searchable. After that, users can upload posts, videos, images and other media until their experience ends. However, friends can still write comments even after users hit the end button to signal that their experience is over.

As for your children using this app, The social interaction is basically sharing of the photos and commenting on the experience inside the app. There is no live chat or any features other than comments. Just monitor who your child shares these experiences with and who they are watching.

One thing I did notice was when I created an experience with making my breakfast I had 3 followers before I was done with it. I didn’t have to accept them or approve them. Keep in mind to monitor who is watching experiences and what kind of pictures your child is posting. In the early stages of this social media app, I am not seeing a lot of ways to block people from viewing my experiences.

App description- white, blue, v, blue V

Time Out for Families Event November 15,16 2013

I will be speaking at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints located at 6024 Grove Drive in Knoxville on November 16 at 1030 am on the four steps to keep your children safe on social media .  This is part of  a two day event called Time out for Families.  Along with my presentation, there are other great topics such as Marriage and Communication, Finding Joy in the Journey, Etiquette 101 for parents, Protecting Families from Pornography, and activities for your children to do.   I believe this event  Time Out for Families would be great for any family.  I would love to meet you, hope to see you there.

Snap hack

Snap Hack

Threat Level – Very high

Snap hack is an app available on all markets for a few dollars that allows snap chat users to save pictures that are sent to them via Snap chat.

As you probably already know from earlier reviews, Snapchat is an app that allows its users to send other Snapchat users pictures where they are able to view them for several seconds before they delete themselves. It has been a popular app for sending photos that your friends would have a hard time saving until now.

The way Snap Hack works is after download, you log into your snapchat account with your username and password inside the Snap Hack app. After you login and receive a snapchat, you just have to remember to open Snap hack first and not open Snapchat at all. Snap Hack will then take the photo that you received in Snapchat and save it to your camera roll. Once there, you can view, edit or do as you wish with the snapchat photo that was sent to you via Snapchat.

I have this app a high threat level due to what it could get your children involved in. I have personally seen kids convince other kids to send inappropriate pictures via snapchat since they delete themselves, and they use that as leverage. With this app, if your child is not aware, they may be sending a picture they think will auto delete and little do they know, the other person has saved a copy of their photo.

Ghost, wink, pink, pink ghost

Cinch

Cinch

Threat Level – Low

Cinch is an app developed by the company known for the App Called Klout. Cinch is advertised as an advice app. An app that tells you what you need to know from people that are in the know.

You download the app free of charge and is available on android and Apple devices. Once the app is downloaded there is only one way to access Cinch. That is logging in with a Facebook account. Once you are logged in, Cinch creates your account with username and profile picture it takes from Facebook. After this small intro, you are ready to start asking for advice.

Cinch will market that the advice comes from people that know about the topic you are representing. For example, my first question was one about wifi routers. I sent out a test question that I knew the answer to and with in 30 minutes, I had an answer from two different cinch advisors. The answer was a great one from both. I could tell that the persons who answered knew their topics. A few hours later I received an email asking me to rate their answers they had given me. This is where their rank comes in. From a business side, I am unclear if they just use volunteers that want to support the cause of the app and help answer questions, or if at some point after so many questions are asked do they start getting paid.

You can also browse through pages of other answered questions, and the interface and setup is very easy to complete. As I looked through the questions asked by others, I could see the profile picture and username of the person who asked, along with the name of the person who asked. I did not see any inappropriate questions or answers that were in the log, but have to remember the potential is still there for your kids to be asking for advice from people they don’t know.

At this point, there is no other forms of Social connectivity other than asking a question and receiving an answer. You can also view your question and answer log for past sessions you have asked for advice on.

Due to only being a question and answer site, I have a low threat level, but remember if you see this app on your child’s device to be sure to open and see what kind of advice they are asking.

App description: orange, c, white c, Klout, orange background with white c, the letter c, white letter c