This post is brought to you by SmartFeed. All opinions are my own.
Ever wish you could stop filtering out all the bad stuff and start filtering IN the good news for your kids? With SmartFeed, that’s exactly what you do! I’ll be honest with you, I don’t want my son watching the news. I am a pretty liberal parent. I let him watch shows and play games that many parents don’t allow. Yet I draw the line at the nightly newscast. To me, it’s the most violent show on television.
As he’s getting older, I do give him access to news, but in a way that doesn’t sensationalize it. Still, I’d rather he see the good news first. That’s where the SmartFeed comes in.
SmartFeed: Put Positive Media In, Get Positive Minds Out
SmartFeed was founded by Linsly Donnelly, a mother of three. She describes the goal beautifully so I’ll use her words here: “The goal is to do more than just filter out the bad stuff but to feed our kids positive, engaging, healthy content instead. ”
The service launched a KickStarter campaign this week to help fund their innovative app. The tool allows you to easily manage your kids’ digital media across all content and device platform. What does that mean? Basically, it’s like Pandora meets Netflix. You curate, they deliver. Toss in the community spirit of Facebook and you have a whole new platform that’s still quite intuitive. Check out the video to learn a bit more about SmartFeed from its founder, Linsly.
What makes SmartFeed different from, say, a kid-safe filter on a search engine or social media network? It’s all about the filtering IN that you’ll do. See, anyone can hit a button and filter out the bad. Of course, those filters aren’t foolproof so you’re taking your chances with them, but again, they focus more on the negative. With SmartFeed, you curate content detailed specifically for your child. Let’s take a look at the process.
How Does SmartFeed Work?
- Curate: The content that you filter IN is based on more than just your child’s age or grade level. As you can see from the picture below (courtesy of SmartFeed, not my picture), you can filter in content based on everything from your child’s individual interests to your family’s particular moral values or beliefs. Want to help your child learn to cope with bullies? Filter in content about anti-bullying!
- Deliver: Once you’ve cultivated a list, only the desired content gets pre-loaded to your child’s device. No popups or unwanted ads.
- Manage: SmartFeed lets you view and track your child’s usage through SmartFeed. This can help you find them even more appropriate content in the future, both online and offline. It’s also great for planning surprises! Say you notice your child spent hours reading about astronomy. Surprise him with a trip to the planetarium! You can also set time limits on SmartFeed so it goes off when you want it to, not when your kids do!
- Connect: SmartFeed also lets you connect to other great parenting resources in your community and online. Join other parents, schools and organizations to get ideas on they types of media they’re recommending.
Help Fund SmartFeed
SmartFeed is rocking their Kickstarter goal, but they still need help to reach it.
Backers get great rewards, including free SmartFeed Subscriptions, invitations to movie screenings (in certain areas) and more. I think this is such an awesome service for parents!
Click here to help SmartFeed get funded!
What type of content would you love to see more of in SmartFeed? Tell me in the comments!
