In the summer of 2007, my daughter Alexis wanted an account at MySpace. Needless to say, the answer was NO!

So I began the search for a social networking site like MySpace for kids. I couldn't find one that made me feel safe that there would be no predators, or little chance of one. This surprised me. With the number of sites where you could do a free search for sexual predators by name, why hasn't someone applied this to a website for kids?

I'm no expert at websites, but I have made a few for friends and such. Knowing this, my daughter asked my why I didn't make her one!

So I started with KidZentral and ParentZentral the first of 2008. Subscribers (Parents) are verified via a sexual predator search before gaining access to the parents site. Once approved, they can create a Kids account at KidZentral.

As the idea developed, we added lots of nifty features like logs for parents to view their kids activity on KidZentral. Messages, blogs and even photos are there for the parents to review. Great idea right? I think so!

But then you find out REAL quick that you need LOTS of money. Lots. The server and software is the least of it. Getting your site out there is another thing. Tons in pay per click ad fees, paying for press releases, buying ads. And it has not gotten us very far.

We're beginning to wonder if we could ever get to the top of the search engines so people will actually find us. Last I looked, the closest we've come is page ten IF you search for "safe website for kids". You can get there quick if you pay google per click. That was an eye opener. Lots of money and people that seem to love clicking 5 times on the same ad at 50 cents each. I won't say how much we spent, but it wasn't a subscriber generator by any means. That is one heck of a business. Pay-per-click ads that is. That's enough of a rant for now. I'll be back soon to tell more of my adventure.

Bill