Parents wishing to follow along as their children play games online have a new friend in Piggyback, a recently launched Facebook application designed for such purposes.
Piggyback, built by newly launched startup Media Chaperone, is a free Facebook application for parents who want to monitor their children’s online social and gaming activities in real time from their Facebook profiles.
Parents get an overview of their children’s activities on partner sites, receive safety alerts, have access to game-specific reports and get notifications about their children’s in-game achievements. Piggyback promises always-on monitoring and a way for parents to reward good behaviors with site-appropriate virtual goods and currency, including Facebook Credits.
At launch, the application offers integration with three partner sites: Whyville, Planet Cazmo and Woozworld. Obviously, Piggyback will need to drastically expand its partner list should it wish to resonate with parents.
Still, the Facebook application is an interesting re-imagining of the notion of online parental supervision. A slew of services exist in this category, including the newly launched SafeSocial product from AOL, but Piggyback is the first we know off that actually allows parents to reward positive behaviors with Facebook Credits.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Paul Goyette.
Reviews: Facebook, Flickr
More About: child safety, facebook, online gaming, social media
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