.us Only SIX .kids.us websites exist?

[aww]

Would you believe there are only six .kids.us websites in existance right now?

http://info.kids.us
http://space.kids.us
http://firstgov.kids.us
http://stnicholas.kids.us
http://minnesota.kids.us
http://smithsonian.kids.us

can you find more?

I missed one, which makes seven:

http://games.kids.us

and this one is pending review to change to .kids.us :

http://www.laws.us/

 

[Toeki]

Where did you get this info from?

 

[RJ]

Originally posted by Toeki
Where did you get this info from?

http://www.kids.us/

Yes, not many kids.us sites around. I wonder if it's too early to declare this program a flop?

 

[g0ldy]

Its a flop alright

 

[Ron Jackson]

Well kids are smaller than adults, so it stands to reason that kids.us would be smaller than the web as a whole - but six sites in carrying that concept a bit too far! :D

I thought that link to kids.us was to their directory of featured sites. Perhaps there are more that didn't make the directory? In any case, it doesn't look like the taxpayers have gotten much for the $30 Million the government earmarked to promote this thing!

 

[armstrong]

Those six sites are all that's indexed in google:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=kids+site:kids.us&btnG=Google+Search

They must have some kind of bottleneck in the screening process.

 

[aww]

Part of the problem is the sites not only can't be commercial at all, but they cannot have any outbound links.

Virtually impossible to promote except for outside the .kids.us domain!

 

[Toeki]

There are more then six sites out there.

Check out this site http://info.kids.us

 

[armstrong]

Originally posted by Toeki
There are more then six sites out there.

Check out this site http://info.kids.us

The sites listed in info.kids.us seem to be inactive.

 

[g0ldy]

Maybe soon to be registered?

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Active looks like 7 active servers as found by this link:

http://www.netcraft.com/?restriction=site+ends+with&host=.kids.us&position=limited

This is a nice domain tool, BTW.

My guess is with all the restrictions, it's going to take a while to jump through all the hoops.

 

[aww]

Really good addition to this thread, excellent article with complete background and coverage:

Firms Ignore Kids-Only Internet Domain

A little more than 1,500 people have plunked down $100 to $160 to buy a dot-kids address since the addresses went on sale last June, but only eight are attached to live Web sites. Twelve sites have been submitted for a mandatory content review.

 

[Anthony]

I think one of the problems is that kids would never type in something.kids.us to go to a website in the first place!

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Originally posted by Anthony
I think one of the problems is that kids would never type in something.kids.us to go to a website in the first place!

Watch Satureday morning cartoons, the Disney Channel, or Nickelodeon and you wouldn't know anything but a .com even existed.

Kids.us has increased in size by 25%!

It's now up to 8 sites.

Firstgov.kids.us
Games.kids.us
Info.kids.us
Minnesota.kids.us
Smithsonian.kids.us
Space.kids.us
Stnicholas.kids.us
Summum.kids.us

 

[zouzas]

kids.us has only been out 6-7 months and like any new extension takes time to build but with the 3 largest kids entertainment companies in the industry soon joining the directory that should soon change ,,,The addition of PBS NIC have submmitted sites for review and Disney should be soon as well once one joins its like a domino effect,,,,,,,,,AOL that has KOL isn;t ruling out joing as well ,,,,,,,i can;t rember a time when companies of this size developed a new extension can anyone,,,,,,,,,,

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by zouzas
kids.us has only been out 6-7 months and like any new extension takes time to build but with the 3 largest kids entertainment companies in the industry soon joining the directory that should soon change ,,,The addition of PBS NIC have submmitted sites for review and Disney should be soon as well once one joins its like a domino effect,,,,,,,,,AOL that has KOL isn;t ruling out joing as well ,,,,,,,i can;t rember a time when companies of this size developed a new extension can anyone,,,,,,,,,,

.us still is having problems being recognized. I doubt kids.us will ever get popular -- there are too many restrictions!

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Originally posted by Anthony
[B... there are too many restrictions! [/B]

That's supposed to be the whole reason for it's existence, is that it's restricted to protect kids from unwanted content.

The real problem I think is kind of a catch-22. There are not enough sites yet to make it worthwhile to restrict kids to the sites. Therefore there are no easy to use browser controls to restrict to only kids.us and likely programs like cybersitter or netnanny don't have the controls yet. I think once there are enough sites to make it worthwhile, then maybe some browser or software controls will be able to restrict kids access to other sites. Right now it's kind of pointless with only 8 sites.

You also have to remember that you can't just create a site, publish it and have it available. There is a pretty extensive site review process before they can go live. I would imagine a site as extensive as disney's many take a while to review and edit to the standards.

 

[Anthony]

I was referring to the part where the kids.us websites can't link to any other websites! Yikes!

 

[g0ldy]

what?

 

[armstrong]

Originally posted by Anthony
I was referring to the part where the kids.us websites can't link to any other websites! Yikes!

I believe the restriction was that they couldn't link to any site outside the kids.us namespace. Otherwise, the registrar would be violating its own policy by linking to the active kids.us sites. :D

 

[Raf]

Thanks for the info aww, I was happy to find out something new. :tu:

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by armstrong
I believe the restriction was that they couldn't link to any site outside the kids.us namespace. Otherwise, the registrar would be violating its own policy by linking to the active kids.us sites. :D

:lol: That's what I meant! That's a restrictive restriction, if you ask me.