Alfy and advertising

[Roselle Weiner <rweiner@mail.americanschdeaf.org>]

well, i dunno folks, someone posted a link to this site, alfy.com and
touted it as the first wordless web portal for kids...as an educator
for highly visual learners, i went racing to the site and even dreamed
about it all last nite.  this morning i came in and read the "about
alfy" description and then went hunting : they claim their site is kid
friendly and that the links were selected and scrutinized personally by
alfy's prof. team of <gasp> LIBRARIANS.

their definition of kidfriendly?  subjects attract and interest kids
                                                no complex or long
texts
                                                        safe
environment - no
offensive
                                                                visually
 attractive

so i was still excited...right?  Guess what...when you click on the
fashion icon you are brought to pages that offer yet other options to
choose like jeans and accessories and shoes etc.  and when you continue
clicking you come to Levi's and Guess?? and oh did i mention Jewelry?
music? CD's and shopping baskets . . . . grrrrrrrr

Yes, if you click on science or one of the school subjects you will
come to, for example, the National Zoo....if you click on the sun you
come to info about the sun...and links to other sites about it...

        B U T

do we really want our kids exposed to the temptation of buying on
line????  after we've determined that Alfy is indeed a kid's site, and
it looks ok...we follow a couple of casual links and it still looks
good...how many of us are going to take it any further?

i almost didn't.  i almost announced this to the staff in a special
memo- - that's how excited i was to find it - - but now, i will stick
the reference into the usual library newsletter with the caveats as
above....

just shows you we never can be too careful with what we recommend.


Roselle Weiner
Library/LRC Services Coordinator
American School for the Deaf
139 North Main St.
West Hartford, CT 06107
860-570-2370 <tt.v>
860-570-2301 <fax>

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