Here’s to some good news

The SF Chronicle just published an article about teenagers becoming increasingly responsible with the way they’re using social networking services. (Read it here.) It’s encouraging to hear that people are becoming aware of the risks that exist online and the measures we can take to use all these useful and fun services safely. For a service like loopt where you’re sharing real-time location and status, we can’t stress enough how important it is to only use the service with good friends in a responsible manner. (For more info, read our tips, or see the information our partners like ConnectSafely.com and Web Wise Kids.)

Webby

We just found out that loopt.com was selected as an official honoree in the 11th Annual Webby Awards. We’re in the company of some really awesome websites so it’s a great honor for us. Check out the full list of official honorees and nominees.

Cyberbully Project

From its very inception loopt was designed to create positive social interactions; knowing where your friends are, after all, is an amazing way to increase the amount of time you actually spend with them. We like to think that our friend alerts feature "enhances serendipity" – it dramatically increases the likelihood that you'll just bump into a friend if you know whenever they're nearby, and our proximity messaging is a great tool when you want to reach many friends at once.

We also think loopt has all sorts of interesting uses in helping to alleviate or prevent unpleasant, scary, or dangerous situations – someone recently suggested we add an "arrival alerts" feature that will send a text to someone (Mom?) when you arrive somewhere (home safely, the city you're flying to). That's why we were excited to get involved with Debbie Heimowitz's Cyberbully project. Debbie's a grad student at Stanford who's creating a television series to educate middle school students about virtual identity and cyber bullying, and she particularly likes loopt because our authentication methods eliminate anonymity and because our safetyand privacy controls are so thorough. We've donated some handsets with the loopt service to her project, and loopt is going to be featured in her movie as a really helpful and useful service for young adults. We're excited to help and we'll be sure to link to the movie when it's finished up.