TotLOL – A Curated Collection Of YouTube Videos
Jun 24th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Internet TV, Video 
Would YouTube be better if you got rid of most of the videos, eliminated most of the features and gave the site a vivid, primary color interface?
Maybe so – if your audience is young children. That’s the premise of TotLOL, a children’s video site based on YouTube’s APIs.
Here’s how TotLOL works:
- When scouting parents search the YouTube database via a Totlol interface. The scouting interface lets parents search and watch videos just as they used to do on YouTube. When they find a video that they think is appropriate and relevant they can choose to submit it.
- When submitting, parents are asked to review the title and tags associated with the video and to provide a review of the content. They are also asked to specify the main language of the video and categorize it. This information, together with the original YouTube information is presented at screening.
- The screening part of the process is where the community plays the most significant role. Each Totlol user is invited to screen videos submitted by others and to answer screening questions. The answers are collected and analyzed by computer. Only videos that pass the grade are then available for the viewing tots.
In a nutshell – it’s designed to be a parent-curated collection of YouTube videos.
It may not be a great idea for a business – YouTube could introduced “YouTube kids” and nip this in the bud – but it’s a great idea for kids. Kids can easily navigate the site and will enjoy the fact that everything on the site is fun.
My kid got sent inappropriate email by this site!
After a couple months on TOTLOL somebody spammed my kid with an inappropriate email (I think all the kids on the site got the spam) and after I complained and asked the owner to shut off his account the owner never turned off his account. The account is still there today! Just go and look for yourself, there is no way to delete an account once it’s created. This has got to violate a bunch of U.S. laws, but since the guy is based in Canada he gets away with it.
If you want your kid to get inappropriate email, go ahead and use the site. But just be aware that you can never turn it off. My fear is that they will always have your kid’s email address and they will always have access to your kid. Creepy.