Suck

for 23 July 1996. Updated every TUESDAY.



	Parental responsibility meets parental
	irresponsibility... on the Web!

	The babysitter may be unavailable, but
	that doesn't mean you can't hit the town.
	With babysitter.com, you're only two
	clicks away from your little ones.

	Would-be parents, be forewarned. There's
	one thing they don't tell you in the
	delivery room while you're knee-deep in
	bloody post-labor euphoria: say goodbye
	to Saturday nights. Forget the movies.
	For the next eighteen years (at
	least), your big screen experience is
	gonna be limited to 27". Live
	entertainment will include the latest Mr.
	Microphone technology. But wait - you're
	young. You want to go out, you want to
	procreate, you want it all! And oh, those
	pesky babysitters. Never available, never
	on time. And when one of those pubescent
	*caregivers does* show up, they usually**
	spend more time giving the hormones a
	workout on the couch than keeping an eye
	on the bambino. What's a concerned, yet
	socially active, parent to do?



	Now, through the magic of the Internet,
	parents can paint that town red while
	making sure Junior is snug in his bed.
	With a PDA, a cellular dialup, and
	babysitter.com, parents can have that big
	night out secure in the knowledge that
	they haven't neglected the young ones at
	home. Just hang the patented Juniorcam
	over the crib, boot up your Pilot, dial
	into babysitter.com, and you're gone!
	It's so easy! You already spend your day
	glued to the baby monitor, now you're
	just extending the tether a little
	farther. When baby cries, mommy is there
	(virtually at least). If the plaintive
	wails of your rug-rat hit ballistic mode,
	a click of the button activates
	babysitter.com's CyberSoothe feature,
	which lulls the little bundle back to
	sleep. For a total meltdown, one menu
	command is all it takes to activate the
	CyberSurrogate service, dispatching a
	loving caregiver to the house for some
	good old TLC.

	Piece of cake. Everything's off-the-shelf.
	The Juniorcam home setup consists of a
	Connectix camera hooked to a midline Mac
	Performa, running Cu-SeeMe via ISDN to the
	net. The hardware alone would be a
	revenue center. The babysitter.com host
	runs reflector software, and routes
	CyberSooth via Real Audio (not high
	fidelity, but the kid'll never know the
	difference.) For the parental remote
	unit, port the Cu-SeeMe viewer to a Pilot
	with a cellular PC card. CyberSurrogate
	dispatches happen via TeleScript.

	Playing up the parental responsibility
	angle makes strategic partnerships a
	cinch. Business-hungry ISPs, now awake to
	the fact that they deal in pork bellies,
	would clamor for a bundling deal. Baby
	Bells, having totally dropped the ball on
	marketing ISDN, would cut a sweet deal
	for another shot at the home market.
	CyberSurrogate services could be
	provided by a home protection company,
	like Westec or Brinks Home Security. The
	$5/hour rent-a-cops might need a day or
	two of sensitivity training, and maybe a
	refresher course on diapers.

courtesy of Red Howard