Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb!

In an age when gross-out sites like goatse are just a click away, a number of services offer parents the information they need to find quality online entertainment. While past generations were raised on unfiltered television and video games, today's parent take a more active role in the process of media consumption.

AOL's PlaySavvy: PlaySavvy is another site that offers parents a chance to check out age-appropriate kids games. Similar to What They Play, this site lists the ESRB ratings next to games and information is categorized by topic and gaming system. Products for console favorites like Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii are often featured on the site. AOL also offers parents daily articles and a section to view the most popular games.

Parents' Choice: Established in 1978, this site is run by the Parents' Choice Foundation - a nonprofit organization that offers awards to the top children's media and toys. Some of the award categories include websites, video games, DVDs, software, television programming and toys. This site definitely skews towards narrative-based educational materials. If your kid has a shorter attention span, you might want to visit PBS Kids instead.

Common Sense Media: Common Sense media is a nonprofit organizations dedicated to offering parents reviews and suggestions on appropriate content. The group produces movie, website, TV, game, book and music ratings as well as a number of educational tools for classroom use. The site can be personalized for kids between the ages of 2-17 years old and it's available in English and Spanish. This site tends to weigh the benefits of mainstream media sites.

PBS KIDS Island: This site offers parents reading resources, videos and games in English and Spanish. While the majority of the content is best queued up by a parent or teacher, the videos are of particularly high quality and completely commercial free.

National Geographic for Kids: This site offers kid-friendly games, videos, stories and activities for nature lovers. The same photography that has made National Geographic a hit with grownups is likely to please kids. Not surprisingly, the video content is equally compelling. Discovery Kids offers a similar experience and is a great site for visual learners.

Totlol: Totlol is a parent-moderated version of YouTube. The site offers video options specifically designed for children and even offers "age optimized interfaces" to ensure that kids of different ages get the most appropriate content. In 2008, ReadWriteWeb covered Totlol's beta launch. As of today the site charges a $3 per month subscription fee or $54 until your child grows up.

Photo Credit:Swaminathan

AOL's PlaySavvy: PlaySavvy is another site that offers parents a chance to check out age-appropriate kids games. Similar to What They Play, this site lists the ESRB ratings next to games and information is categorized by topic and gaming system. Products for console favorites like Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii are often featured on the site. AOL also offers parents daily articles and a section to view the most popular games.

Parents' Choice: Established in 1978, this site is run by the Parents' Choice Foundation - a nonprofit organization that offers awards to the top children's media and toys. Some of the award categories include websites, video games, DVDs, software, television programming and toys. This site definitely skews towards narrative-based educational materials. If your kid has a shorter attention span, you might want to visit PBS Kids instead.

Common Sense Media: Common Sense media is a nonprofit organizations dedicated to offering parents reviews and suggestions on appropriate content. The group produces movie, website, TV, game, book and music ratings as well as a number of educational tools for classroom use. The site can be personalized for kids between the ages of 2-17 years old and it's available in English and Spanish. This site tends to weigh the benefits of mainstream media sites.

PBS KIDS Island: This site offers parents reading resources, videos and games in English and Spanish. While the majority of the content is best queued up by a parent or teacher, the videos are of particularly high quality and completely commercial free.

National Geographic for Kids: This site offers kid-friendly games, videos, stories and activities for nature lovers. The same photography that has made National Geographic a hit with grownups is likely to please kids. Not surprisingly, the video content is equally compelling. Discovery Kids offers a similar experience and is a great site for visual learners.

Totlol: Totlol is a parent-moderated version of YouTube. The site offers video options specifically designed for children and even offers "age optimized interfaces" to ensure that kids of different ages get the most appropriate content. In 2008, ReadWriteWeb covered Totlol's beta launch. As of today the site charges a $3 per month subscription fee or $54 until your child grows up.

Photo Credit:Swaminathan

In a presentation up on the mini-site, which we've embedded below, Google states that one of the benefits of this arrangement is that "Yahoo! remains a vibrant and innovative presence on the Internet". Which is putting Yahoo!'s position rather bluntly. The crux of the deal though is that Yahoo! will be able to better monetize the 'long tail' of their search, using Google's near invincible Adsense.

* This is a non-exclusive deal that will strengthen Yahoo!.
* Ad prices will continue to be set by competitive auction.
* The deal is win-win for consumers, advertisers and publishers: more and better ads.

That the deal will strengthen Yahoo! is, unfortunately for Yahoo!, not the contentious point of this arrangement. Indeed we at ReadWriteWeb have first hand experience of why Yahoo! needs this deal. We recently switched back from Yahoo Publisher Network (their attempt at an Adsense alternative) back to Adsense, precisely because the YPN long tail results were so poor. It's no coincidence that our CPC ads, which display as a backup to our CPM ads, have gotten much more relevant and contextual since we switched back. Unfortunately that told us a lot about the state of YPN.

Let's be frank, Google has got Yahoo by the short and curlies with this deal - and the presentation below isn't afraid to give it another twist.

The contentious part of the deal is whether it gives Google a dominant position in the online advertising industry, and therefore will it be bad for consumers and competitors (specifically Microsoft). The closest the mini-site comes to addressing this is slide 10, which has a list of things that the deal is apparently not:

What the deal is NOT

* Not a merger
* Does not remove a competitor from the playing field
* Does not prevent Yahoo! from making similar deals with others
* Does not increase Google's share of search traffic
* Does not let Google set prices for advertisers
* Does not give Google any equity stake in Yahoo!

It remains to be seen whether American antitrust authorities are convinced by these arguments, or not.

Another point of contention is that Google, once again, makes no mention of the percentage of ad revenue they take. In other words: if there is not enough competition in the market for Adsense, then publishers could end up getting a lower share of the revenue from Adsense as a result. Which is a valid concern for publishers and not one that the slideshow addresses adequately.

One interesting side-benefit of the deal is that it will also enable interoperability between Yahoo IM and Google Talk. This benefits Google more than Yahoo, given that Yahoo is one of the market leaders in IM and Google is not.

Here is the full presentation. Let us know in the comments what you think:

Tag Cloud and Top Stories

Iterend indexes about 250,000 blogs. Once you log in, you are greeted by a very large tag cloud on the left side of the screen and a list of the top stories of the past 24 hours on the right. It is not quite clear how Iterend determines this list, but it simply seems to look at how often a story was linked to. Currently, this list is dominated by political stories.

The tag cloud is a bit overwhelming at first. To see all of it, you have to scroll down and it includes over 250 keywords.

Search

The search engine itself relies heavily on tag clouds as well. For every search, Iterend displays two tag clouds that allow you to drill down deeper into your search: one for related phrases and one for related categories.

If you search for "McCain," for example, Iterend will suggest searching for "Obama" or "Sarah Palin." This actually works quite well and allows you to filter your searches quickly and effortlessly. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed for every search.

Verdict

Iterend has a lot of potential. However, the company needs to make sure that its index is more up to date. Today, most blog search engines index a post within minutes after it is posted, so having a 20 hour delay simply takes away any reason to even start using this service - unless you are looking for old news.

Invites

Iterend gave us 1000 invites for our readers. Just follow this link and give it a try.

The site is basically an additional layer of screening for YouTube. Parents scan the YouTube movie database via a special scouting tool on Totlol. When they find a video that they think is good for children under 6 years old, they tag it, add a description, and submit it to the database. The video then enters a screening queue were other parents are asked to answer whether it is appropriate for the site and for which age group the video would be most enjoyed. The screening answers are analyzed algorithmically and only videos that parents collectively deem age appropriate are added to the sites library.

Videos are then played via the YouTube API with a Totlol skin on the player. So far, Totlol users have added just over 100 videos to the site, which only allows people over the age of 18 to join -- assuring that it shields itself from child protection laws by putting parents in complete control.

Totlol is a cool idea, and the only children's video site that we know of that relies on parental screening to decide which videos to add to its database (though please let us know if there are any others in the comments). With the number of computer savvy 6-year-olds on the rise, this site will probably be a hit among both parents and toddler alike.