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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Kids.us site launched two years ago as a safe place for children online, but it faces the same challenge as child-oriented services in the real world do: offering enough activities to keep the kids coming back.

Though more than 1700 site names have been registered to launch pages on www.kids.us since it was created in 2002, only 13 have live sites with content, note members of a congressional subcommittee overseeing the project.

At a meeting of the subcommittee Wednesday, representatives expressed two concerns: increasing registration and encouraging registered members to launch pages on the site.

Cleaning Up for Kids

The site, authorized by Congress as an Internet haven for children, gives Web addresses ending in .kids.us to groups with sites providing what is considered appropriate content. NeuStar performs ongoing and extensive monitoring of content, and outside links are banned, to help ensure a safe zone for youngsters on the Internet.

The law creating the site was a reaction to growing concern over the safety of children online.

"Between 1996 and 2002 the number of online child pornography and child sexual exploitation cases opened by the FBI went from 113 to 2370, representing a 1997 percent increase in just six years," says Michael Gallagher, acting assistant secretary for the Department of Commerce, explaining the motivation for the site.

But the lack of external links means participants must either replicate their child-friendly site or build a new site, which demands time, money, and commitment.

Active participants include Crayola.kids.us, Hasbro.kids.us, LegoLand.kids.us, and the recently launched PBSKids.kids.us.

Cindy Johanson, a PBS vice president, says PBS is carefully watching the traffic on its Kids.us site. Launch costs were extensive, and PBS officials are monitoring progress to determine whether the site is worth the cost, she adds.

Few Suggestions

At the Wednesday meeting, the subcommittee asked for suggested incentives, such as tax breaks, to persuade more companies and not-for-profit organizations to join the Kids.us endeavor. While witnesses expressed excitement about the site's prospects, they offered little in the way of tangible suggestions to make it more popular.

NeuStar plans to launch a major marketing campaign this spring to attract new participants and encourage current registered users to make their sites live, says Richard Tindal, NeuStar vice president.

It commonly takes six to eight months from registering a domain name to launching a site, Tindal notes. He says Congress should consider this typical lag to be a bit longer with Kids.us sites because of the intense work of building new pages and getting approval.

"We have 13 sites. This is pitiful. No one's going to use this. We have to get this going," answered Representative Christopher Cox (R-California) during the meeting.

Kids.us can learn from the success of the PBSKids.org site in attracting children to a safe site that educates and entertains, Johanson says. PBS has learned that young visitors don't use the Internet in the same way adults do: "In short, they dive deeper and they stay longer," she says.

The average visitor to PBSKids.org views more than 80 pages of content in one visit, which on average lasts 36 minutes, she notes. In contrast, an average PBS.org visitor usually views 7 web pages and spends 4 minutes on the site. Traffic to the PBS site averages 334 million page views and 16 million unique visits per month.