Because 85 percent of teens experience bullying—and only 1 in 10 alerts an adult—Calix partners with online safety leader, Bark, to deliver AI-enabled social media monitoring that will allow even the smallest broadband service provider to offer a managed service that helps protect families across their communities
SAN JOSE, CA—August 9, 2022—Calix, Inc. (NYSE:CALX, news, filings) and award-winning online safety leader Bark Technologies today launched a new managed, AI-enabled social-media monitoring service for the Calix Revenue EDGE™ platform. A critical component of Revenue EDGE, the managed services include a rapidly growing ecosystem of subscriber-facing suites, enhanced by the visibility and insights in Calix Cloud. Calix partners with hundreds of broadband service providers (BSPs), including many who serve their local communities. These local providers have deep roots in their communities and have made it their mission to enhance their subscribers’ well-being. In today’s environment, that mission increasingly requires tools to keep children safe from online dangers. Bark, the sixth managed service for Revenue EDGE, monitors text messages, email, and more than 30 of the most popular apps and social media platforms to alert parents and caregivers of issues like cyberbullying, online predators, and sexual content. Bark also offers location alerts and makes it easy to manage screen time whether a child is inside or outside the home. Thanks to Revenue EDGE, BSPs of any size now have a simple path to deploy and manage Bark on behalf of their subscribers. By embracing Bark, BSPs have another service that will build their brands by demonstrating their commitment to protecting their communities.
Calix has a history of partnering with community-minded BSPs to keep kids safer online. In 2019, Calix launched ExperienceIQ® to deliver advanced parental controls. With today’s launch, Bark gives BSPs yet another tool to help families protect their children from digital dangers. Bark data shows that 85 percent of teens experienced bullying last year. But only 1 in 10 victims of online bullying will inform a parent or trusted adult of the abuse. Bark helps fill that gap by giving parents and caregivers a way to stay connected to the online lives of their children. To date, Bark has detected more than 2.6 million severe bullying situations and over 620 thousand self-harm situations. Bark social media monitoring works both in the home and when children are on the go.
Here’s how BSPs can leverage the full power of the Revenue EDGE platform and use Bark to grow value in their communities:
- Use Calix Marketing Cloud to easily identify households that need managed social media monitoring support. The advanced network-level parental controls of ExperienceIQ help families promote healthy internet habits inside the home. Now Bark gives parents another way to continue promoting and managing their children’s social media habits outside the home network. Thanks to the data and analytics in Calix Marketing Cloud (Marketing Cloud), BSPs can identify households with children that are most likely to need Bark. This simplifies their go-to-market strategy and enables BSPs to bring more online protection to their communities.
- Leverage award-winning Calix Market Activation to go to market faster and bring more online protection to subscribers. Calix provides everything needed to easily introduce new services to subscribers. The power of the Revenue EDGE platform enables BSPs of any size to quickly turn on new managed services in a matter of days or weeks instead of months. In addition, the award-winning Calix Market Activation (Market Activation) program, Electronic Content Builder (ECB), and the Market Activation Video Editor (MAVE) come preloaded with the latest customizable marketing materials on Bark. This means a marketing team of one can quickly go to market with engaging materials to launch Bark to the right subscribers.
- Team up with Calix Services to accelerate, launch, and simplify end-to-end support for new managed services. The award-winning Calix Customer Success Services (Customer Success) and Calix Support launched two new offerings to help BSPs go to market quickly with Bark. Calix Smart Start for Managed Services and Calix Support for Managed Services help BSPs accelerate time to market and launch confidently. Paired with increased visibility into the subscriber experience from Calix Support Cloud (Support Cloud), Calix makes it easy for BSPs to align their organization to proactively support new managed services.
“We’re thrilled for the launch of Bark in Revenue EDGE to thousands of BSPs and their communities,” said Brian Bason, chief executive officer at Bark. “With a growing list of digital dangers to consider, instilling healthy internet habits in the youngest members of the household can feel increasingly complex. This partnership between Bark and Calix will enable BSPs across the U.S. to better help families keep children safer online and in real life.”
“As someone who has experienced cyberbullying firsthand and has preteen-age children, I immediately knew that the partnership between Calix and Bark was something that I wanted to get behind,” said Russell Kacer, president at YK Communications. “I think that, as broadband service providers, we have a responsibility to protect our communities by making efforts to stop cyberbullying.”
Bark joins the growing family of innovative managed services in Revenue EDGE. The managed service ecosystem already features the customizable CommandIQ® mobile app, ExperienceIQ parental controls, ProtectIQ® home network security, and Arlo Secure connected camera home security.
“More than anything else, our customers want to grow value in their communities,” said Michael Weening, president and chief operating officer at Calix. “That’s why we’re proud to launch Bark, a market leader in social media monitoring, as our sixth managed service in Revenue EDGE. We are making it simple and easy for BSPs of any size to protect their communities’ most vulnerable members from digital dangers like cyberbullying. Every time Calix launches a new managed service that gives BSPs new opportunities to bring more value to their communities, we also make it easy for them to go to market and support these critical services. The data and insights in Calix Cloud and the turnkey marketing materials in the Market Activation program enable BSPs of any size to go to market in a matter of weeks instead of months. And our award-winning Customer Success organization is here to help Calix customers every step of the way. This is how Calix will continue to help BSPs easily embrace innovation so they can build their brand, grow value in their community, and lead their market.”
Learn more about how BSPs can protect their communities’ most vulnerable members and deliver even more value to their communities with Bark in Revenue EDGE.
About Calix
Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX)—Calix cloud and software platforms enable service providers of all types and sizes to innovate and transform. Our customers utilize the real-time data and insights from Calix platforms to simplify their businesses and deliver experiences that excite their subscribers. The resulting growth in subscriber acquisition, loyalty, and revenue creates more value for their businesses and communities. This is the Calix mission: To enable broadband service providers of all sizes to simplify, excite, and grow.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon management’s current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Forward-looking statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this release, and we assume no obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking statement to reflect any event or circumstance after the date of this release, except as required by law. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from current expectations based on risks and uncertainties affecting Calix’s business. The reader is cautioned not to rely on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Additional information on potential factors that could affect Calix’s results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed in its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC and available at www.sec.gov.
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