Announced today and scheduled for beta in May, Vine is a hyperlocal messaging and alert system intended to be used to share information during a crisis. Properly configured, it will gather local news and public safety announcements along with location information, reports and messages from friends–eventually even those posted to other services, like Facebook and Twitter–into a handy little dashboard. This being Microsoft (MSFT), that dashboard will be proprietary and require PCs running XP SP2 or Vista and 600 MB of hard disk space.

So really, Vine is not so much a societal network for people you care about, but for the PC users you care about. A proprietary disaster messaging system… sigh, only from Microsoft.

Anyway…. It’s an interesting idea–not so much as the “societal network” Microsoft touts it as but as a cunning end run around established services. Twitter and Facebook are fun, recreational, but Vine has gravitas. It’s the network you turn to when things fall apart–assuming you meet the proper system requirements–because it consolidates the Tweets and status updates you actually want to read with need-to-know public safety announcements. Of course, Microsoft won’t admit that. “We intend this to be a service of services–to not replace social networking tools that exist today, but embrace them,” Tammy Savage, Microsoft Vine general manager, told TechFlash.

Yeah, embrace and extend and… well, we all know what comes next.

This week, I tested a free Web site called Mint.com that serves as a Web home base for account information from credit cards, credit unions and bank accounts. The site securely and automatically logs into those accounts, fetches the latest data and presents the information in easy-to-read and useful ways.

Mint.com lets users track their expenses via pie charts (top) and offers alternative savings options (bottom).

Mint hopes to help users get a better handle on where their money is going, how much is in each account, and what can be done to budget that money more efficiently. It sends automatic alerts about account data or when you exceed your budget. It can even translate a bank’s often odd rendering of merchants’ names into plain-English versions of your financial transactions.

Starting May 6, the site will let users add investments, such as individual retirement accounts and 401(k) plans, to their accounts, though Mint isn’t designed for serious investors. Today, readers can get sneak peak access to this Investments feature via www.mint.com/wsj. In June, Mint will add auto loans, student loans and mortgages.

Mint won’t work offline because it’s completely Web-based, and can’t be used to pay bills or move any money around, meaning people will still need to visit separate sites for bill payments and money transfers.

Talk of money-related software programs often brings to mind the old reliables: Intuit Inc.’s (INTU) Quicken and Microsoft (MSFT) Money. But some of these programs can cost close to $100 and require intense bookkeeping. Stripped-down versions of these products are available, but these still include fees. Geezeo.com is a Web service that’s more comparable to Mint.com, but it incorporates social-networking tools like introducing users with like interests.

Mint was created for 20-somethings like me who want to pay more attention to their finances but aren’t interested in taking hours each week to do so. This Web site worked ideally for me, and its clean interface integrates Web 2.0 features in a way that makes it a pleasure to use. I think it will appeal to a broad range of people who want to feel more in control of their money, but don’t want to spend a lot of time updating their information.

I set up my information on Mint in minutes, not hours, and used it to track five accounts. In seconds, Mint used data from my accounts to automatically generate colorful pie charts that illustrated where my money was spent — and most expenses were accurately labeled. I was pleased to find my local bank in a list of Mint-supported companies. And the site even encouraged me to look at my 401(k)’s progress online for the first time in a while because I didn’t need to dig into an out-of-the-way, unfamiliar Web site.

Security is important for a site like Mint.com, so it teamed up with online banking-service provider Yodlee to make secure connections to banks. This involves using encryption that the company claims is the same as what banks use. Mint also says that because it requires nothing more than an email address, password and ZIP Code from each person, registration is anonymous. And the company claims that it never sees or stores password information, nor does it ever see account numbers.

When setting up an account, Mint acknowledges nicknames for companies, like Amex for American Express (AXP), making it easy to find specific banks and credit-card companies. If you’d like to sign up on Mint, but don’t already have online accounts set up, Mint will give step-by-step directions on how to do this — whether via a company’s site or by phone.

The site suggests alternative companies that will save you more money than those you’re currently using. Some, but not all, of these companies are sponsors of the site. After entering my savings-account information, I learned about a high-yield savings account that would potentially allow me to earn hundreds more in interest each year. Some of these suggested alternatives were familiar, while others — like Bank of the Internet USA — weren’t.

I found Mint’s automatic alerts to be especially helpful. Each alert can be personalized to notify you via email or an SMS message on your mobile phone when something happens in an account. Account summaries, for example, can be sent via email and text message every Friday, the first of every month or never. Alerts can be adjusted to tell people that their credit-card bill is due within a certain number of days; if a pre-set budget is exceeded; or if a bank charges extra fees.

Mint’s new Investments section showed me details about two investments. A handy graph showed the status of my account earnings and compared them with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq and the S&P 500. Individual stocks can be added into your account, though I could see only the balance of a trust holding one of my stocks.

In the Trends section, I learned what my most frequent expenditures were, as well as the total amount of money spent per month, which was interesting to see since I don’t usually add up all of my expenses. Trends can show you how your spending stacks up with everyone else — that is, people in the U.S. who use Mint. My account showed I ate at a Chipotle (CMG) chain restaurant once in February and once in April, spending the exact amount each time. (I like their barbacoa fajita burrito.) But I spent about $4 to $5 less than the average Chipotle customer.

If certain expenses are mislabeled, they can easily be renamed and reassigned to different categories. Pie charts and graphs can be altered with one mouse click to become more or less specific, and budgets can be set after looking at spending history on an easy-to-understand bar graph.

Digital conveniences like online bill payments and Web transactions can lead to people putting less thought into their finances. But the value of knowing specifically where money is and how it is spent is a tool that will likely encourage better financial planning and habits. I only wish Mint had a way to incorporate online bill payments so I could do all of my financial work in one place on this site. Otherwise, Mint is a real boon to people who want to tell their dads that they’re on top of their finances — and mean it.

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

And so yesterday the Federal Communications Commission announced plans to develop an emergency-alert system that would broadcast SMS messages to cellphones and other mobile devices wherever a crisis occurs. The Commercial Mobile Alert System, as it’s been dubbed, will deliver three different types of text alerts to mobile phone subscribers: presidential alerts concerning terrorist attacks and whatnot; imminent threat alerts warning of natural disasters; and Amber Alert child abduction warnings.

Sounds like a nice comprehensive program. Too bad you won’t see it for another two years, at least. Unless you happen to live in a region like Contra Costa County in Northern California, where a tech-savvy local government is already hard at work on its own geographically targeted emergency alert system.

Today, things are different. Many parents buy cellphones for their preteen children to keep in touch and as a safety measure. Teens have the luxury of their own cellphones that some parents won’t even know how to use.

But cellphones introduce a host of problems. Parents have no way of knowing with whom their children are talking or text messaging, nor do they know what is being said in these calls or in text messages typed in abbreviated slang. Digital photos and videos can be captured and sent from one phone to another in seconds, and smart phones with Web-browsing capabilities bring the Internet and instant messaging to kids wherever they are.

Mobile alerts, which can be received via email or text message, are useful for on-the-go parents.

This week, I tested a new software application called Radar that can be wirelessly downloaded onto a kid’s cellphone to digitally monitor the phone’s activities, including incoming or outgoing calls, emails and text and photo messages. Alerts are sent notifying parents of any contact with unapproved people.

Radar comes from eAgency Inc., Newport Beach, Calif., and is geared toward 8- to 14-year-olds. Though Radar doesn’t yet work on the most basic cellphones and has limitations, including not notifying parents when a child uses a phone for Web browsing or instant messaging, eAgency says these improvements and others are in the works for future versions. Overall, Radar performed well and was user-friendly enough for tech-shy parents.

The company charges a monthly fee of $10 for one user or $15 for a family, which enables monitoring of up to five accounts. There’s no limit to the number of people who are alerted to a phone’s activities, as they don’t need to download Radar. Instead, notifications are sent via text message and/or email to a parent’s mobile device; they’re also collected on a Web site where all activities are listed together.

EAgency is careful to note that its software application isn’t spyware, lurking in the background of the device without making itself known. In fact, whenever the child’s phone is turned on, a message says it’s being monitored by Radar. This message also appears on the phone once daily.

For now, Radar only works on all BlackBerrys regardless of carrier, and eAgency has a deal on its www.MyMobileWatchdog.com site that can get BlackBerry Pearls free of charge for certain customers. But many parents’ kids already have basic cellphones or don’t want their kid to have a BlackBerry. In roughly a month, Radar will work with devices that run Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software, though this doesn’t help much, as these devices function more like BlackBerrys. Radar will be available for regular cellphones, like Motorola’s Razr, by mid-September.

I tested the product using a BlackBerry Pearl as the kid’s device and an LG Chocolate phone as the parent’s device that would get alerts of phone activity. To get Radar running on the Pearl, I sent a text message with a download link in it from the company Web site, and loaded the application onto the BlackBerry in a few seconds.

I used the Pearl as anyone might, adding names, numbers and emails of new friends and contacts that I wanted stored in my BlackBerry. I also used it to make and receive calls, and to send and receive emails and text messages. Every time any of these activities took place with an unapproved person, the parent phone was notified within seconds, as was my account on Radar’s Web site and the email addresses that I set up with my account.

Unknown people are automatically considered unapproved until you go onto the Radar Web site to change their status in your account. I accessed this account on MyMobileWatchdog.com with a username and password. EAgency asks that you call the number on its Web site the first time you set up a Radar account so that it can walk you through how the software application works with your child’s phone.

The account home page on Radar’s Web site is a clean space, organized using tabs at the top and six shortcuts in the center of the screen, including “Alerts,” which shows a comprehensive list of all the alerts.

Alert notifications are simple, stating who did what, when it was done, and what the message or call involved, such as the content of a text message or the documented length of a phone conversation. Radar won’t record phone conversations. Mobile alerts can be received via email (on a smart phone) or text message (on a regular cellphone or smart phone).

After using Radar for a few days, I realized some text message alerts were truncated due to the SMS standard that limits messages to 160 characters. So though your child might send a message with 100 characters in it, your alert might contain only 90 of those because characters are used up by notifications such as, “Katie has received an unauthorized text message from…”

Radar’s Web site offers a text message abbreviation dictionary so you can decipher what your kid is actually saying when he or she types “JTLYK” (just to let you know).

During testing my BlackBerry Pearl received an MMS, or Multimedia Message Service, containing a digital photo. My parent phone and email account were notified through a message with a link to this photo.

Alerts are also generated whenever a child adds a new contact to his or her device. A list of the most recent contacts added to the child’s device conveniently appears on the Radar account home page. By marking someone as “Approved,” a parent agrees not to be notified of contact between that person and the child. People marked as “Unapproved” and “Suspicious” will generate alert notifications.

Reports documenting your child’s interaction with specific people over certain time periods via text, email or voice calls can be generated at the click of a button. These reports can be printed out or digitally exported from Radar’s site using Internet Explorer as your browser.

For $10 or $15 monthly, Radar might be worth a try, especially with very young kids. But until Radar is available for the phones most popular with kids, parents will have to continue with their tried and true methods of keeping track of their kids’ phone use.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com