| |
 |
| |
Social Networking For The Milk and Cookies Set?
Club Penguin, WebKinz cater to elementary school Internet users
October 7th, 2007—At Club Penguin.com, children as young as 5 are learning to social network, ala MySpace, using their personalized penguin avatars. This is no child’s fantasy, though. Club Penguin is a very real, very popular site for elementary school children as young as 5, according to a recent report from Rueters.com
The co-founder of Club Penguin.com, Lane Merrifield, got the idea for the site while watching his five year old play on the computer. “What we really wanted,” said Merrifield “was for this to be an online sandbox.”
Over the past few months, virtual networking sites have seen a revenue boom that has transformed them from a novelty to a very profitable business. In August, the Canada based Club Penguin was purchased for a reported $350 million dollars by The Walt Disney Co. With over 10 million users, 700,000 of whom have actually purchased subscriptions that allow them to use virtual money to buy clothes, furniture, and personalized igloos for their virtual penguins.
Hot on the heels of the virtual penguin Club Med is Webkinz, which has turned the 57 year old Canadian stuffed animal company Ganz, into a high tech firm. Company President Howard Ganz, stumbled on the idea of creating stuffed animals that contain an interactive computer chip while searching for a way to make plush toys more relevant to the technology based 21st Century, according to the Rueters.com report.
“Kids seem to be born with a mouse in their hands, “ Webkinz spokeswoman Susan McVeigh said. “There just isn’t that barrier to the computer. It just seems so natural to them.”
The Webkinz plush toys, courtesy of their computer chips, have virtual pet counterparts for which users can purchase decorations, furniture, and virtual accessories, using virtual money, which is earned by taking educational quizzes and playing games. Users can also interact with one another virtually, adding “friends” to their profiles in a format similar to MySpace.
As these types of sites and products increase in popularity, some child privacy advocates have raised concerns that social networking sites aimed at children provide a way for child predators to contact them. Law enforcement officials, however, have responded positively to these sites. According to detective inspector of the Child Abuse Investigation Command at London’s Metropolitan Police High Tech crime Unit, these kid oriented sites offer parents a safer way to introduce children to the Internet.
“It is the first time we’ve come across a sort of chat experience that is aimed right at the beginning, of a first-use club for a child using the Internet, “ Ward told Reuters.
“I’d rather this than go straight to a social networking site where there would be far less protection.”
Read More Articles
|
|
|
Privacy Policy Code of Ethics Articles