Ypulse Tween Tech Roundup
Posted by anastasia on 04-30-2007
Wagner James Au over at GigaOm referred to the announcement of InterActiveCorp's launch of its new virtual world for tweens called Zwinktopia as part of "a virtual-world-for-kids gold rush." The only problem is that Zwinktopia is technically not for kids or most of what we consider tweens — it's 13 and up — so is Gaia. Anyhow, tween community guru Izzy Neis has a nice round-up of sites in this space that actually are for kids and tweens (vs. 13 and up).
It will be interesting to see if more established brands like Barbie and Nickelodeon will take off in the same way as new sites like Club Penguin seems to have. They certainly have more money to spend on creating related products like the Barbie MP3 player (which I have a feeling will not just be popular with girls — it's kinda cute). As companies like Mattel, Viacom, Disney and LEGO invest in building virtual worlds, it will be interesting to compare their success with more tech oriented start-ups like Habbo, Whyville, Gaia. etc.
In the tween mobile space, the Virginia-based start-up Kajeet has teamed up with Whyville (MediaPost, reg. required) to market its phones to tweens.
And, there is now another new tween oriented blog called Girls Say What?, which draws its inspiration from the tween blogging site Allykatz.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
You spoil me so!
I'm glad you found the Gaia thing to be odd too– I've a bunch of U13 kids in E&E's community that mention Gaia from time to time. I'm always confused about who their target demographic is…because they (like Zwinky) seem to have a flare (or flavor) of tween to them.
Weird.
Anyway, sorry I missed you in Chicago! Hope you caught some of the rock'n weather this past weekend! Uber nice. :)
April 30th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Thanks for including ALLYKATZZ! The girls have worker REALLY HARD to make the new site fantastic, and they love having the chance to find eachother in a fun, cool but SAFE place!