Heads up: Parent and kid virtual world on the scene

Online Community Handipoints Creates Virtual World

Handipoints, an online community aimed at helping parents encourage good behavior in children, has launched HandiLand, a virtual world tied to the same concept of encouraging real-world action. Users earn points by completing tasks set by their parents. The points can then be used for in-world purchases like cartoons or games or for real-world rewards set by parents. Targeted at kids aged 4 to 12, HandiLand is positioning itself in the Webkinz and Club Penguin market, though aiming as much at parents as kids. The Handipoints community has over 140,000 users and the company says the beta of the world has seen 92,000 kids and 48,000 parents since its launch in November 2007. The site is currently free, but the company plans to adopt a subscription model for premium content down the road.

Virtual Worlds News: Online Community Handipoints Creates Virtual World

Wow– here’s another VW based on equalizing & reprioritizing the parent relationship to their child online.  It reminds me a bit of Minyanland.com– a place for kids to learn about banking & the responsibility of money.  Kids can earn money & such through winning & CHORES set up by their mom’s and pop’s. 

For some random off beat reason, it reminds me of the scene in “Liar, Liar” where Jim Carrey has a piece of paper, crumbles it up, and recreates it in the form of a swan– something a lot more interesting for a certain crowd than say, it’s original form. 

I find it very ambitious for them to go after the Webkinz, Club Penguin crowd as both are more entertainment, kid-world based… as in, they created a world for, around, and through kids.  No adults allowed.  A kid’s escapism from the parental monopoly of the world, into a place where they matter the most– top of the food chain, etc.  And now to have a new site catered to the collaboration of parent & kid?  Could be great for a good handful of families out there, but over all… I can’t help but wonder if kids will lean back towards the kid-dominated world.  Fingers crossed for the best!

I’ll jump in today and bring back any interesting tidbits. 

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Tags: parents, kids, youth, chores, families, family, entertainment, edutainment, virtual world, online community

Early Heads Up: Guppylife

GuppyLife is an MMO for girls. The overall purpose of the game is to take care of the small furry inhabitants of the world, the guppies. A guppy is a small life loving creature with an innocence of a child and a thrill for fun and adventure. Guppies are quite intelligent. With a little guidance they learn to sing, dance, and most importantly be nice to both friends and strangers. Without guidance however, they will pickup bad habits or get sad and depressed.

Using our proprietary unique AI engine, GWAI, the guppies can learn both by example and by own investigation, teach each other skills, such as where to look for food, and have social relations with the player and other guppies.

guppyworks.com :: GuppyLife

First of all… PREEEEEEEEEEEEETTY (well, maybe the pretty factor loses it’s pretty-ness with these friend-of-Gumby-Look-alikes, lolz. The Blue friend of Gumby, ya know– the chick– she always kinda freaked me out):

But seriously– Go check it out at the link above. Again, preeeeeeeetty.

Other than the info found on that page, I don’t know too much. Discovered this gem over at Wonderland - which is always a great RSS treasure. I’ll be adding this to my future Beta list, and keeping a sharp eye for more. Guppyworks, the parent company, seems to have a few game/worlds for Hans Christen Anderson, whom I love (especially as he lives in the form of Danny Kaye in my head).

Anyone have any more info?

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Tags: MMO, girls, virtual worlds, guppylife

Stats: Girl vs Boy

A thoughtful New York Times piece looks at the social Web’s young innovators and reports that “the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls,” referring to the Pew/Internet findings that they’re the biggest creators of Web graphics, blogs, photos, profile pages, and sites (35% of girls 12-17 have blogs vs. 20% of boys; 32% of girls have Web pages vs. 22% of boys; and 70% of girls 15-17 have social-site profiles vs. 57% of boys 15-17).

NetFamilyNews

There’s more to that stat information, so cruise on over to NFN.  Their ConnectSafety forum is one of the best, most frightening and highly educational bulletin boards I’ve seen.  It’s many times VERY pure, blunt conversations regarding safety online & so on (the IMVU stuff freaks me out).  Must read for anyone “toying” with the idea of working online with the U18 demographic.  Fears and cheers, my friends, fears and cheers.

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