HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Hope your day is joyous And filled with the things you love (candy… or turtles… lol).

What Kids What and See on TV

Maya Götz on Gender in/and Kids TV
Kidscreen magazine is currently doing a three-part profile on recent research [...]

Weds in the News

I got to do the “news snapshot” of the day at work, so I thought I’d share the stuff I stumbled across in the last 15 minutes of RSS feed stalking….

Playfish raises $17 million for social games

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/10/playfish-raises-17m-for-social-games.html

Game folks vs web folks

http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/10/27/game-folks-vs-web-folks/
An in-depth review of the Club Penguin birthday bash in New York
http://www.360kid.com/blog/2008/10/club-penguins-anniversary-bash-in-nyc/
Tween girl property Miss [...]

NY Meet Club Penguin

Club Penguin celebrates its third anniversary! To mark the event, Disney and Club Penguin held a big anniversary party this past Friday in the heart of New York City. Excited fans and their parents could be found waddling around the festivities inside the midtown Manhattan Toys R Us and also across the street in the [...]

OT: More Alice in Wonderland news

Also now confirmed for the movie is Danny Elfman, who will be scoring the film for his long time friend and partner. Elfman’s skills, understandably, weren’t need for TODD as the Stephen Sondheim music was already in place.
Elfman confirmed it last week…
Burton has put together an amazing cast…
Mia Wasikowska as Alice
Johnny Depp as The Mad [...]

BONKERS: Real world Jail for Virtual Drama

TOKYO – A 43-year-old Japanese piano teacher’s sudden divorce from her online husband in a virtual game world made her so angry that she logged on and killed his digital persona, police said Thursday.
The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password [...]

Buildabearville to the rescue!

Pointing to the negative impact of the economy on retail sales, Clark emphasized promotion of Build-A-Bearville (population: 6 million), a virtual world where bear buyers can interact with furry friends and spend money on virtual items.
To monetize the virtual world, Build-A-Bear will sell $10 Bear Build game cards, which provide players with 10,000 “Bear Builds” [...]

The value of community to gaming

Why is [the value of gaming to users] valuable to a publisher or developer?
If publishers are able to adequately plan and execute a portfolio-wide community strategy, they stand to strengthen their brand, expand their customer relationships greatly and form a community with identifiable cultural and behavioral traits. 
Real-time customer feedback is guaranteed, [...]

Kids Elect Obama

Did you see the news last night? Did you? I mean the news on Nickelodeon, of course, with Linda Ellerbee. Because they let the kids vote for president, and the votes are in: The kids’ choice is Senator Barack Obama!
Ty’s Toy Box Blog » Blog Archive » Nickelodeon kids elect Obama president
Check out TTB’s blog [...]

Edgar & Ellen still goin’ strong!

The food chain Del Taco celebrates Halloween by including Edgar & Ellen in its Kids Loco Meal.  Edgar & Ellen and their hairy-eyeball pet, Pet, will be featured on toys and point-of-sale materials at 500+ Del Taco restaurants this month.  The premiums include an Edgar & Ellen themed puzzle, a concentration card game, door hangers [...]