[The following is an article I wrote for the May 2008 issue of Children's Technology Review. For those unfamiliar with this monthly magazine, it's a great information resource to all the latest software, gaming, and technology products being released for children.]

Last month, I was presenting at a conference for education publishers when someone raised his hand and asked “What’s a Webkinz?” Hmmmm, I thought. Doesn’t everyone know about Webkinz World? Shouldn’t everyone know about this site and others like it without the excuse “I don’t have kids.” The next day, somebody asked me, “What’s an avatar?” I was starting to understand that there were still plenty of publishers firmly stuck in yesterday’s Web 1.0 world. But don’t worry. We’ll fix the problem the way we developers always do – with a Patch.

The Web 2.0.1 Patch is designed to help you become more thoughtful when creating interactive experiences for children (and it works well for school or library websites, as well). Installing this Patch in your brain is a quick and painless process as long as you have a USB 2.01 port just behind your left ear. Or, you can follow these three steps.

STEP 1 – Create an account for yourself in a virtual world like Club Penguin, Pirate’s Online, Nicktropolis, Second Life or any of the many virtual worlds that are popping up all over.
Once you have an account, test it out and play with it. Keep in mind – like many other Web 2.0 products available you may not see the benefits immediately, but you will see incremental improvements every time you come back to visit one of these virtual worlds.

STEP 2 – Upload digital photos to Flickr or a video to YouTube.
Don’t forget to include some tags that describe what you’re uploading so for others can easily find it. Once you have posted something, control your excitement, pat yourself on the back, and email friends and family with a link to your newly posted UGC (User Generated Content)!

STEP 3 – Create a personal profile on Facebook, LinkedIn, or any another similar social networking site.
If you don’t know one that’s right for you, ask a smart computer friend what she uses (chances are she will have already installed the 2.0.1 Patch and will be familiar with the requirements). If your techy friend is not available, casually ask someone under the age of 20 what sites they use. Don’t tell them that you are setting up a new account. If you do, he or she might give you that “Web 1.0 look” and then slowly back away.

Here are just a few of the benefits you’ll be able to enjoy from downloading and installing this Patch:

• You will start from, and work from, a central plan.
  If you’re designing a site or service with social features, there will be no more “winging it” or making it up as you go along. Thinking through the design of your new web idea, writing it down, and sharing it with all of your team members are more important now than ever before.
  

• You’ll test your work with your target audience.
  The Patch works best when testing is considered at the very beginning of your product’s definition on paper and throughout the development process. Some of you might explain “We never had to test our products during the Web 1.0 days!” Yes, in many ways the Web 1.0 days were a simpler time, and a time we will all look back on with nostalgia. However, the hustle and bustle of today’s fast-paced Web 2.0 world demands ongoing testing.
  

• After you install the 2.0.1 Patch, you’ll have zero tolerance for UI (user interface) mistakes.
  If buttons or other interactive controls don’t function as they are supposed to, your product will be in violation of the User’s Agreement. It is important to think through the entire user experience fully before launching an interactive product. This requirement can’t be overstated. You can’t blame it on Flash, Microsoft or some browser error. That’s the 1.0 baby talk of the past.
  

• If you are a Web 2.0 savvy developer, keep in mind that it is possible your audience is not acknowledging that he or she is a Web 1.0 user.
  Education outreach and friendly intervention is an important component of the Web 2.0 vision. Take the time to gently explain how their actions are hurting others around them. Also explain the benefits of the Web 2.0 universe. (Note: This should be apparent in the development documentation you will have recently created for your plan). To keep your Web 2.0 chops fresh, try out the latest ground breaking technologies, like the iPod Touch interface, for example. You may not know how to find it at first, but be diligent.

These steps can avoid wasting countless hours and dollars, and they can prevent you from having to install the 2.1.1 Patch and a 2.1 Update. In the end, keeping your Patches up-to-date can result in better products and happier users.

On May 9th, the first ever Joan Ganz Cooney Center Symposium was kicked off at the McGraw-Hill offices located in New York City. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is the newest addition to the Sesame Workshop enterprise. Its mission is to offer guidance, research and insight into how children can learn through emerging media. The symposium itself was an amazing event. A stellar list of speakers and influential attendees from diverse areas of education, broadcast, gaming and the toy world came together to discuss the future of learning and technology for children in the 21st century. This jam-packed event included presentations from over 34 different industry insiders. Over 150 invited guests filled the room. Included on the guest list was Congressman George Miller (D-CA) who is the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

All of the presentations offered many important perspectives and voices that are shaping the learning and technology conversation today. A number of speakers served up new research and valuable insights to chew on long after the event concluded. While there was significant take-away from all of the speakers, I would like to call out two specific presentations. These include the presentations of Connie Yowell of the MacArthur Foundation and Jennifer Kotler of Sesame Workshop.

First and foremost, Connie Yowell’s presentation on new learning paradigms was simply amazing, passionately delivered, and has given many folks the most food for thought about the future of new media and learning. Connie expressed the importance of seeking out the right questions to ask at the beginning of our journey, stating that in order for us to realize the opportunity in front of us, we must be ready for a significant paradigm shift in the existing learning conversation. I heard many attendees echo the importance of Connie’s words at the conclusion of the event. In the matrix below, I have included an audio recording of Connie’s presentation. A transcription of her comments can also be found in my next blog article.

During this part of the symposium, both Ellen Wartella (of UC Riverside) and Connie Yowell’s words were offered in succession and both speakers expressed a great need for more research and a significant rethinking of our current approach to education and learning. Their comments were vital ones to be heard by policy makers, and while Representative George Miller attended the event for most of the day, sadly he left just before Ellen and Connie took the stage.

The next presentation I’d like to call attention to was that delivered by Jennifer Kotler. Jennifer presented two reports, but one in particular has an important story to be told. This report gathered information from interviews conducted with children ages 6 to 9. It asked them about their favorite games and websites. Included within this report was a very clever validity check that, when its findings were presented, calls into question any other self-reported findings from other organizations asking similar questions about kids and online preferences.

In the study, kids were asked about their technology preferences. Included within the interview question sets were six non-existent website and game names. That’s right, online products that were completely fictitious and do not exist. What this report revealed was that 56% of those surveyed claimed to have played these non-existent games and websites. How could this be?

What the research suggests is that kids may be more likely to exaggerate their actual use of technology because of the apparent “cool factor” and/or the aspirational aspect of these technologies. How does this cool/aspirational factor play out within the data? Here are just a couple of examples: When kids were asked if they have ever visited a MySpace page, the “clean” data suggests that only 19% of those surveyed have visited the popular online destination whereas the non-valid data states the number is 54%. When asked about posting video on YouTube, the numbers are 7% (valid data) vs 42% (non-valid data).

These findings suggest that similar studies conducted by other organizations would benefit greatly by the inclusion of a validity test in their research. If not, the numbers reported could be significantly skewed from what they should be. Now that we’re all armed with this information, go back and look at all the claims regarding other popular children’s destinations, like Club Penguin, Webkinz, and the like. Hmmmmm.

I would also like to call out presentations made by Bernie Trilling of Oracle Education Foundation about 21st Century Learning Skills, Allison Druin for her work with the International Children’s Digital Library project, Krista Marks of Kerpoof, James Paul Gee and his report on Getting Over the Slump, and Jim Styer of Common Sense Media for his report on how parents and educators view the educational potential of new media.

The matrix below offers audio recordings, papers, and related websites collected from the event. Friends and colleagues who know me well will tell you that I’m rarely without a camera or recording device at such events. I believe it’s important to capture and share such information with everyone so that industries can move forward together. The list below includes audio recordings from most of the speakers. However, my apologies go out to the last 8 or so speakers, mostly from Warren Buckleitner’s Dust or Magic panel, for by the end of the day my recording device lost power.

All of the audio clips can be downloaded as a single zipped file here.

The world’s first hydrogen powered toy, called H2Go, was presented at the 2008 NY Toy Fair by a company called Corgi. The fully functioning prototypes Corgi brought to the show were very impressive and the best example of toy technology innovation at the show.

The remote controlled car is powered by hydrogen fuel which is separated out from common tap water through a device called the “Refueling Station”, or as the company commonly referred to as the “cooker” Connect the car up to the cooker via a small fueling tube, press the plunger down on the cooker to force the hydrogen into the car, and away you go! The cooker and the remote control itself are powered by rechargeable batteries.

Corgi demonstrated a strong commitment to being as green as possible by quoting just what percentage of renewable energy was used through the combination of the different components that power the car. The car, cooker, and remote control sell together for $100. The solar panel, which can be purchased separately costs an extra $20. Without the solar panel, the cooker and remote control require a traditional electric outlet to recharge its batteries.

Irwin Toy creates the ME2, a handheld product that collects “motion points” in the real world and converts those points into online currency.

Every year when I attend the New York Toy Fair I may see a few thousand toys in the course of four days. I was recently speaking with another toy reviewer who said, “Did you ever notice that even though you see thousands of new toys, you will only remember maybe five of the best products?” This observation has served me well. What stands out in a Toy Fair attendee’s memory after seeing so many products will usually go on to be the breakthrough later in the year. I believe the ME2 by Irwin Toy will be one of those breakthrough products, not just in the toy space, but also in the virtual worlds and social networking space as well.

Let me start with some background information. The ME2 is a handheld device that has a small 8-bit color screen that measures about 2 by 1.5 inches. Each ME2 comes with one onboard game. The ME2 can also be docked to your computer via a USB port. When the ME2 is connected to your computer, access to an online 3D virtual world is granted. The website which is being developed will be www.me2universe.com, but currently this part of the product offering is not available to the public. (More information about the ME2 will become available at this link within the next few weeks.) Additional games can be loaded onto the ME2 after connecting to and exploring the online ME2 world.

Once you create and customize your own avatar, you can begin to explore this fully immersive 3D world. Within this world there are many different “islands” to explore, but you can’t visit another island until you successfully complete challenges that are on each island. To complete a challenge, you may need to purchase “in world” items to help solve puzzles. And here’s the amazing part of this entire product offering; To purchase items in this virtual word, you don’t use a credit card or real dollars. Your own activity level in the physical world earns points and therefore purchasing power online.

While the ME2 is a handheld gaming device, it also acts as a pedometer, a tool used to measure the distance or energy people exerted when they go for a walk or a jog. When the ME2 is attached to a child’s belt or is in his pocket, the device collects “action points”. When the ME2 is later connected to a computer, these points are then uploaded to an online account, and then become the currency used to purchase items in the online world. Do you need to buy a boat to cross a virtual river in the online world to solve a challenge but don’t have enough points to buy it? Well, go outside and walk around the block to gain more points. Do you need to purchase a virtual flashlight to see inside a cave but don’t have the currency? Take a ride on your bike across town in the real world, collect points on your ME2, and you’ll have enough credits online to purchase that item! The ME2 is a brilliant solution for online engagement as well as promoting physical activity in the offline world.

In addition to the release of the product, there will be a social networking component. Members will be able to communicate with other avatars in an open chat manner. Communication will be filtered as well as monitored in real time by people looking to ensure that text exchanges between members are appropriate and safe.

The target audience of this product is primarily 8 – 12 year olds, but looks like it could extend nicely out to 6 – 14. The ME2 should be available for purchase in August 2008 and is anticipated to cost between $34.99 and $39.99. This is a one-time purchase and there is no monthly subscription fee to gain access to the online world. This online access model makes it easy to give the ME2 as a gift when compared to sites that require a monthly subscription fee. I also noticed that this product may have a very strong boy appeal, which is something not commonly found in online destinations for children in the 8 – 12 age range.

The ME2 stands above the many other virtual world and social networking “me too” offerings available to kids. Irwin Toy has carefully picked the right combination of online and offline components to make this the innovative product to watch in the months ahead. What a great job for all involved at Irwin Toy. Thank you for sharing your announcement with me!

To see a videotaped demo of ME2 from Toy Fair, click the window below.

I’ve just made it back from the 2008 New York Toy Fair. In the last five years I’ve been attending the show, this was definitely one of the best. One of the big reasons I attend is to see how technology is being applied to toys, both for fun and for learning. Year after year the Youth Electronics supercategory, a description within the toy industry to measure tech toy sales, grows by leaps and bounds. This year’s use of technology in toys was, for the most part, outstanding. Every year a number of themes present themselves at the show. Here’s are the themes I’ve seen at this years event:

• Social Networking, Virtual Worlds, and Web Connected Devices – I counted at least twelve new or relaunched social networking / virtual world destinations for children. Some had an offline product like a stuffed toy complete with a code to unlock an online destination. Others had a device that would connect to your computer via the USB port.
  
  
• Robots and Animatronic Devices – Many more robots this year. Mattel/Fisher-Price and Hasbro had some of the biggest announcements with robotic life-like dolls and animals. Also many more robot making kits were on display.
  
  
• Motion-based Products – The Nintendo Wii has definitely had its influence on the toy industry. New motion-based devices for children were on display. However, a number of these tech toy products can only detect motion on an XY plane.
  
  
• Green Products – A surprising number of companies were eager to tell you just how environmentally friendly their products were. From the materials used in their toys to the clever solutions discovered to power toys without batteries to the biodegradable packaging the product ships in. I was overwhelmed by the number of companies that were trying to do the right thing for the environment.
  
  
• High School Musical – The licensing groups at Disney must be working overtime. Many booths had products using the High School Musical brand to promote their new crop of toys.
  
  
• Dinosaurs – Last year I blogged that it would be the year of the guitar. This year it was noted that many dinosaur products will be coming out later this year. Some simply model kits, some stuffed toys, many robotic.

In the coming days I’ll be posting more information on a few of the products I think will become tech toy sensations later this year. Stay tuned!

Based on the buzz and advertising build up before this year’s NY Toy Fair, I’ve been predicting that the digital toy company Techno Source had a unique technology announcement to make. Just a few days before the show started, signs were pointing to a collaboration between Techno Source and Disney. Both were planning to deliver a big announcement on February 18 at Toy Fair. I made it to the press event and the news definitely raises the bar for the future of successful social networking sites and virtual worlds.

As the news outlets have been reporting since Disney’s acquisition of Club Penguin, Disney is very interested in growing its online virtual world properties. in the last seven months we’ve seen a number of virtual world announcements from Disney. Disney and Techno Source jointly announced their work together to create the latest in virtual world experiences called Pixie Hallow and a physical extension to that world called Clickables. While you can create your own custom fairies today, the Pixie Hallow site will launch later this year.

Pixie Hallow is a virtual world where girls ages 8 – 12 can create their own fairy avatar and explore, better yet “fly”, through the magical fairy world. The world will also include many games and communication tools to interact with other fairies through a number of safe filtered, monitored and canned communication methods. As you can imagine, PixieHallow is beautiful, lush, and visually captivating world. However, the biggest surprise in this world is how Disney developed the art in this world. In true Disney fashion, this virtual world was developed using a multiplane camera technique often used in Disney animated features. This visual technique is also sometimes referred to as a parallax process which is often used to animate and bring alive background art. What’s so unique about this? It’s a striking visual technique that gives the illusion of depth in the virtual word that I have yet to see anywhere else online. It’s a 2D enhancement that ads a level of realism to the product. Each plane of the background moves at its own unique speed. Items in the foreground more at a faster speed than items in the background. If you’ve ever worked in Flash you know that Flash tends to choke on large moving animations. Flash generally doesn’t play nice when it comes to pushing multiple layers of full screen motion either, let alone a single layer of full screen art. Whatever Disney discovered to pull off the effect, I applaud their engineering and animation teams for their success. Job well done!

So Pixie Hallow is the Disney side of this announcement. Techno Source brings a complimentary and compelling experience to the party in the form of a technology called Clickables. Clickables in its simplest form, are like tiny little digital buttons that can be attached to any item; jewelry, notebooks, clothing, whatever. Each button contains a tiny piece of data inside. An initial use for these buttons is to create charms for bracelets. A bracelet can have many different dangling charms but also has a main touch pad location on the bracelet where charm information from a friend can be transferred and captured. Once the tiny bits of information are captured, the bracelet can be “docked” and that information will be uploaded to your virtual fairly account. When this is done, information about your friend is added to your account. The uploaded information also unlocks different online trinkets and game experiences as well.

The beauty of Clickables is that this social experience is not purely a virtual one. Clickables technology, combined with the Pixie Hallow virtual world, encourages real world interaction and real world engagement. Once you’ve physically met someone, clicked bracelets upload that shared, real world event to your Pixie Hallow account. No longer do you have to worry about connecting with people online that you’ve never met.

I’m seeing many unique possibilities for Clickables beyond the Pixie Hallow experience. Similar uses of the technologies could make attending real world exciting long after the event is over. Be prepared to see more announcements related to this new way of connecting with people in the physical world and then sharing more meaningful relationships online.

As I was preparing my presentation for the Dust or Magic conference mentioned in my previous post, I couldn’t help but notice how much new activity there is in the kids’ social networking world. As the researcher Peter Grunwald shared with me last month, social networking as a concept has always been available on the Internet. Even so, it seems to have some newer meaning in the context of an activity kids express interest in. Last year at this time, I was only familiar with maybe four sites for kids. Fast forward a year, and I am amazed at how many more companies are playing in this space, some of which have been around for years but are only now gaining visibility. Not all of these sites are of equal quality and, right or wrong in their approach, each has a different set of assumptions about how to engage children. Below is a list of the social networking websites I am aware of today. It is not a complete list. My definition of social networking sites is a little broad, but there’s no denying the growth in this space.

By graphing these sites by the year in which they launched, one begins to see the growth trend of social networking websites for kids.



Since March of this year, my company, 360KID, has received a number of requests to build new social networking websites. More calls started coming in after the Club Penguin acquisition by Disney. Some people who call are driven by one thing- to create a Club Penguin-like website that’s better than Club Penguin. While Club Penguin has many great things going on within its service, there are certainly other avenues within the social networking world to explore. After comparing different sites currently available for kids, I see many unique opportunities to take advantage of, especially ones that touch on different areas of learning. Below is a matrix showing different content segments and age groups that are covered (or not) within the social networking world.

The blue shading indicates age groups that are less motivated by social features but are interested in community-based activities. Companies listed in italics offer activities that are much more community than socially driven.

While reviewing all of these sites and speaking with many different people interested in building social networking sites for kids, I have put together a short list of do’s and don’ts that put the interests of the child first and will ultimately create more successes with your intended audience:

• Don’t design by committee – Keep the integrity and the strength of your design strong by defining with small teams. Have anywhere from one to three strong visionaries of equal voice define the broad strokes of your product.
• Be open ended in your design – If you can avoid it, don’t force children to play in a specific way. Think how you can allow for multiple ways for children to interact and play within your environment.
• Think emotional connection – Offer activities or avatar characteristics that will create a sense of empathy with your user.
• Design for a very specific audience – Pick a specific age range, like 3 to 5 or 7 to 9. Then learn as much as you can about that audience, like its developmental strengths, play patterns, interests. Don’t design a product with the intent of appealing to a large age range, like 3 to 300. Designing for a broad audience tends to have the outcome of appealing to no single group.
• Competing against a community vs. competing against yourself – I’m asked a lot about my thoughts related to leader boards, which are areas of gaming sites in which the top score places high on a list of other members of a community. While I understand the motivation of leader boards for certain audience segments as a motivator, a game mechanic like a leader board, can also turn away other audience types. There are some instances where leader boards can be used effectively, like in classroom vs. classroom competitions, but generally, I am opposed to using such features, especially when a desired outcome is informal learning.
• Text – I am continually surprised as to how often a web product designed for very young children doesn’t take into consideration that their audience may consist of prereaders or emerging readers. Be thoughtful with your use of text and instructions. Consider visual, iconic, or audio instructions as opposed to text with younger audience members.

Is this race to develop social networking sites for kids a boom or a bubble? If you asked me a couple of months ago, I would have said a bust is on the horizon in this space. But the more I think about it, the more I’m seeing a new play pattern emerging which kids will really enjoy when developed correctly. That doesn’t mean that everyone will succeed. There will be many failures and few successes, but I believe the future successes will keep this sector of interactive products for children growing strong for many years to come.

These are a few thoughts I shared in my recent presentation at the Dust or Magic conference. To see the full presentation I delivered, you can view a video of my presentation below.

Just after I wrote an article called A Survey of Kids’ Social Networking Sites, a noteworthy report was released by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) and the research firm Grunwald Associates which takes a look at how students use and experience social networking sites. In the report called Creating & Connecting // Research and Guidelines on Online Social — and Educational — Networking some 1,277 students ages nine to 17 were surveyed online about their online social networking habits. In addition to the student survey, 1,039 parents and 250 school district leaders were also interviewed by telephone about their thoughts regarding students using social networking sites. This 12 page brief offers up some surprising statistics and contains just a very small fraction of the much larger in-depth report which can be purchased through Grunwald Associates.

Here I’ve separated out just the student responses found in this smaller report. This first set of statistics reveal how students are active participants and creative contributors in online social networking and community-based destinations:

• 96% of all students who have access to the Internet report that they have used social networking technologies (including chat, text messaging, blogging and visiting online communities)
• 81% say they have visited a social networking site within the past three months
• 71% say they use social networking sites at least weekly
• 41% say they post comments on message boards every week
• 21% say they post comments on message boards every day
• 12% upload music or podcasts of their own creation at least weekly
• 9% say they upload video of their own creation at least weekly
• 25% update their personal Web site or online profiles at least weekly
• 12% update their personal Web site or online profiles every day
• 30% report having there own blogs

This next set of data calls out how students encounter problems online with inappropriate content, cyberbullying, privacy and strangers:

• 20% of all students say they have seen inappropriate pictures on social networking sites
• 16% say they have seen inappropriate language on social networking sites
• 7% say they have experienced self-defined cyberbullying
• 7% say someone has asked them for information about their personal identity on a social networking site
• 4% say they have had conversations on social networking sites that made them feel uncomfortable
• 3% say they’ve given out their email addresses, instant messaging screen names, or other personal identification to strangers
• 3% say unwelcome strangers have tried repeatedly to communicate with them online
• 2% say a stranger they met online tried to meet them in person
• 0.08% of all students say they’ve actually met someone in person from an online encounter without their parent’s permission

After reading about the recent acquisition of social networking superstar Club Penguin by Disney, I started taking stock of other social networking sites available for kids. I have my long-term favorites like Whyville because of its educational mission, and Webkinz because of their tangible toy / virtual world business model. But after digging through dozens of websites that claim to have a social networking component, I realize that many of these sites apply this term loosely. For example, if a website allows a user to play many different games and activities online, complete with a customized avatar, and allows a user the ability to see other user’s avatars in games, without communication occuring between community members, does this constitute a social networking environment? If the communication occurs outside of a virtual world’s website, in the form of an email to and from members, does this mean such a service has a social networking component?

I assembled a list of kids’ social networking websites I’m currently watching. Each site has a very defined method of communicating with its members. They include the following:

This list defines social networking sites that are just for kids ages 12 and under, though some sites creep up a little beyond 12 years of age. The only exception I added to this list is Runescape. Runescape is a very popular massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) that was not specifically developed for kids, but kids have found it and they flock to it. Runescape is not for all kids, and parents should judge for themselves about whether it’s right or not for their own child. Runescape is a battle-like virtual world environment, and chat can occur with anyone who plays online, even though it is filtered and monitored. Since no age is recommended by the site, I recommend ages 11 or 12 and higher.

A few notes about my chart.

• Any site that includes ads and is marked with an asterisk (“*”) means that this site has ads only related to the products this company offers (i.e. Webkinz ads are just for other Webkinz items).
• In terms of cost, most sites have a free to use or a monthly fee component. Sometimes these sites have two tiers of service where the paid service offers more bells and whistles. Sometimes a product needs to be purchased instead of paying a monthly subscription in order to reach the higher tiered service.
• How communication occurs with community members varies. “Canned chat” means users can communicate with each other through a short list of pre-approved words and phrases. Nothing else. (Click here to see an example of ToonTown’s canned chat in action, or here for the history behind the development of this version of chat called “SpeedChat”.) “Filtered chat” relies on software tools to strip out bad words, names, locations, and inappropriate content. Many times a live monitor oversees all communication written back and forth to users, in addition to these software filtering tools. imbee is unique in that any messages that are sent to your child have the option of being approved by the parent before being forwarded on.

There are other sites worth knowing about, but span ages from older teen to adult. Sites like Piczo, Dubit, Faketown, and CyWorld (all ages). Generally I find the older the demographic, the less monitoring and filtering of messages between users.

If you’re aware of other social networking sites for kids or teens please do share here with similar details about target age, cost, and how members socialize with each other.

It’s official. Acquisition season in the children’s social networking world has begun. Moments ago, Disney acquired the wildly successful children’s social networking site Club Penguin for $350 million dollars. Club Penguin launched its unique online service for children in October 2005, just six months after another wildly successful social networking website for children, Webkinz. This past June, Club Penguin reached 4.7 million unique visitors to it site according to comScore Media Metrix.

While the folks at Club Penguin have recently been in discussion with Sony regarding the sale of the company, negotiations broke down just a few short weeks ago with the technology giant.

There has been a buzz of activity related to social networking in the last year and we’ve yet to hear the end of it. What’s noteworthy about this particular deal? Here are a few of my predictions:

• This is the first major acquisition in the children’s social networking space. Plan to see similar acquisitions soon.
• Many more social networking site for kids have launched in the last two months, with many more yet to be announced.
• So much activity is occurring in the kids’ social networking environment, that this specific online activity for children is positioned to become very crowded over the next six months.

Stay tuned for lots more activity and news in this space! (For related blog articles, see my posts in April and May of 2007.)