Kid & Family-Friendly Social Media Sites, Part 2

When you think “social media,” sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter immediately come to mind.  But although these sites are hugely popular with audiences of all ages and feature things like games and videos, they are not by any means the safest (or most fun) places for kids online.

Last week we explored the world of social media from a parent’s perspective.  We wanted to know what kinds of sites are out there that cater to young children, and how safe they are.  Today we bring you Part 2 of our findings, and highlight some of the best online communites, sites, and apps for parents with young children to explore with safety as the number one concern.

Webkinz

Webkinz is an online community for kids with a unique premise.  Kids buy “real” Webkinz–lovable plush pet animals (that can be purchased at a toy store)–which come with a secret code that unlocks the virtual world of Webkinz. Webkinz are hugely popular with both young and older children (reminiscent of the Beanie Baby craze) because they can interact with their new pet virtually via the Webkinz site.  Additional online content includes games, trivia, virtual pets, crafts, and more.  Parents love Webkinz because it’s a very safe environment where they can manage their child’s time spent in the Webkinz world and monitor chat usage, and reward kids with “KinzCash.”

Webkinz averages over 6 million unique visitors per month.

Club Penguin

Disney’s Club Penguin is a snow covered virtual world community for kids 6 to 14 years of age, in which they create their own Penguin Avatar. It’s free to play, chat and join in on activities, but a membership fee which ranges from $5.95/month to $57.95/year will guarantee upgrades and access to more activities and events happening on the island. A part of the membership proceeds are used to support efforts to improve the lives of children and families around the world. Club Penguin provides educational and creative tools to challenge kids. The company also prides itself on safety and offers both an ultimate (pre-defined menu), and standard (message is filtered and pre-approved) safe chat, excluding phone numbers and personal information.

Disney’s Club Penguin has over 12M activated users, over 4.7M unique visitors in June, 2009 & no 3rd party advertising.

Handipoints

Handipoints is a safe, family-oriented virtual community where kids do real chores to earn virtual or real world rewards.  There’s even a virtual world called HandiLand for kids to play in and explore where they can also have fun using their virtual adopted cartoon cat to roam around the site and talk to their friends. Parents use the provided “parenting tools” to assign chores, assign points, and check off tasks. This is a fun and easy way to teach saving and responsible habits while keeping kids engaged and motivated. This virtual community is for kids 6 to 12 and upgrading to the “Cool Cats Club” for just $5.95/ month gets you even more fun.

Handipoints has about 550,000 users per month.

Kidmondo

Kidmondo is a secure, online personalized baby journal for parents, friends and relatives. All of the tools needed to chronicle, organize, store and share your child’s information are in one easily accessible safe place. Kidmondo’s features an Online Diary, Growth Charts, Photo & Video Gallery, Health and Medical & Food Journals. The basic service is free, includes 3 journals and 100MB worth of space. The upgraded Plus Plan is $39/ year and includes unlimited journals and 1GB of space. You can email stories or photos directly to your journal from anywhere using a Blackberry, Smartphone or iPhone. Gift Certificates are available and would make a great Baby Shower gift.

Kidmondo has about 1.8M unique visitors per month.

KidzClix

KidzClix, billed as the Web’s premier “edu-tainment” venue, is a subscription-based online community aimed at kids, parents, and teachers with a world of fun, educational activities to explore.  The members’ section of the site features online forums, chat rooms, message boards–even an online networking space called KidzConnect just for kids!  All of these features are members-only, and advertised as being very heavily moderated to ensure a safe Web experience for children.  Created by the staff of The Center for the Gifted, the KidzClix mission is to provide children of elementary and middle school age with activities that strive to inspire critical and creative thinking, foster originality, and develop imaginations.  Membership is $6.95/month.

NoodleNet

NoodleNet is a child protection software application that parents download and install on their computer.  It provides a total solution for a safe browsing and computing experience for young children, disabling access to personal computer files, pop-up ads and instant messaging, as well as limiting keyboard commands, and most importantly, providing access to only the safest and kid-friendliest websites and social networks.  NoodleNet is designed with a child’s usability in mind, and features simple controls with audio prompts.  The software is subscription-based, priced at $39.99 per year (or $4.99 per month), which pays for NoodleNet’s constantly updated safety features and website pre-screening service.

We hope you enjoyed our peek into the kid-friendly side of social media.  Thanks to these great websites and applications, and the companies behind them, the Internet CAN be a safe and fun place for kids to play.

Related posts:

1. Kid & Family-Friendly Social Media Sites, Part 1
2. In the age of Social Media, Copyright Protections Seem Anti-Social
3. Social Media Plays a Role in History
4. Teens Seeing Red With New AOL Service

3 Comments »

1. It seems to me that Webkinz is dropping in popularity while Club Penguin continues to skyrocket. Disney’s investment into Club Penguin seems to paying off, and the Nintendo DS game that was released a little while back helped attract more users into the online environment. Club Penguin is also branching out into other languages which will only expand its global reach.
   .-= David´s last blog ..Vote for the new Club Penguin Color =-.

     Comment by David — July 26, 2009 @ 9:13 am

2. For the jr/sr high school crowd, PikiFriends is an ultra-safe 2.0 solution being used internationally. Instead of family, teachers are in control of their students’ accounts, and there are some unique and well-designed safety measures throughout.
   Disclaimer: I’m the creator.

     Comment by Jeff Dionne — October 11, 2010 @ 11:50 pm

3. I agree, i’ve been seeing a lot of stuff going on with these games and Webkinz is really dropping popularity. I wonder why is the reason? Marketing?

     Comment by Manard — January 8, 2011 @ 9:35 pm

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