Posts filed under ‘tween’
Virtual Worlds Mgmt 101
Izzy Neis and I worked on a primer of kids virtual worlds that we could share with people. Kind of a what’s good about them, what difficult about them, what they are and are not. Enjoy.
And as I was uploading this one, I saw this fantastically designed on on Slideshare as well. Guess which one of us has access to graphic designers 
Marketing fact vs Marketing fantasy
A million, yeah, Animal Jam passed it
So the big news is finally out! We reached 1 million players! It was last month and we are already climbing higher at a fast clip, but still something to celebrate. :) Here’s one of the news outlets that picked up the press release:
http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/16/national-geographic-virtual-world-animal-jam-hits-a-million-kids/
Even more fun, our team celebrated at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, our studio’s home town zoo and where we are sponsoring their EdZOOcation program and the coolio Allosaurus:
Dr Brady Barr in Animal Jam!
OMG, I am SO excited about this new addition to National Geographic Animal Jam. Dr Brady Barr from Dangerous Encounters now has a Gadget lab in Animal Jam!
It’s been live for only a couple hours and the room has been full the whole time. Dr Brady Barr specialized in cool gadgets that help him get crazy footage of all sorts of animals. And we are showing some good ones, including Brady getting into a Crocodile getup and tagging Crocodiles, hanging out next to a deer carcass to see wolfpacks at night and pythons and Mystery Swamp Creatures! ACK!
I love it! And this is just the first day. Look out for more cool stuff from this awesome-tastic Scientist/Celebrity that we are partnering with.
I find myself shouting at the videos – get away from there Brady!!!
Woot!
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5/12 – UPDATE! Brady’s answering the player’s animal questions!
Dr Brady Barr now has regular video answers to questions from kids in the game. So our kids can ask a real scientist their animal puzzlers and potentially have him answer their question. Love this kind of feedback and recognition. How exciting!
My talk at Pratt
Hi All,
I was asked to do a short talk at Pratt Institute, so I decided to share my slides. Basically I wanted to have a short visual aid to a myriad of mainstream, large and successful properties and brands that did/do well interacting and connecting with their audience through online community and fan engagement .
Let me know if you would like more info or examples or if you have any questions.
National Geographic Animal Jam – Open Beta!
Hey everyone!
The reason I haven’t posted in forever is because I am hard at work on our newly launched project (albeit in open beta) National Geographic Animal Jam!
The day is finally here to live wild with National Geographic Animal Jam™. Now you and your kids can be among the first to monkey around in this virtual world of discovery and fun. Combining the chance for kids to be the animal of their choice with access to National Geographic’s limitless libraries, National Geographic Animal Jam will open your child’s eyes to a world of adventure and exploration like no other virtual world out there. Your kids will soon realize that they’re having tons of fun in the coolest jungle around!
Two years in the making, National Geographic Animal Jam represents an ongoing creative collaboration between the great minds at National Geographic and the gaming gurus at Smart Bomb Interactive. The goal of this virtual world is to provide a fun, exciting, and safe environment for kids to play online, as well as inspire them to explore and protect the natural world outside their doors.
So come prowl around inside National Geographic Animal Jam. With lush tropical kingdoms, amazing adventures, and fascinating facts in store—plus the chance to live it up as your favorite animal—mommy and daddy bears (and their cubs alike) will find a wild world worth discovering!
National Geographic Animal Jam – Jump into the Jungle Today!
We are tweaking and polishing through the summer, and as such, it is completely free to play through the open beta! When we have our Grand Opening this fall, we will offer premium subscription content, but the game will always have free to play features.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
HOW TO KEEP AN ONLINE WORLD UP AND RUNNING AFTER LAUNCH
SPEAKER/S: Laralyn McWilliams (Sony Online Entertainment Free Realms)
live by your data
camera snoop
all data in same database to get corelative data
start logging when client build
slice in time dashboard of logins, logouts, server counts
planning
servers – main, dev, qa, livetest, stage, live
have one positive in every update and build PR around it
have data to support decision
be open about strategy
think of grandfathering
used omniture and proprietary
they update every 2 weeks – that’s hard, goal is one month
- microtransactions require more frequency
- she recommends every 2 weeks
- hot fixes are ongoing
Northandclark interview
My friend Casey Brazael has cool blog, called North and Clark, where he finds interesting people and does short interviews them. I am honored to be one of those interviewees.
Thought I would share the link:
http://northandclark.blogspot.com/2009/06/wednesday-podcast-joi-podgorny.html
Thanks, Casey!
I am the Lost Generation
LOVE this! Found it at ypulse mashup today. 
I will put more thoughts from the conference later, but had to share this.
Kids Online unconference – May 31
Hi all –
First of many plugs about the Kids Online Unconference that is happening the day before the Ypulse Youth Mashup. The whole thing is 5/31/09-6/2/09, but come to what you can.
We need to start getting a headcount, so if you could let myself or any of the other coordinators know if you are planning on attending, that would be great!
To sign up for the listserv we have set up, go to this link http://lists.idcommons.net/lists/info/kidsonline and click the “Subscribe” link.
Thanks!
New (un)conference – Kids Online: Balancing Safety and Fun
Spread the word! Really affordable conference for practical info and discourse on kids online. If you have never been to an un-conference, you really are missing out. Everyone participates – SO community-focused! Hope to see everyone! – Joi
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About Kids Online
Our goal is to leave the day with greater clarity around some core best practices and have next steps as an industry to help kids being safer online.
Objective and Process
This is a day to dive in and work collaboratively on these kinds issues around kids online:
- Who and what are we trying to protect digital kids from?
- Are there standards and norms in practice that we can leverage to formalize best practices for industry?
- Kids fake their ages to gain access to online content, do we as an industry care? If so, then…?
- How do we create best practices that are flexible based on age range, content and willingness for parental involvement by industry or the child?
- How can we create cyber-spaces that balance interesting and fun with safety?
- What is the role of government in either defining or supporting best practices?
- Any other ideas, issues, concepts that you think are important in this area.
We will take notes throughout the day from all sessions. This book of proceedings will be with all attendees talking about what we learned, synthesizing and next actions.
About the Unconference Format
The format we use means the agenda is created the day it happens. It is about getting things done and figuring out the tough problems. There is no committee deciding who does or does not get to ‘present’. Instead, Open Space is about breaking up into groups, working through issues, figuring out best practices and building consensus.
Attendees
- The community we hope to gather includes:
- Online Community/Virtual World Managers
- Policy officers and Security Officers at large companies
- Consultants in the kids online space
- Identity technologists
- State Attorney Generals
- Legislative Staffers
- Parents and Kids
- Academics in the field
- Bloggers
Speaking Opportunities
Anyone is welcome to create a session on a topic they find relevant to data sharing. The agenda for these sessions will be created on the first day of each event.
About the Event Organizers
Denise Tayloe and Joi Podgornyare the experts in Kids Online calling this event and Kaliya Hamlin an expert in digital identity and unconference facilitator have partnered to put this event together.
Kaliya Hamlin is an experienced unconference facilitator and organizer who has facilitated numerous unconferences, including the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) and She’s Geeky . Since 2005, the (un)conference format has been used at the Internet Identity Workshop, a bi-annual event focusing on emerging open standards in user-centric identity. Since then, Kaliya Hamlin has received con-siderable praise for helping IIW achieve real results.
Denise Tayloe co–founded Privo to help helps consumers manage their digital identities and to create a software solution that would help companies effectively interact with children while in compliance with the federal law. Denise has be-come a recognized leader and authority in permission and identity management, has been an invited speaker on the subject at conferences related to marketing as well as at Trans Atlantic dialogues regarding children’s privacy issues across the globe and has been published in the official newsletter of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Ms. Tayloe has also conducted private workshops to help companies understand the intricacies of COPPA and how to maintain customer relationships within legal boundaries. Ms. Tayloe has more than 14 years experience in business development, sales, finance and the development of companies innovating and providing business and technology related services.
Joi Podgorny leads the integration of interactive/online strategies into Ludorum‘s television, publishing and toy properties. Before Ludorum, she has spent the past decade helping build, manage, and scale online communities for kids while developing and implementing the systems and infrastructure needed to make these communities viable. Joi has worked as a consultant championing and implementing COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) compliance and monitored networks, as well as developing and implementing strategies in the realms of digital production, integrated marketing, and youth interactive research.
When:
Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 08:30 AM – 5 PM (PST)
(Hopefully have some dinner groups afterwards to continue the conversations, as well.)
Where:
Computer History Museum
1401 N Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043
Registration – http://kidsonline.eventbrite.com/
| Early Bird | by Sep 30, 2008 | $95.00 | ||
| Regular | by Oct 31, 2008 | $125.00 | ||
| Kids (10-25) | by Nov 12, 2008 | $50.00 |
Sponsorships are available. Please contact any of the event coordinators if you are interested.
Tags: privo, coppa, denise tayloe, kaliya hamlin, unconfernce, she’s geeky, iiw, kids online, conference, computer history museum
