Category Archives: web business

Kids Online Unconference ’09

I helped promote the second Kids Online unconference again and am so happy with the conversations that we all had.  I wanted to share the conversations we had.

We used the hashtag #kidsonline if you want to check out the tweets.

I have a collaborative google doc of notes. Please feel free to check it out and/or add to it.

I also tried my first streamed video (audio is poor for many of the talks, but if you listen hard, you can hear us).  It’s broken into 3 videos, each rather long.  And the video sometimes doesn’t match with the audio.  But I tried, right?

I know there were talks at the end about having another one of these next year.  If you are interested, let me know and I can let the rest of the organizers know.

ALSO… I want to start roaming cocktail parties where we can all get together and talk shop about the kids online industry.  We have a listserv that you should signup for if you are interested in knowing when the next one is (or starting one of your own)

2 golden nuggets from Liisa’s firm

Maine Kid’s Privacy Law Takes Effect September 12

As we have previously reported, the Maine governor signed a new law that: (1) puts an absolute prohibition on using personal information of a minor to market to the minor or to promote any course of action regarding a product to a minor – whether parental permission has been obtained or not and whether you know the person’s age or not; and (2) prohibits knowingly collecting personal information from children in Maine under 18 for “marketing purposes,” without first obtaining parental consent. The prohibited activity of using a minor’s personal information seems to be broadly drafted, and may include not just email and text messages sent to children in Maine – including those between 13 and 17, but also marketing messages sent directly to a child through social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. It’s possible that it could also prohibit analyzing and internally using a minor’s personal information to determine how to market to individuals generally. The prohibition on collecting information for “marketing purpose” is similarly broad. Unfortunately, the exact meaning of the law is subject to multiple interpretations. The law allows not only for the Maine Attorney General to bring actions for violations, but also allows for a private right of action. Although many have objected to the law, an immediate delay or modification does not appear on the horizon. TIP: If you have an ongoing promotion, consider how you will address the eligibility requirements (for example, prohibiting all persons under 18, persons from the state of Maine who are under 18, voiding to Maine residents, or having a verifiable parental consent mechanism). If you do not currently collect date of birth for your marketing activities, consider doing so, or voiding Maine residents. For your existing database, consider separating out those who are under 18 and reside in Maine, and be sure not to send marketing materials to them.

For more tips, see our bulletin at: http://www.winston.com/siteFiles/Publications/4_ME_Tips.html.

Linking to a Non-Compliant Website Is a Violation of CARU Guidelines

The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (“CARU”) recently found that Kidz Bop LLC violated the CARU Guidelines when it contained a link on the Kidz Bop website to a website which allowed the collection of personally identifiable information from children without fully complying with CARU guidelines. The non-compliant website did not implement a neutral age-screening mechanism to filter children under 13, and various areas of the site collected personally identifiable information. CARU found that Kidz Bop could reasonably expect children under 13 to visit their website and CARU guidelines specifically provide that operators of websites which are for children or contain areas for children should not knowingly link to other websites that do not comply with CARU guidelines. In addition, the Kidz Bop website privacy policy did not include Kidz Bop’s contact information, as required by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

TIP: If you operate a website which is likely to appeal to children under the age of 13, ensure that your website is compliant with CARU Guidelines, including removing any links to websites which you know are not in compliance with the Guidelines.

Got these from The Winston & Strawn email newsletter.  To subscribe for yourself, go here:

http://www.winston.com/index.cfm?contentid=170

OCS09 – Are you going?

The Online Community Summit will be held October 8th & 9th in Sonoma, CA. It is hard to believe that the Online Community Summit is now in it’s eight year!

The Summit was originally convened by Jim Cashel of Forum One in October of 2001 as a unique invitation-based event, bringing together thought leaders from business, government, finance, academia and the media, who despite different positions share a keen interest in online group collaboration. Each year we gather a select group of senior online community professionals to discuss topics addressing business strategy, emerging technologies, key trends, as well as many tactical issues during the breakout sessions.

This year, I will be hosting the Summit, along with co-host Joi Podgorny, Head of Community at Mind Candy. Joi is an online community expert with areas of expertise in virtual worlds and online experiences for children.

Online Community Summit 2009 – Initial Topics & Session Leads

Really excited to be helping out with this this year.  Love this event and always leave excited and invigorated. :)

Comcast DOES Care

Just a quick testimonial regarding a recent GREAT customer service SLASH social media experience I had.

I get back from a long trip to find my cable was turned off.  Strange clerical error, whatever, there are much worse things to stress about. I call, get it all taken care of and think I am all set.  But then days pass and my cable becomes increasingly more pixelated.  And then my internet goes down – and that’s just not ok.

I had heard of and seen people using the twitter @comcastcares account to help them with problems, so I thought I would try.  Not having internet in my house, I used my iPhone’s Twitterfon app and tweet my request for help.  Within minutes I had a reply saying that there weren’t any outages in the area and if I DM’d them my phone #, they could look into it further.  I dutifully complied and was then asked by another customer service rep from Comcast if they could help.  2 replies in 10 minutes!  I asked my first rep if I should get help from the 2nd rep and they went ahead and told them that they were on the case.

Within 15 minutes, I got a call form a local Chicago operator who then ran through some basic tech support and determined I needed an onsite person.  This was RIGHT before Memorial Day, so I wasn’t expecting an onsite person anytime soon, but the phone rep got someone to come ON MEMORIAL DAY.  And they actually came! And fixed it!

Now it sucks that it was messed up in the first place, but the fact that their tech support team was able to respond to my request using social media and then follow through with multiple other methods of communication REALLY impressed me. I am sure it’s not the last problem I will have with Comcast, but at least now I can have some faith that they can help me get it taken care of in the future.  Way to go Comcast!

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!

GDC09 Notes: Designing Engaging Relationships

GDC09 presentation by Scott Rigby at Immersyve
Powerpoint deck and white paper available at:
http://www.immersyve.com/downloads/

- Fun can have negative aspects – not always positive
- work involved, stress, etc – all can be fun

- Collecting Behaviorial Data (telemetry)
- Outcome based rather than Causal

- The underpants Gnome Dilemma (South Park reference)
- 3 part business plan
- Collect Underpants
- Something
- Collect Profit
- We know that if we make the game fun then people will love it, but what is the middle part – how do we ensure fun

- Motivational Research is happening at the academic level

- Player Experience of Need Satisfaction (PENS) Model
- Competence – to grow in skill
- Autonomy – experience personal agency/choice
- Relatedness – meaningful connection to other players – real or NPC

- Just tracking fun is not an indicator of retention – using PENS is better
- long term and short term (they had data from their study to back claim)

Competence
- efficiency, growth, mastery
- High intention to outcome ratio
- Mastery in Moment-to-monent gameplay
- getting good feedback in wins and loses
- granular, sustained, cumulative
- w/i session, w/i game, global
- guitar hero is a good example of this
- Rewards
- not just happy things, but also info to get better works well as a reward
- Challenge
- stretch, don’t overwhelm
- watch for boring and anxiety extremes
- sustained challenge is high on fun, but low on PENS
- player gets exhausted if challenge is sustained too long
- being able to express mastery is key
- PWNAGE :)
- Shaming is not helpful

Autonomy
- sense of personal agency or volition
- I am the cause of my actions, not the game design
- Opportunities for Action (OFA)
- Interactive opportunities x Possible Actions = OFA
- Not about creating more, but about perceived opportunity
- density of choice
- Make sure schemas are met
- If in other situations things work a certain way, make sure that it consistent
- in one game when you shoot at a box on the wall it explodes, but in another level the box is just a texture on the wall and does nothing when shot
- player is reminded of his place in the game at that point and enjoyment decreases

Relatedness
- connected/mattering to other people, either real or NPC
- Give positive contextual feedback – especially in the case of NPC, don’t make them just filler
- Random dialogue and serious attitude in NPCs is demotivating to players

Application
- Ask questions during game design phase
- How will overall or specific game play satisfy needs?
- Can I satisfy multiple needs simultaneously?
- Heat Maps in Game
- Push Short Surveys in game in different areas to gauge what needs are being met or not in what areas of the world

These concepts were found to be fundamental – across geography, age and game genre

SXSW09 notes

better late than never, eh?… :)

Iphone gaming session
– There are 20-30million iphones/itouchs in market
- games and entertainment 1 to 3, account for more than half
- pinch media has great iphone usage stats in US
- There are over 600 paid family apps
- 70% of mobile market (people using their phone for web use) is from iphone – not the same as market share
- make less than $1 profit margin per app
- hoping for push notifications soon

- core
- free apps – maximize traffic
- platform – multiply traffic (ads incorporated)
- paid apps – direct to premium apps (native & awesome)

- ngmico average durations on games
- 22.6 min rolando,
- topple 11.3 minuutes,
- mazefinger 6.3 minutes

- distribution
- 27,000 apps, hard to get featured
- chronological listing is the only implicit feature area
- refresh every 2-3 days
- ads not cost effective – great clickthru, but not great rev
- youtube videos and reviews
- send out press releases to every media outlets
- get them free copies of the game
- as much info as possible
- once app in top 100, it is self sustaining
- pangea hired reverb communication to handle the pr
- the more you do to encourage viral marketing
- invite and challenge features help

- price points
- started at $10

  • *****************

- Learning and Gaming core conversation was a tense and interesting session. Mind Candie’s peeps headed it up and had tons prepared, but the crowd was not having it. Within the first 10 minutes a griefer in the back raised the tension stating that trying to determine how gaming in schools could ever happen with the strict educational standards in schools. A designation of learning versus educational was made, saying that while they may mean very similar things, the connotations are looser with the term “learning”. Then another griefer took it to an extremely tense moment bashing teachers for being horrible and that all of them should be gotten rid of as they were just getting worse. This caused the teachers of the room to get all riled up and many of us wondered who would bring it back to a professional conversation level. Many great applications of integrating learning into games and gaming into classrooms were given, but the topic kept coming back to the lack of a bridge to connect the developers to the educators. One gentleman offered to build such an application and was received with much fanfare a the end. All in all a very interesting session and positive outcome to know that the topic is so emotionally charged.

  • ******************

Tech Moms
- Lively conversations in the room and all very passionate
- Talked about the paradox of Paid Endorsements
- lost authenicity if you pay, but risk of negative feedback if you dont
- ROI vs SOI – Sphere of Influence
- Have to figure out where the moms are
- Many moms prefer local forums over blogs
- tons of moms on twitter now
- see the saturation of mom forums/communities, etc and use twitter as a catalyst tool
- “give me the tools” to engage with your brand
- twitter hashtags of #playoutdoors, #momsxsw, #techmoms, #momswhotech
- Rachel Silverman – NYT moms/tech columnist

KidsOnlien unconference to dovetail with YPulse Youth Mashup

I’ve been working behind the scenes on planning our program for the 2009 Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup event in June, which will include a Kids Online “Unconference” Sunday afternoon and three pre-conference sessions on Monday morning (more info on that coming soon). In addition to the pre-conference “formerly known as urban” (we’re working on a better name – suggestions welcome), and our youth marketing bootcamp, I’m working with Dan Coates from Ypulse sponsor SurveyU on a pre-conference focused on reaching college students.

The Ypulse Campus Case Study Slam | Ypulse

Catching up on my feeds and saw this mention in YPulse. Few months off, so save the date!

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Women Building the Future of Identity on the Web | Identity Matters | Fast Company

Then there’s Kids Online — this subject has gotten a lot of attention lately with the release of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force report. I have been working with two amazing women in this field and together the three of us produced an unconference in December called Kids Online: Balancing Safety and Fun.

Denise Tayloe is the founder and CEO of Privo. Their tools give parents tools to do permission management in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Joi Podgorny has been an online community manager for kids. Before becoming VP of Interactive Development at Ludorum she consulted for companies to develop and implement online strategies. Joi’s leadership continues to move the group forward and is leading the effort get a podcast going. The next event will likely be in June.

Women Building the Future of Identity on the Web | Identity Matters | Fast Company

Kaliya wrote a nice little thing about me in Fast Company.  :)

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