SpaceFace

Another kid-targeted social network launches. SpaceFace ( www.spaceface.com ) is a new space-centric virtual world aimed at kids/tweens 4-14.

SpaceFace features games, private messaging (SpaceChat), and a way to earn and collect points (SpaceGold), which can be used in its shopping area (SpaceMall). The also has 24/7 content monitors.

PBS,BabyTV

Public broadcaster PBS, which recently retooled its video site to make it much easier on the eyes and the mouse, continues to impress by devoting significant creative resources to its online efforts.

The network unveiled two new projects at TCA this week worth noting. In partnership with its local New York affiliate, WNET.org, PBS plans to launch "Need To Know" in May, a broadcast and online news show hybrid.

The idea is to cover stories using multiple mediums that are getting missed as less and less American pick up a newspaper. The property will aggregate news and public affairs content along with offerings from editorial partners in a weekly one hour show produced by WNET.org and via a "supervertical" site at pbs.org.

PBS also continues to up the ante for its online kids properties.

Lifeboat to Mars is a new Flash-based educational game designed by Red Hill Studios that includes an ambitious array of customization features. Watching online video to today's kids is like reading the cereal box for earlier generations.

PBS says kids watched more than 87.5 million video streams across the PBS Kids family of sites last month, a new high for the portal.

BabyTV partners with the Hong Kong Bureau of Education (EDB) to launch a 'guidebook', Growing Together: Making the most of TV for toddlers. The book is designed to help parents make better media relate choices for their kids, as well as how to engage with their kids to get the most out of kid's TV and media.

Created using the results of a survey conducted last summer in Hong Kong by BabyTV, which found that while 90% of parents use screens with their kids most aren't well educated about what makes age appropriate content, the book will be distributed to parents at kindergartens across Hong Kong.

Wilson & Ditch: Digging America

This week marks PBS Kids Go! and The Jim Henson Company's exclusive online launch of the comedy digital puppet series Wilson & Ditch: Digging America.

he series was created by Joe Purdy (story editor/Dinosaur Train, Sid The Science Kid) and Craig Bartlett (creator/Dinosaur Train, Hey Arnold), and produced by The Jim Henson Company.

Targeted to K6-10, Wilson & Ditch: Digging America takes viewers on a cross-country adventure with two gopher brothers (performed by Brian Henson and Paul Rugg), learning about American culture, history and geography along the way.

In addition to the webisodes, Wilson & Ditch also features interactive games, original comics a travel blog, online location audio podcasts, and downloadable activities from Wilson and Ditch's adventures.

Little Airplane Productions' new animated preschool series, Tobi (4x4), is set to make its worldwide launch on Sunday, March 7 on Nickelodeon Australia and Treehouse TV (Canada).

The series debut coincides with UNICEF's annual International Children's Day of Broadcasting, which encourages broadcasters to air programming for, about or by kids.

The short-form series revolves around a young boy, Tobi, who wants to make the world a better place and focuses on global issues in an age appropriate way, including human rights, endangered species and homelessness.

A traditionally hand drawn animated series featuring backgrounds created with recycled materials, Tobi is written in verse and uses a combination of stylized jazz and dialogue to support the narration. Tobi is produced at Little Airplane's NYC studio, with the company's Supervising Producer Tone Thyne heading up the production.

Team Umizoomi, Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation in Children's Learning.

Looking to empower preschools with early number skills Nickelodeon will launch its new math-centric series, Team Umizoomi (20x30), on Monday, January 25 with two back-to-back episodes from 11:30a.

A mixed 2D/3D animated and live action series, Team Umizoomi presents and bolsters preschoolers with math skills and self-esteem through interactive action-adventure missions.

Following the series premiere, Nickelodeon will air two weeks of new episodes Tuesday-Thursday, January 26-28 and Monday-Thursday, February 1-4 at 11:3oa. To supp the series launch, the network will offer a sneak peek at Team Umizoomi at Nick Jr. Video (at www.nickjr.com ) and wireless carriers via VOD.

The premiere episode will simulcast on Nick Mobile. Additionally, two episodes of the show will play back-to-back on the Nick Jr. channel on Sunday, January 31 and Sunday February 7 at 7p. Created by Blue's Clues alumni Soo Kim, Michael T. Smith and Jennifer Twomey, the series features a team of superheroes that use age-appropriate math to help solve their challenges.

NickJr.com will offer a Team Umizoomi learning section featuring math activities for parents to use with their kids, as well as games, videos, printables, and later this month additional free content such as personalized and customizable printables and a mo newsletter.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center ( www.joanganzconeycenter.org) at Sesame Workshop is accepting online proposals (by April 1, 2010) for its first Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation in Children's Learning.

Designed to encourage creators to develop new tools and content in kid's digital media and learning, the new annual national competition was launched last week at the Consumer Electronics Show's Kids at Play Summit.

Creators can develop projects in two categories: Breakthroughs in Mobile Learning mobile learning projects for K3-11; and Breakthroughs in Literacy Learning: Innovate with The Electric Company projects should promote literacy skills for K6-9 using The Electric Company series, not only on TV but for wherever kids are.

Up to five finalists in each category will be invited to pitch their ideas to industry and educational executives at an event held at this year's E3 Expo

Little Charley Bear and The Strange Case of Origami Yoda

Chapman Entertainment names Vivid Imaginations as the new master toy licensee for its new preschool series, entitled Little Charley Bear.

Commissioned by CBeebies, Little Charley Bear revolves around a teddy bear named Charley who uses his imagination to go on adventures under the watchful eye of his pal, the Narrator. The series also features other characters including Squeak (a penguin), Tina (teddy bear), Pixel (a robot), Bluey (bunny), Caramel (cow) and Bella (a ballerina).

Under the five-year toy deal Vivid Imaginations will develop a Little Charley Bear toy line including plush, playsets, role play, arts and crafts, puzzles and games for distribution in the UK, France, Benelux and Germany.

Vivid also has global manufacturing rights for the brand excluding the US, and plans to debut Little Charley Bear products in the UK in fall/winter 2011. Vivid Imaginations also serves as the master toy licensee on Chapman's preschool series, Fifi and the Flowertots and Roary the Racing Car.

Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams, inks a deal with Lucasfilm, Ltd. to feature Yoda n a new middle school novel titled The Strange Case of Origami Yoda.

Written by Tom Angleberger, the book revolves around Dwight, a "total loser," who somehow provides his sixth-grade classmates with particularly useful advice via an origami Yoda finger puppet; like the date of a pop-quiz, who has a crush on whom, and moments of potential humiliation.

How does Dwight do it? That's what Tommy, a hipper classmate, wants to know and sets to finding out how a dork like Dwight is pulling this stunt off.

Forum Nokia and my iPhone APP

Forum Nokia launches its annual Calling All Innovators 2010 app development challenge, which is designed to inspire creative and change.

Additionally, Forum Nokia is partnering with Sesame Workshop for the education apps section of the life improvement category (see below) to encourage developers to create educational apps and possibly use Sesame Street characters to teach early literacy on Nokia devices. S

esame Workshop, which will offer guidance during the judging process, will work with select developers to further enhance their related projects.

The annual contest, which runs February 1-May 18 2010, is broken into four submission categories that enhance the use of Nokia mobile devices in the real world:

Eco/Being Green apps that help save the planet

Productivity apps that make users lives easier and more efficient (e.g. utilities, business, personal finance)

Life Improvement apps that positively affect on daily lives of those living in developing countries by using mobile devices to teach kids and illiterate adults critical skills among other things

Entertainment apps showcasing multimedia features including music, multimedia and games.

Here's the app for the Whole Wide World: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/art-star/id299569441?mt=8

digital media in the classroom

The use of digital media and internet in the classroom is on the rise according to the latest edition of an annual study conducted by Grunwald Associates for PBS.

More than three-quarters (76%) of K-12 educators say they use digital media, up from 69% in 2008. Of K-12 teachers who use digital media in the classroom, 80% say they are frequent or regular users.

While DVDs are still the preferred medium by a narrow margin, 72% of teachers reported streaming or downloading content from the Internet, up from 65% in 2008. About one in three (29%) pre-K educators use this method.

One-quarter of K-12 educators say they belong to an online community specifically for teachers such as PBS' pbsteachers.org site, and those who use social networking sites are comfortable with a variety of online activities. Results are similar for pre-K educators.

Kids and Cell phones

If you've looked around or talked to friends recently you probably noticed that more and more younger kids have cell phones, but just how many more are there?

Well, there has been an increase of +68% of kids with cell phones in the past five year, according to MRI's recently release America Kids Study. Specifically, 20% of US Kids 6-11 owns a cell phone, this is up +11.9% from 2005, with the biggest increase among K10-11, which is up +80.5%, in the five-year period.

Not surprisingly boys were later to the cell phone ownership game, with the last three years showing the biggest growth among boys up by +47.6% since 2007, versus an increase of +17.2% among girls.
MRI believes that some of the increase, particularly with boys, is the result of wireless providers targeting parents and kids with kid-friendly phones and I'd add in the increase in kid-targeted wireless mobile content. So, what are kids doing most with their cell phones?
Survey Says... Top Cell Phone Activities for Children Ages 6-11:
Activity %
Call my parents 88.1
Call friends 68.1
Emergency purpose 55.7
Text messaging 54.1
Play games 49.0
Take pictures 47.8
Listen to music 34.4
Picture messaging 24.2
Download ringtones 16.5

Tipping the Iceberg

Daisy Whitney, Dec 01, 2009 04:58 PM
Missing the mark with messages is costly (and common)

Sometimes a number can be both frightening and liberating. Like this one from Don Schultz, a professor of integrated marketing communications at Northwestern: Only 4 to 5 percent of customers account for the preponderance of a consumer product's sales. Does that make the other 95 percent of a marketer's customers chopped liver? Maybe a little bit. Because not only does that 4 to 5 percent comprise most of your sales and your profits, the rest of your customers often cost you money to acquire.

"What that says is, I better figure out who those 5 percent are and pick them up in a car and drive them to the store and help them shop," says Schultz. That's why he is advocating a complete overhaul in the way media planners approach campaigns. Rather than focus on the distribution of a message, they should concentrate on finding the customers. By flipping their thinking around, they'll have a much better chance of reaching prospects with the right media mix and, in so doing, gain a bigger share of dollars for digital budgets.

"Most advertisers and marketers will have some clear definition of who they are trying to reach and it could be broad, like women ages 18 to 49, or it could be individual names and addresses. All I am suggesting is starting at the other end of media planning. Start with what media forms they consume as opposed to what [the marketer] wants to do," Schultz says.

In some ways that sounds elementary, but many shops are still married to old ways of thinking. "We have used averages and broad statistical analysis for so long that we have lost sight of what the marketplace is really like," Schultz adds.

Instead, media planners should consider four critical measures in media consumption: what media is accessed, how much time is spent with each media form, what media is used together and which media has the greatest influence on product purchase. Makes perfect sense, right? So obvious that all marketers must do this in their sleep?

Maybe not.

Because, says Schultz, if you calculate cost weighted by the influence, then auto marketers overspent last year in TV by $3 billion, underspent in radio by $1.6 billion and underspent online by $1.5 billion.

Other marketers are misfiring, too. Computer marketers, as an example, should have been marketing online, in magazines and via email, while radio is much less relevant to prospective computer purchasers, Schultz says, citing data from June 2008.

The key to success is to study consumption. Most people consume multiple kinds of media at once. They read a magazine while talking on a cell phone or use Twitter while watching TV. Knowing the media consumption habits, preferences and combinations for your prospective customers is the proper way to plan a campaign. "It's what media combinations are most important to people and having a clue how to put media combinations together," says Schultz.

And that means reach isn't all it's cracked up to be. "It's not how many messages are distributed, it's how many are consumed. It's not what is most efficient, it's what is most effective. It's not how big your share of voice is, it's how important your customers think you are."

That 4 to 5 percent may seem small, but as the saying goes, good things come in small packages.