We started Zoodles in late 2008 with the ambitious mission of improving the lives of children across the world.  Since our launch in early 2009, the feedback from parents, teachers, and children has been incredibly positive and over 2 million children across the world have used Zoodles to safely and independently play and learn on phones, computers and tablets.

Today we are excited to announce that we will be joining HTC with the goal of bringing Zoodles to the billion+ children in the world who haven’t yet played and learned with our product.  Like Zoodles, HTC puts users at the center of everything they do, and we have a shared passion for creating a safe and educational environment for children across their products.

We know that parents have many different types of devices from many different manufacturers, and we want to make sure that all those devices continue to have Kid Mode.  Therefore, we will continue with our strategy of making Zoodles available across different devices (smartphones, tablets, computers) and different platforms (Android, iOS, Mac OS X, Windows, etc.).  Simply stated, Zoodles will continue to be available on both HTC devices and non-HTC devices.

Having said that, we’re really excited about the unique and deeply integrated experiences we can create for kids using HTC devices.  On the HTC Flyer, for instance, we’ve been able to combine the innovative HTC Scribe technology with our Art Studio feature!

We have a lot of work ahead of us and so we have a simple favor to ask of you… if you know any great engineers, designers, product managers or business development professionals please encourage them to contact us at careers@zoodles.com since we will be hiring aggressively in the coming months!

Finally, we would like to thank all our users, team members, advisors, and investors (especially Michael Dearing from Harrison Metal Capital) who have helped us get to this point.  You helped us put smiles on the faces of millions of children and we intend to make millions more smile over the years!

Best,

Mark Williamson & Rich Humphrey (co-founders of Zoodles)

A little over a month ago, we released an awesome new feature that lets parents add any of the apps on their phone to Kid Mode.  Before, your three year old had to leave Kid Mode to play their favorite matching app.  Now, you can simply add that matching app to Kid Mode and your child can play it, and everything else their little heart desires, all from one place!

In the days that have followed, we’ve collected some brand spanking new data on what the most popular Android apps for kids are!

Without further ado, here are the top 5 most-played apps inside of Kid Mode:

Angry Birds -  This might not come as much of a surprise, but Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Seasons, and every other addictive version of this app lead the pack in what’s being added and played inside Kid Mode.  If you’re one of the five people who haven’t done so already, give Angry Birds a whirl and start slinging some birds inside Kid Mode!

Ant Smasher – Here’s an app you might not have expected… Introducing Ant Smasher, a game that is all about exactly what it sounds like…smashing ants.  If the concept strikes your fancy (or more likely, your child’s), make sure the mayhem of Ant Smasher goes on within the safety of our app.

Kids Doodle - The third most played app in Kid Mode is Kids Doodle by Bejoy.  With Kids Doodle, even the youngest kids can have fun drawing!  As your child draws, the colors, textures and tools randomly change so their drawing is different every time.  If your child likes art and neon colors, hook them up with some Kids Doodle in Kid Mode!

Kids Connect the Dots Lite - Published by educational app maker Intellijoy, Kids Connect the Dots is a simple game where young ones connect numbers and letters to make fun shapes and pictures come to life.  If you haven’t checked out Intellijoy’s apps already, definitely try Kids Connect the Dots Lite and include it in Kid Mode!

Talking Tom Cat - Introducing Android’s favorite virtual pet, Talking Tom Cat!  Not much to say here except that kids love animals and boy, don’t we know it :-)  [Insert plug for the adorable puppy in our Zoodles computer app.]  If you’re interested in adopting a new messless pet, check out Talking Tom Cat and make your Kid Mode menagerie complete.

Mark Williamson, CEO & Co-Founder of Zoodles

Our mission at Zoodles is to create the best digital experiences for children across the world.  Children using a computer, phone or tablet should be treated as first class users and given the opportunity to leverage all the possibilities that these devices offer.  We believe our Kid Mode apps live up to this mission, and in the last few months we’ve seen a great response from families across the world.

Today is a proud moment for all of us here at Zoodles as we announce that 1 Million children are using our Kid Mode apps!  As the graph below shows, we’ve been experiencing tremendous growth recently, with more than 500,000 children joining just in the last few months:

One of the things I love about the increased usage of our apps is that we can measure, in the aggregate, what children are learning.  Since launching Zoodles, over 3 Million hours of games and videos have been played, with over 1 Million of those hours spent in math and reading.  1 Million hours is more than 110 years of time!

This growth is directly related to the launch of our mobile offerings as well as the new family features that allow kids and relatives to stay in touch through digital storybooks and video mail.  There’s just nothing better than watching a child on Zoodles go from learning and playing one minute to connecting with family the next.

Reaching 1 million kids is huge for us, and when you combine that with crossing 10,000 fans on Facebook, our team has really been jumping for joy.  Stay tuned for more coverage on our celebration event!

We have a lot of work to do before we reach the 1.2 Billion children in the world who still don’t have Kid Mode.  But before we get back to work I want to personally thank all the parents and children using our apps.  We appreciate the trust you’ve placed in us.  I also want to thank the entire Zoodles team that has been building this product.  Rich, Michael, Jeff and Adrian (our engineering team) can build any concept that Dave (our designer) and Rachel (our product manager) can come up with.  Often the founders or the executive team get all the credit when it comes to the success of a start-up, but success in our case is due to the dedication of this team and the passion they have for changing the lives of kids.  So if you have a minute and love the product feel free to leave the team a note on our Zoodles Facebook page.

Best,

Mark
CEO & co-founder

Today we’re excited to share that two of our most popular features — the Zoodles Art Studio and Zoodles Storybooks — are now available on phones!  Now all of our budding artists and eager readers can do more with their phones (oops, we mean your phones)  no matter where they are.  Whether they’re riding in the backseat, fidgeting at dinner, or lying out in the grass, Zoodles is there in full force with Art and Storybooks!

Since phones do have smaller screens, we’ve adapted both features to work a little differently than usual.  Let’s take a look.

Zoodles Art Studio

Here are some pictures of the experience on your phone.  The first thing you’ll notice is that there are now more “tabs” at the top of the screen, and the tabs don’t have labels anymore!  Your child can use these tabs to navigate to the different areas of our experience, just like with our computer and tablet apps.  They might need a little guidance at first, but let us know how it goes!

To get into the Art experience, all your child needs to do is tap on the Art tab at the top and then select the first thumbnail.

The Art Studio has changed a bit, but not by much.  There are fewer colors and we’ve removed the ability to toggle brush strokes, but it is all in the name of giving your child the most drawing space possible!

Every new drawing your child creates will automatically be saved to their Gallery and synced to your account.  All your child’s drawings — whether they’re done on the computer, tablet, or phone — are visible at http://www.zoodles.com/parent.   Be sure to star your favorites!

Zoodles Storybooks

Our Storybooks feature is just as exciting.  For the first time ever, we’ve made it incredibly easy for little ones to “bring their relatives along” on the next vacation or car ride.  Family will never be forgotten again!

All you need to do is have relatives record a reading for your child and the reading will appear in your child’s Books tab.  As usual, the recordings that your relatives make are shared across all our devices, so you and your child can watch them no matter you are.  Now Grandma can be a lifesaver without even being there!

Our Books interface on the phone is very similar to what it looks like on other devices.  We give every child an example recording of Mark and his kids reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and the rest of the books available are displayed alongside it.

Once a reading has been recorded, your child can tap on its book cover to have the story read to them.  Again, with such limited screen space, you’ll notice that the illustrations are slightly smaller and that in lieu of text, we decided to include the relative’s video instead.

All in all, we couldn’t be more proud of our team’s efforts to bring these features down to phones and make the Zoodles experience better and better across all devices.

We’d love to hear your feedback, so please do leave us a comment or shoot us an email at feedback@zoodles.com!

Contributed by Debbie Heimowitz

Learn how the Zoodles Education team screens their video content. Then, create videos of your own for a chance to be featured in Zoodles!

Behind the Scenes

When we started our quest to find the best YouTube videos for kids, our first results were…well… questionable. Finding great content is our team’s central mission, and it is also one of our biggest challenges. For every hundred videos we evaluate, it can be tough to find even one that’s worth adding. So why does this happen? And what do we look for?

The first reason it’s a challenge to find high-quality video content is that the content itself is scarce, and it’s also hidden amongst a ton of other content that’s not always appropriate. We run across an unbelievable number of videos that are supposedly for kids, but are inappropriately named, have foul language dubbed over them, feature bizarre characters, or are even so misleading that they connect to shady spam or porn sites.

The high-quality content we look for is harder to find, because less of it exists to begin with.  Educational kids content can be expensive to produce and design. When companies do produce children’s content, it tends to be in formats that are unusable to Zoodles, like thirty-minute television shows. So, when we do find great content in short formats, we definitely try to promote it and find other content from the same filmmakers.

Here’s what we look for:

Entertainment: First, the videos must entertain us. We know that if it’s not fun, your kids won’t want to watch it. Specifically, we look for bright colors, high concepts, and ideally a strong production value. In our team discussions, questions like “Was this only funny to me?” get tossed around as part of our evaluation process.

Educational Value: Secondly, we want to know what your children will learn from watching the videos. Will the video help reinforce concepts about the alphabet? Will the video bring your kids to another planet? Does it tie into the national standards for education?

We love when videos focus on specific learning standards, but we also value concepts that aren’t as obviously educational.  We place just as much importance, for instance, on videos that encourage physical and emotional wellness like this yoga video for kids or this video about cyberbullying.

If a video is able to meet our educational and entertainment standards, we know we’ve found something for our Zoodles families!

Now create your own!

Are you interested in creating your own educational videos and being featured in Zoodles? Here are some ideas to think about as you start your process:

1. Pre-design the show. What is the “learning problem or learning need” you are solving? For example, do you notice your child struggling with spelling concepts that you’d like to teach in the video?
2. Set learning objectives. What do you hope the audience will gain from watching your video? How will you measure these results?
3. Think about what techniques you would like to add. Filmmakers use several tools to help reinforce educational concepts including: relatable fictional characters, the use of repetition and rhyme, music, dance etc.
4. How long do you want the video to be? We will accept any videos less than 3 minutes in length.
5. Have fun!

If you’ve created a video that you believe meets our standards, send us the link at feedback@zoodles.com!

In an effort to kickstart this blog back to life, we thought we’d share some great news.  We’ve been recognized by Babble as one of the top 25 Android Apps for Moms!  Reaching over 6 million moms a month, Babble is a parenting site for “a new generation of parents.”  Their editorial crew sifted through tons of apps and highlighted our Kid Mode app as the #2 app for “Best Family Fun.”  Awesome!

Here’s what they said about us:

When that 10-minute restaurant wait turns into 20 and the coloring book that you brought along just isn’t up to the task, what’s a mom to do? Hand your kid your Android phone, of course. But before your toddler starts e-mailing your boss or updating your Facebook status, be sure to install the Kid Mode app that protects your phone by locking the Home button and then provides your kids (ages 2 through 8) with a selection of fun, educational games and videos geared specifically to each child’s age.  See the full article.

Check out the other winning apps at http://www.babble.com/products/mom-products/25-best-android-apps-for-moms/

Big thanks to Babble for highlighting our hard work and putting us in some great company!  To all of our Zoodles families, we just can’t say it enough.  Thank you for your ongoing support and encouragement – we would not be here without you!

Phew! We’re back from CES. (Alive!)  This year, Mark and Rachel served as Zoodles ambassadors and ventured bravely out into the tablet and 3D fray.

Of course, we were so busy working (and playing craps), we couldn’t document everything, but here’s the gist of our trip through pictures.

On our first night in Vegas, we attended a press party at the top of the Cosmopolitan. Check out the view!

Early the next morning, we showed up at the Motorola booth, where we were slated to demo our Kid Mode app!

Motorola had LOTS of foot traffic.

Speaking of (sore) feet, isn’t Rachel doing a good job keeping a smile on her face?

(It’s the awesome company polo.)

Panasonic, like most of CES 2011, was very focused on TVs.

3D TV’s in particular. (Whoa, a sand castle! With 3D glasses, it’ll look 3D!)

In case you didn’t detect the sarcasm, here are Mark’s thoughts on 3D technology…

“BUT IT’S THE FUTUUURE!”

Later that night, we attended a Lenny Kravitz concert hosted by Motorola!

At the concert, we were able to meet up with our good friends from Pulse, Akshay and Albert!

The photojournalism ends there, but rest assured that the ambassadors of Zoodles had an amazing time at CES.  We couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to demo all our team’s hard work, and it was great to be met with so much support.

Thanks to all our Zoodles families for keeping the dream alive!  Next year we’re hoping to bring the whole team, so look forward to the 2012 edition of Zoodles@CES, where more hilarious (and undocumented) stories will ensue!

We believe that every device a child interacts with should come with a Kid Mode… a simple, safe, fun way for kids to interact with age appropriate games and activities.  Today we are excited to announce that one of the most popular browsers on the web, Google Chrome, can now be put into Kid Mode!  So parents who use Google Chrome as their web browser can install our Kid Mode app from the Google Webstore.  Once installed there will be a simple icon that parents can click to put their browser into Kid Mode!

Here is a great video that highlights all the great features of our Chrome App:

We are looking forward to hearing about how we can improve this app so please be sure to send us feedback:  Support AT Zoodles.com

Best,

Mark Williamson CEO & Co-Founder

One of the challenges that parents face is ensuring their kids build meaningful relationships with their aunts, uncles, grandparents and other family members.  This can be especially hard for families that are spread across the country like mine is.  While we live in California my daughters have aunts & uncles in Denver, Columbus OH, and Bethlehem PA while their grandparents are in Seattle and Columbus OH.  This means that they only get to see some of these family members once a year and with time zone differences it is close to impossible to Skype with them.

Since we build software that puts computers into Kid Mode, we thought we could improve the lives of families by enabling kids to connect with distant relatives.  Today we are announcing two new features that do exactly this:

Video Mail:

Finally, the most common activity online for adults – communications, is available to kids of all ages.  Zoodles Video Mail enables kids and family members to easily record and exchange video messages.  After a parent invites a family member to connect with their kids, that family member can record a message using a webcam, and that message is delivered directly to the child inside of the Zoodles computer app.  When a child clicks on their Mail tab, their new messages will immediately start to play as the picture below shows.

A child can easily reply to any video message and it is so easy that my soon-to-be 3 year old daughter can do it too.

Storybooks:

This feature was inspired by a conversation with a grandma in Texas who recorded herself reading books on mini-cassettes and mailed them to her grandchildren in California.  She was looking for a way for her grandchildren to hear her voice before bed so they could stay connected.  With Zoodles Storybooks she can now select one of the Zoodles classic storybooks to record for her grandchildren and they will automatically receive the recording in the Books tab inside the Zoodles computer app.  As the picture below shows, the experience is really compelling for kids:

We hope that Zoodles can play a meaningful role in connecting families across the country, and we can’t wait to see how families use these new features.

Every smart phone today has an “Airplane Mode” which puts the phone in a state that is safe to use while flying on a plane.  Think about that, your phone has a simple mode that makes it safe to use on an airplane!  Why doesn’t your phone come with more “modes”?!?

Well today Zoodles is launching an entirely new mode for Android phones and we are calling it “Kid Mode”.  With our FREE Kid Mode app (available now in the Android Market) children 8 and under will have access to hundreds of age appropriate games and videos while parents will be able to relax knowing that their kids will no longer accidentally make calls, send emails or delete apps.  This is an app that the whole family will really love!

So here is how it works:
The Zoodles Kid Mode app is a really smart app that adapts to the child using it.  Games and videos are shown to a child based on their age and other optional information provided by parents (such as reading ability).  In addition to adjusting to the age and skills of the child, Kid Mode adjusts to the capabilities of the phone it is being run on.  For instance, on an Android device without Flash, the Zoodles app will detect the missing software and remove games from the system that require Flash.

Here is a sample 4 year old experience where Kid Mode is filled with letter recognition games, counting activities, and interactive storybooks:

Here is a sample 7 year old experience where Kid Mode is filled with fun logic puzzles, language activities, and fraction games.

Here is what a Flash game looks like in Kid Mode:

Protecting your Android Phone:

The optional “Child Lock” feature of Kid Mode means you can hand your Android phone to your child without ever worrying about what they might accidentally do while on the phone (say good bye to random phone calls to the boss, erased emails and deleted apps).  To accomplish this we disable the built-in buttons on your phone, so your child can’t accidentally exit out while they’re playing.  While children can’t accidentally exit when our child lock is enabled parents will be able to exit easily by following on screen instructions that children can’t follow.

So head over to the Android Market on your phone and upgrade your phone with an entirely new mode – Kid Mode!

Finally, I want to say thanks to the team for working hard on this app and to all the kids who tested Kid Mode for us.

Best,

Zoodles recently won an award from the American Library Association for making Great Interactive Software for Kids.  This got us thinking… why not put Zoodles in libraries?

Kids spend a lot of times in libraries, especially after school when they’ve got a whole afternoon to burn before Mom or Dad gets home.  Why not give them a safe, fun learning alternative at the library too?

Kids who don’t have computers at home will finally have access to all the great educational content that Zoodles has waiting for them, and parents can feel safe knowing that their kids are on a site they trust.

With these thoughts in mind, Zoodles is partnering with families and librarians nationwide to give kids a fun after-school learning activity at their local library.

To do this, we’re going to need your help.

As most of you know, we’re an insanely small team, so if you want Zoodles at your library, we’re asking that you serve as our spokesperson.  Talk to your friendly local librarian and tell them why Zoodles would be great for your community.

If you need some talking points, print out the flyer below and bring it along.  On the bottom of the flyer, there’s a small form that you can scan or mail back to us once Zoodles is set up at your library.  If we get a form back from you, both you and your participating library will get a year of free Premium!

Click here to get your flyer (and entry form)

We have no idea if this will work, but hey, let’s find out.  If you love Zoodles, maybe your library will too.

Contributed by Dave Young, Zoodles Director of Product Design

The characters that children love are powerful tools able to incite both positive and negative behavioral patterns in children. It isn’t hard to find examples of how cartoon characters can undermine a parent’s authority in deciding how to raise their children.  However the interests of the businesses that create this content and the families that consume it don’t have to be at odds.

It’s easy to understand the motives of each group at a high level. Content creators want to entertain your children so that they can influence your consumer habits, while Parents want to raise children that are happy, healthy, and smart.

Between these lines there is great opportunity to align the interests of both parties. The company that aligns itself with the interests of parents is the better company.

Raising happy children:

Everyone is thrilled to be working together to help parents raise happy children. If a character makes a child happy, the parent is happy and will buy branded merchandise which makes the company happy. For this reason there’s a ton companies out there competing to entertain your children. We should recognize this as an opportunity for parents to expect more from these brands and be more selective over which characters they allow into their homes.

Raising healthy children:

It’s really hard for busy parents to raise healthy children and frustrating when their efforts are at odds with some of the branded characters their children love.  The content creators, in the effort to get better brand exposure, are inadvertently harming your children by associating their brands with foods that lead to serious health problems such as obesity and diabetes.

This has been popping up a  lot in the news lately:

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is threatening to sue McDonald’s if they don’t stop distributing Happy Meal toys within 30 days. CSPI claims the use of Happy Meal toys is illegal and predatory and lures kids into unhealthy eating habits.

“McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children. McDonald’s use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children’s developmental immaturity — all this to induce children to prefer foods that may harm their health. It’s a creepy and predatory practice that warrants an injunction,” stated CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner in a letter to McDonald’s CEO.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/06/24/should-mcdonalds-ditch-the-happy-meal-toys/#ixzz0rvMxdIlD

The findings, reported online June 21 in Pediatrics, reflect on the food preferences of 4- to 6-year-old boys and girls who found foods tastier when the packaging bore the likenesses of beloved TV and movie characters.

“So the priority should be first to get these characters off of unhealthy foods,” she added. “And then as a goal ultimately to get them actually put on the packaging for healthy foods. But first we have to focus on dealing with the unhealthy options, because I don’t think slapping them on healthy foods while they’re still on unhealthy foods is going to work.”

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/diet/articles/2010/06/21/cartoon-characters-sell-kids-on-unhealthy-foods.html

Raising smart children:

Unfortunately both parents and teachers face some really tough challenges in these economic times. Budgets are being cut left and right in our schools and at home.

Zoodles is working really hard on a very creative solution that aligns the interests of content creators with those of parents and teachers. Content creators are a bit ahead of the curve trying to market the brands you buy offline by providing free games online (eg. Dora The Explorer Games, Blues Clues Games, Sid the Science Kids Games, Curious George Games, Lego Games etc etc). The internet is a great place for these brands to market themselves because parents and teachers have come to accept that while TV “rots the brain” computers offer new interactive educational opportunities.

However, parents and teachers need a solution that doesn’t require their constant supervision. They’re afraid of their children accidentally deleting files or navigating to content that’s inappropriate or too advanced for them to play independently. They’re afraid of these things because they happen all the time.  Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome are all designed for adults and are too complicated for children to use on their own.  Parents can’t Google to find the best games for their children because Google’s search engine doesn’t understand the ways in which their child is currently developing or the implications of their child’s special needs. Google doesn’t know how to rank search results for your child based on the state and national educational standards. Even when parents leave their children alone on reputable childrens sites, their children are exposed to images and video advertisements for Viagra, the Playboy Bunnies, and violent video games that, thanks to these advertisements, are only a click away.

This is the reason why Mark Williamson founded Zoodles, and we have something really great to offer. Our service is designed to be simple and easy to use for both parents and children. All parents have to do is enter in their child’s birthdate and we help you select the best content for their age, making sure that all the games they play are both fun and educational.  As your child gets older, Zoodles adjusts the games we recommend to them to help them develop the skills that they are currently learning. We have an educational team that helps us select the best of Nick Jr Games, PBS Kids Games, Disney Games, and National Geographic Kids Games. We also have games from some sites you probably haven’t thought to visit before, including the best of NASA Kids Games, StarFall Games, American Girl Games, Fact Monster Games, Nobel Prize Educational Kids Games etc etc  (the list goes on and on).

Kids are happy because they are having fun. Parents are happy because their children are learning while playing independently. Content providers have the opportunity to build stronger relationships with young families. Best of all, everything I just mentioned is free!   :D

Zoodles also offers some great premium features for parents that want to have a more proactive role in their child’s development.  We help parents block ads, set time limits, adjust violence filters, and block the brands they might be getting sick of (eg Barney Games).  Parents can even choose to promote educational subjects to help their child spend more time playing fun math games or fun reading games.

Parents and Teachers are excited that they can now review the educational merits of the games and brands that are available online. Content providers for the first time are able to quickly identify what skill sets their target demographic needs help learning and quickly assess the strengths and weaknesses of their competition in that space.

We think Shrek can do a lot more for your children than sell Happy Meals.

There’s a huge opportunity ahead of us for brands to align with the interests of both parents and teachers. With so many brands to choose from, parents should have more control over which brands they welcome into their home, based on the quality of content coming from these characters.

Well, we’ve been a little bashful about sharing pictures of our new office, but now that we’ve had some time to clean it up and hide the power tools, we’re ready to share!

Let’s start from the very beginning…

Before finding our dream home in Mountain View, we spent a LONG time looking at other places…

… but none of them felt quite right.

Then we met 655 West Evelyn.

When we first walked in, we knew we had a project on our hands…

…but something about it just felt right.  So we talked, and we talked…

…and we decided to move in.

We proceeded to pick out paint colors, measure walls, and strip out wires…

…until the work was done.

And one month later, here we are, in our brand spankin’ presentable new office!

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a month, but living in Mountain View has been incredible so far. Between the Subway across the street and the two hundred Thai restaurants along Castro, we couldn’t ask for a better place to be!

The location is especially superb because of its ridiculous proximity to Caltrain.  There it is, right outside our window.

Our beverages of choice have remained largely the same…

As have our spirits…

And our sense of humor…

In the end, we’re just glad that the world can finally share in the fruits of our labour.

But please don’t be deceived — moving wasn’t all a breeze.  As most of you know, moving can be a difficult transition for anyone in their lives.

For Zoodles, the move induced a Coke Zero drought that was extremely hard on all of us – Mark in particular.

He can be seen here drinking Diet Coke, a beverage that signifies struggle.

Luckily, we have now equipped ourselves with enough Coke Zero to last us a lifetime.  So the Zoodles team will soldier on, once in Palo Alto and now in Mountain View, working hard for families everywhere — and thanks to Coke Zero — making Zoodles all that it can be.

While Zoodles has been available for about year, today is a bit of a coming out party for us.  We have spent the last year largely “under the radar” working incredibly hard to build a great experience for children and parents.  We’ve been very lucky to have passionate parents who’ve taken the time to not only give us feedback on our product, but even bring their children into our offices and help us better understand how to make Zoodles better for kids!  This feedback has led us to develop many of the unique features we have today, such as:

• Educational controls that allow parents to promote specific subjects (e.g. – Math or Reading) to their child
• A violence filter that allows parents to control the amount of violence they are comfortable exposing their children to online
• Our unique child interface that adapts to a child’s age and cognitive abilities

There are dozens of other changes we’ve made based on user feedback — in fact, in the last year, we’ve updated the service more than 250 times!

All of these iterations have brought us to the point where we are ready to “officially” announce the product and begin marketing Zoodles more broadly.  We are also excited to announce that we have been working with the great folks at Harrison Metal.  Michael & Erik from Harrison Metal have been great partners, and our new financing provides us the opportunity to accelerate user growth and hire more great engineers!

Finally, I want to thank our users for all the feedback that has helped shape our product.  Last year I noted that Zoodles won a prestigious NAPPA Gold Award and today I am excited to share that we have recently won two additional awards:

• Parents Choice Award
• National Parenting Center’s Seal of Approval

We have many exciting updates in the works, but there’s really no reason to wait… go ahead and get all of your relatives 8 years old and younger to try Zoodles.  I am certain they will have a lot of fun, and their parents will love it as well!

Are you a teacher who’s tried to use Zoodles?  Whether your school has SmartBoards and computer labs, or nothing at all, Zoodles is interested in hearing about your experiences using Zoodles in the classroom.

Teachers today have interesting ways of using Zoodles – whether it’s playing games as a class on the Promethean board, or setting up multiple student accounts in the lab – one per grade – we’ve been fascinated by all the ways that teachers have adapted Zoodles to meet their needs.

With that said, we’d really love to make Zoodles something that adapts to you, rather than the other way around.  So if you or anyone you know is a teacher who’s interested in giving Zoodles feedback, send us an email at feedback [AT] zoodles DOT com, and we’ll work with you to set up a 20 – 30 minute call.  In exchange for your time and good will, we’d be happy to give your school a year of Zoodles Premium in return.

Thanks so much, and we hope to be talking with you soon!

Contributed by Debbie H. Zoodles Education Team

In the process of working for Zoodles in the past ten months, I’ve encountered a wide array of different games for children. Every so often, games will pop off the page and become part of your daily conversation. Most recently, I have been really excited and consumed by the American Girls games. They are designed with a function that meets the needs of learners: they teach facts about the United States and world cultures. In addition, the design meets the needs of children in ways that are fun — I find the games engaging at my age, and I have no doubt that I would have also enjoyed them as a child playing on Zoodles.

The foundation of the games are the different American Girls, each of whom hosts games that uniquely suit her personality, background and culture. By creating three-dimensional representations of different types of girls, Zoodles players will be able to identify with the different American Girls characters. American Girls doesn’t reinvent the wheel- they redesign it in a way that is purposeful and unique.

In “Kit’s Railway Adventure,” girls are able to see the United States from the perspective of early settlers. Through a series of visits across the country, Zoodles players are exposed to early colonial history.

In “Samantha’s Scavenger Hunt,” your child learns about United States history and culture by going on a scavenger hunt with Samantha in 1904, New York. Concepts of early times are taught in fun ways- only second to visiting Jamestown and Williamsberg!

It’s also encouraging to see that the American Girls site also acknowledges immigration and girls from all over the world. For example, in “Rebecca’s World Word Search” children play their favorite word search games, but are exposed to new, sophisticated words about Russian culture.

Likewise, in “Rebecca’s Russian Doll Mix-up,” children can play their favorite matching game but learn about a new culture at the same time.

In “Josefina’s Santa Fe Market Adventure,” Zoodles players learn about economics and the roles of buyers and sellers, as well as basic Spanish language vocabulary by going on an adventure looking for goods at the Market.

If your child ends up on the American Girls site, you will be in good hands. We look forward to hearing what your child thinks of the new games on Zoodles!

We’ve been proud of features in the past, but the latest feature we’re here to announce truly breaks new ground:  Zoodles violence filtering.

Here’s how it works:

1)  You read how we rate the games.

2)  You choose what rating level is right for your child.

3) We take care of the rest.

Zoodles will only include games in your child’s Toybox that respect your settings.

Why we built it

If you do a Google search for “violence filter,” you’ll quickly realize what a huge need there’s been for something like this.  A combination of all the filters out there will probably get you something that filters gambling sites, pornography, adware, pop-ups, chatrooms, and even social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace.  All this and more, but not violence.  And even if, after hours of searching, you found one, it would predictably be just like the others – essentially a big on-off switch.  With issues like gambling and pornography, an on-off switch probably makes sense.  But with violence, there are wildly varying opinions on what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate for children of different ages.

It comes down to this.  Parents have preferences when it comes to the media that their children consume, whether it’s their book at bedtime, the show on TV, or their favorite site online.  When it comes to movies, parents have no choice but to rely on the G-PG-PG-13 rating system developed by the Motion Picture Association.  It’s not great, but it’s something.  It’s a universal standard that all shows and movies are held accountable to.

There’s no equivalent universal rating system for your child’s media content online.  So how can a parent feel confident that their children are safe? The answer is, they don’t.  They let their kids go online, but with the deep, nagging fear (only worsening as their kids grow older) that something will slip through -  that new content will be put on the site, or that their kids will wander somewhere new, somewhere they don’t belong.  Even the parents who do their fair share of homework screening sites ultimately have to take a leap of faith about what brands they can trust, and can only hope that they live up to their kid-friendly promises.

Here at Zoodles we’ve taken it upon ourselves to be the place online you can trust.  Any time we add content to Zoodles, we take into consideration its educational value, its entertainment value, and its appropriateness for children.  But even a team of thousands would fall short in knowing your child as well as you do.  Parents know best.  That’s why we not only pre-screen all our content and restrict your child to these pre-approved sites, but we give you sublime control over what parts of this content make it through to your child.  The violence filter is one more step in this direction.  The way it’s been designed is simple:  We tell you how we rate the games, and you choose what rating level you think is appropriate for your child.  We take care of the rest.

To try the violence filter out for yourself, visit the Parent Dashboard under Education and Parental Controls. As always, let us know what you think!

We’re happy to welcome two new members to the Zoodles Education Team, Jason and Yaa!  Content is king in the Zoodles world, and the Education Team is our front line in ensuring that the games on Zoodles are the best of the best.  Whether your family uses Zoodles for entertainment, education, or both combined, it’s the quality of our team and the strength of their experience that makes Zoodles the go-to web destination for parents and children alike.  We’re very proud to have Jason and Yaa join our team, and we look forward to getting the games they’ve reviewed in front of kids everywhere!

Jason Azicri holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Central Florida and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Santa Clara University. Jason was a Special Needs Health and Health teacher in Miami before relocating to CA. He also co-created an educational film series called Adina’s Deck because he believes young people need more empowering messages and positive portrayals of young teens in film and television. Jason sees Zoodles as another opportunity to further help bring great educational content to kids. He currently also counsels at two high schools and continues to write screenplays.

Yaa Cuguano has a lifelong interest in how learning can be tailored to learners in order to provide them with effective learning experiences and environments.  She is also interested in second and third language learning and inquiry based learning.  She is currently pursuing a master’s degree at Stanford’s School of Education with a specialization in Learning Design and Technology.  She is excited to be a part of the Education Team and contribute to the great work being done at Zoodles.

In an earlier post, we talked about all the ways that parents set screen time limits at home.  Whether they’re using the DVR to dole out episodes of Dora, or printing out sticker charts to make their kids play outside, different parents have different ways of handling their desire to limit the amount of media their children consume.

Introducing the Zoodles Play Timer!

That is why we’re pleased to present the Zoodles Play Timer,  a new feature that will help parents set the time limits they want, without the hassle of maintaining them or explaining and reexplaining them to their ever-desirous kids.

With the Zoodles play timer, you can limit your child’s time online without having to constantly step in and feel like the bad guy.  Zoodles does all the negotiating for you – as soon as your child’s time on Zoodles runs out, a big blue clock will appear signaling their time is up.  The browser stays locked in full-screen mode, so your child can’t wander somewhere else online or click around on the computer.  After a minute or so, they’ll be brought back to the original family log-in screen, so the brother or sister who’s been patiently waiting in the wings can get a turn!

Of course, no kid likes to be cut off cold turkey, so we’ve built in some friendly purple reminders that time is winding down.   With 10 minute, 5 minute, and 2 minute warnings, Zoodles eases your child off the computer and on to a new activity without the tantrum.  The wind-down process is important for every child to learn, and all parents know how painful this process can be if it’s not done artfully!

You can set time limits in half hour increments anywhere from half an hour a day to 8 hours a day, and you can set them differently based on whether it’s a weekday, or a weekend.  What’s more, each of your children have their own unique play timer settings, so you can limit them differently based on their individual play patterns!

We hope that you’ll enjoy this new feature, and all the ways that it strives to make your life easier!  As always, please let us know what you think once you’ve gotten a chance to try it out!

I spent a large part of last week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.  While I love gadgets and new technology, I was drawn to CES this year by the Kids@Play conference held at CES.  I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel about internet safety for children and to demo Zoodles.  The panel and demo went very well, but the thing I came back from CES most excited about is all the enabling technologies that are going to improve the lives of children around the world!

Tablet computers, 3-D display technologies and touch screen interfaces are just a few of the technologies at the show that can be used to create compelling educational experiences.    I am looking forward to all the innovation that will come in the near future and excited to be part of a company that is trying to create those compelling experiences for children and parents.

Best,

Mark