There are a number of popular websites that are the online portals of particular children’s brands (e.g. Lego, Barbie, Sesame Street, etc.), sometimes with multiple sites for one brand. There are also social networking sites and interactive virtual worlds, often dubbed ‘virtual playgrounds’. The distinction between these three types of sites is rapidly blurring.

When checking out a website that your child wants to visit, it is not just the privacy policy and commitment to safety you want to evaluate.  It is also good to gauge the level of commercialisation.  Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

• How are they making their money - paid subscriptions to premium services? Selling virtual merchandise for real $$$? Selling real merchandise?  Or are they a charity with a slightly different business model, like Sesame Street?
• How hard do they push what they have to sell?  Do they employ ‘pester power’, telling the child to ‘ask Mom or Dad’ for the thing they want?  Do they use language that makes a child feel less about themselves if they don’t have whatever it is they’re selling, i.e. “You know all the coolest kids in your school will have XXX; you can be one of those kids in the know - the envy of your classmates!”
• Is the way to acquire status in the environment to acquire things?  For example, in some sites you outfit a living space with furniture and ‘stuff’ to impress your new friends.
• Is advertising marked as such, or is the whole environment a giant ad for children to explore?
• Are there adequate spaces where children can play in the environment that are free from the ‘hard sell’ or is the sales pitch relentless?

This kind of evaluation will help ensure a website is a positive, empowering space in which your child can spend some of their time online.

Advertising or Virtual Playground?
Many commercial websites for children are graphically rich, interactive environments. These sites  entertain  and  generate revenue  through selling one or more of the following: ad space, product placement, virtual items like furniture, real merchandise, or subscriptions for premium access. The site can also “cross-promote” other lines of merchandise owned by the company. The membership and revenue numbers for these sites are staggering. Club Penguin, at the time it was acquired by Disney (for up to $700 million), had 700,000 subscribers and estimated annual revenue of $50 million (Chmielewski & Pham, 2008). The Finnish company Sulake generated revenue of $100 million in 2008, 25% through advertisers and 75% from the sale of virtual furniture for outfitting virtual Habbo Hotel rooms (McIntyre, 2008).

Online websites and worlds are big business. As a parent, you are best placed to evaluate if an environment is suitable for your child or too commercialised. It is a good discussion to have with your child as well; you can help them understand what is behind some of the marketing messages.

Links to further reading:
McIntyre, P. (2008, 9 October). Boom in virtual playgrounds for kids. The Sydney Morning Herald.  http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/virtual-playgrounds-for-kids/2008/10/09/1223145499071.html

Chmielewski, D. & Pham, A. (2008, 28 January). Disney adds fantasy lands. Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/28/business/fi-virtualdisney28