Reporters and reviewers write about Minecraft as if it's just like any other videogame. Even this highly readable piece about its creator (Markus Persson, aka "Notch") and its parent company (Mojang) by Harry McCracken in Time magazine doesn't cover what makes it different from other games specifically for its kid (and parent) players. But he does bring out this extraordinary differentiating … [Read more...] about Minecraft & the shared, creative safety of gaming, social media
Snapchat’s SnapKidz: All snap, no chat
It's an interesting experiment: The creators of Snapchat, the social app for sharing photos that disappear in seconds, have just introduced SnapKidz, a non-social photo app for kids under 13 with Apple mobile devices (it's not yet available for Android). So, true to its name, it's basically the snap without the chat. It's also the ephemeral photo-sharing app without the ephemeral part. Kids' … [Read more...] about Snapchat’s SnapKidz: All snap, no chat
Instagram adds video
Facebook's little photo-sharing app just became a video-sharing app too. Whether they're using Apple or Android phones, Instagram's 130 million users can now simply pick whether that image they want to capture is better static or in motion, then click on either the little camera or videocam icon (see the left-hand screenshot below). If they go with video, they can capture up to 15 seconds (no … [Read more...] about Instagram adds video
Video viewing increasingly ‘mobilized’
If it ever really did, screen size no longer has anything to do with the length of a video people will watch. "Smaller screens aren’t deterring people from watching more videos on their tablets and mobile phones," TheNextWeb.com reports. People of all ages are now doing more than half their "long-form video" viewing on these mobile devices, according to data from mobile video research firm Ooyala. … [Read more...] about Video viewing increasingly ‘mobilized’
The power of kid-powered tablets
This article about tablets in school has something to teach us about tablets at home too. Tablets – iPads, Kindle Fires, Meeps, Nabis, iTouches (see this) – and even the apps on them aren't the main event. They can be seen as the means to an end: creativity, communication, learning, fun (author and game designer Ralph Koster says that "fun is just another word for learning"). What a child brings … [Read more...] about The power of kid-powered tablets