The overall numbers are surprisingly high (more on that in a second), but worth noting about UK-based virtual-world market-research firm KZero's latest data is the growth figure: "the largest quarterly increase since we started tracking in 2008" – an increase of 214 million accounts between Q1 and Q2 2011, KZero says. This is kid virtual-world users we're talking about. The fastest-growing worlds … [Read more...] about Kids’ virtual worlds thriving
IMVU
Parents, you’re not just focusing on FB, right?
It's great that parents are getting the message that they can monitor their kids on Facebook by joining it, but they also need to remember that Facebook isn't the all of teen online socializing (even though it's in the news a lot!). It's just the big social utility that aggregates basically "everybody" in teens' real-world school and social lives. But there's plenty more social activity happening … [Read more...] about Parents, you’re not just focusing on FB, right?
Avatar chat’s downside
For some teens it's harmless fun, for others IMVU.com's chat-by-avatar (an animated character that represents you online) can be pretty explicit. How good or bad the experience is depends on the user, and there are some sexually exploratory teens in the site mixing it up with adult users (there has been a lot of discussion about this in our ConnectSafely.org forum). Here's the first news story … [Read more...] about Avatar chat’s downside