Kids love to play games – especially social games. They love playing so much that they are willing to lie about their age to create bogus accounts on websites which offer the games they want, i.e. Facebook.
This became an issue of growing concern to George Zaloom, a father of four daughters. When his youngest (a 11 year-old) requested a Facebook account to play Farmville, mentioning that some of her friends already had one, Zaloom got an idea. He believed that social gaming shouldn’t be off limits to kids under 13, rather, it should be offered via a platform that is safe and appropriate for kids. The idea turned into giantHello™, a new website which gives kids (and parents) what they both want.
giantHello™ was designed for tweens (7 to 13 year-olds) who have outgrown Club Penguin and Webkinz, but are not old enough to sign up for Facebook or MySpace. The site’s many cool features include: friending, customizable profile pages, internal messaging, photo uploading, home page status updates, badges, web based IM, fan pages and casual games.
giantHello™ has also created a Facebook compatible API (launching in March), which will enable social game developers to effortlessly publish on the giantHello platform. A number of major developers have already committed their games. Additionally, giantHello™ “Like” buttons have just started appearing on many kids sites. The buttons enable kids to Like sites, particular content, and post regular updates to the their own feeds.
Online safety is of great concern to giantHello™, and every effort has gone into making the safe for kids to connect with their friends. If a child wants to add a friend all they need to do is send a special coded email or print an invite to hand deliver. Strangers are not able to contact kids on giantHello™ because the site does not allow “Search.” Kids are only able to communicate with are their real friends: classmates, teammates, kids from camp, youth group and cousins.
In the past, others have tried to create social educational sites or ones that were promoted as “parent” approved but kids greeted them like a bowl of tasteless spinach. giantHello™ has created an awesome site for kids that has the look and usability of a real social network, offers tons of games and doesn’t restrict their communications (no canned chat). giantHello™ complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and has been certified by the Children’s Advertising Review Board.
With over 32 million plus tweens in the USA and an even bigger international market, the future looks bright for giantHello™!
For further information contact: Press@giantHello.com
