Comments on: Disney buys kids’ social networking site

By: matthew

matthew — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:16:36 +0000

Clubpenguin is simbly the best website made i go on it im 8 though and ive even youred the clubpenguin building have a freind that works for clubpenguin and got two puffle stuffies and a black puffle t-shirt i love clubpenguin its my home page and clubpenguin will stay forever and i plan to work there when im old enoff

untill then…waddle on!
posted by Matthew Gropp at 7:16.pm

By: Steve Safran

Steve Safran — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:43:48 +0000

First of all, welcome Hanson - I love it when readers take the dive and start commenting. Mike - go easy on the new guy

As for Club Penguin - someone should tell Disney it’s So Yesterday. The LR Offspring conned me into a one year subscription, only to move on to Webkinz about six weeks later.

ML: I blame you.

By: Hanson Hosein

Hanson Hosein — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:52:27 +0000

Sorry Mike, guess I came up with the analogy all by myself. I read about the purchase from the local Kelowna paper, which doesn’t provide that kind of analysis. It’s just interesting to hear about apparent stagnation on something like MySpace and see this incredible growth on Club Penguin.

Your point about keeping private information from being disclosed is interesting however — as that seems to be a growing concern over at Facebook now that the private sector is mining for personal data on FB accounts. Fundamentally, it’s about how a community of people can interact with each other safely without excessive intrusion from outsiders. And the CP guys seem to have come up with a winning recipe of usability and privacy for their young members.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:54:57 +0000

CP is not at all like MySpace at all. You took that analogy from other media reports that keep saying the same thing, didn’t ya? You do gather a list of so called “friends” that you hardly know at all but that’s as far as the MySpace analogy can possibly go. MySpace is all about putting personal information about yourself on your own webpage, while Club Penguin has no individual webpages and strictly prohibits any personal information about users. Even their chat is filtered to keep addresses and phone numbers from being disclosed. Second Life is more appropriate since it’s about going places and doing things - but only if Second Life was actually simple, easy to use, ran smoothly, and most importantly was actually enjoyable.

By: Hanson Hosein

Hanson Hosein — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:45:56 +0000

I’ve been told that I should participate more in a site I’ve been reading several times a day for the last three years, so here goes…

I toured the Club Penguin facilities back in early 2006 when I lived in Kelowna (where they’re based) and was doing business with one of its designers. It was already a success then, so I’m thrilled to see that such an important venture (on a potential YouTube scale) can come out of such a small city in the middle of nowhere.

Perhaps more importantly this demonstrates the solidifying of a trend between social networking and virtual worlds (somewhat similar to Second Life). MySpace suddenly seems so 2006…

By: John Cutter

John Cutter — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:35:31 +0000

Club Penguin is more like Second Life, with a customizable penguin as your avatar and a “world” you can explore and decorate, play games, “talk” to other avatar-penguins. Nick has something like it called Nictropolis. (Yes, I know way too much about it…but my pre-teen and her friends love it. In a month, however, they could be on to the next thing.) JC