What do you get when a team of Emmy winning children’s TV producers are introduced to the iPad? You get a company that has a whole new vision for the future of television. That company, PlaySquare, is working on something they’re calling “touchable TV.” It’s the idea that the child shouldn’t just be watching television, they should be interacting with it. And it’s not a second screen experience… → Read More
One Jackson, the latest e-commerce startup to target the popular kids’ clothing market, is preparing to make a big splash with its public debut next week. The company plays in the same space as other online clothing startups experimenting with Silicon Valley-inspired business models, including the subscription-based offerings from Wittlebee and FabKids, for example, as well as the web-based… → Read More
San Francisco-based FabKids is the latest startup to try its hand at subscription-based e-commerce, taking on competitors like Wittlebee in the kids’ apparel space, but with a slightly different twist. Instead of offering a box of separates shipped monthly, FabKids will send out one complete outfit it has designed in-house and personalized to the child, based on a custom profile filled out at… → Read More
Wonderville, an education-focused technology startup built by eToys vets from the dotcom era, is today making its public debut. You might, at first glance, think of the company as something like a “Khan Academy” for the younger crowd, given that its goal is to augment a child’s education (K-8) with additional materials and teachings. But the similarities end there. Where Khan Academy focuses on… → Read More
Maily is a new iPad app launching today that aims to be your kids’ first email application. Because, you know, kids these days and their busy schedules. Ha! In all seriousness, Maily is a communications tool that lets kids easily share messages and drawings with family and friends through a simplified interface that even a small child as young as three can manage, at least according to early… → Read More
Online kids’ clothing consignment shop thredUP says its recent transition from online swap meet to clothing resale service has been working. When the company was originally founded back in 2009, the goal was to offer a platform where parents could trade boxes of used kids’ clothes directly with each other. But despite some steady but slow growth, thredUP made the shift into consignment this past… → Read More
PixyKids, a Silicon Valley-based startup building a social media platform for children ages 6 to 12 and their families, is launching into open beta today and rebranding under the new name “Kazaana.” The company felt like the earlier label was “too girlie” and didn’t clearly demonstrate that PixyKids was a family platform, and not just a kids’ platform. (For what it’s worth, I have to admit the… → Read More
With today’s launch of Dinda.com.br, the founding team behind Brazil-based Baby.com.br, is expanding into a new vertical following the success of its original, but more traditional, e-commerce offering targeting new parents. While Baby.com.br is like a Diapers.com for Brazil (and local competitor with Bebestore), with Dinda.com.br, the company is introducing Brazil’s first flash sales site for… → Read More
Want more proof that the private, mobile social networking space is exploding? Today, there comes yet another entrant into the game: an iOS and web application called Sidebark, which targets families and friends interested in sharing photos and videos privately via mobile.
Because there are so many of these apps, with Path perhaps being the one to beat in this space, each has to offer some… → Read More
LittleBits, an “open source hardware” startup that makes electronic building blocks to design objects for work and play, has today announced the addition of two significant building blocks of its own: it has picked up $3.65 million in funding; and has signed a manufacturing deal with PCH International to scale up its business. The Series A round of funding was led by True Ventures, with… → Read More
MeMeTales, a super-cute (and guilt-free!) children’s books application arrives on Android today, following its iOS release and public debut at 500 Startups’ demo day last October. Originally from Seattle, now a San Francisco-based operation, the company was founded by husband and wife team Maya Bisineer and Pree Kolari, and offers a library of picture books designed for preschool and… → Read More
Habbo Hotel, the under-21 social networking site that was forced to close down earlier this month after it was revealed that people were using it to send sexual and other illicit messages to underage users, is now open once again, TechCrunch has learned.
Sulake, the Finnish company that owns Habbo Hotel, two weeks ago “muted” activity on the site as it scrambled to implement better content and… → Read More
We’ve all been there: appearing before someone important, having to sell yourself and your ideas, in the hopes of getting a job, funding, or just a break at doing something bigger. The video below, playing on the idea of a startup pitch parade, takes that nervewracking situation and turns it on its head, by giving the reigns to a panel of kids, and the job of pitching to some of the biggest… → Read More
HighScore House, the family-focused startup whose previous app was a “gamified” chore list tracker for iPad, has today released its latest creation: FamJam. Parents might call it an inter-family communication tool, but that sounds boring. It’s just a fun way for kids to send their iPad drawings to grandma and grandpa without needing their email address.
The company is backed by 500 Startups… → Read More
KinderTown, the company that makes the ever-useful educational app store for parents, is rolling out a new service targeted towards app developers. KinderSights, as it’s called, will offer up a series of monthly reports based on KinderTown’s internal data. The reports aim to answer the question: what apps are parents looking for right now?
Since April, the startup says parents have performed… → Read More
Sulake, the developers behind the children’s virtual world Habbo Hotel, is preparing to reopen its chatrooms once again after a week in which it was exposed for hosting inappropriate sexual content on the site, prompting the company to close down all conversations — “mute” them in Habbo terminology — while it sorted out the mess.
The news of what Habbo is calling “The Great Unmute” will also… → Read More
Kytephone, the mobile app that transforms Android smartphones into kid-safe devices, is officially making its public debut today. The startup had previously been in beta, following its reveal at this spring’s Y Combinator Demo Day, where founders Renat Gataullin and Martin Drashkov first detailed their company’s vision.
The idea behind Kytephone is simple. It addresses parents’ growing… → Read More
Top European VC firm Balderton today has confirmed to TechCrunch that it is ditching a 13 percent stake in Finnish social networking and virtual world company Sulake, creators of Habbo, after the youth-oriented site was exposed for hosting illicit content not appropriate for its intended users. Balderton had been an investor in Sulake for the past eight years and together with other backers had… → Read More
Everloop, the social network for children under 13, is planning to launch a mobile application, making it one of the first companies to attempt a mobile, social network just for kids. The app, arriving in the third week of June, will translate the desktop experience to the small screen, beginning with iOS (iPhone & iPod Touch) before heading to other platforms like Android.
The company… → Read More
Another entry in the mobile-first, private social networking for families space (yes, apparently this is a thing now): 23snaps, a new iOS application that works like a mini-Facebook for posting status updates, photos and videos of your kids. The app isn’t anywhere near as dazzling as current private social network darling Path, but it’s a functional and easy-to-use alternative to the typical… → Read More
Sometimes you just gotta do your own thing. Such was the case with Boris Vaisman, who dropped out of Y Combinator’s winter batch (where he was on kid-safe phone lockdown tool, Kyte). Says Vaisman, it was just a matter of “having a different vision in terms of how to move forward.” So what has Vaisman, along with co-founder Ankush Agarwal, now launched instead? Play Safe, an app for Android that… → Read More
TinyTap is a new iPad application designed for kids which introduces a different angle on the “record-your-own-voice” storybooks craze, by offering a playable book or game you and your kids can customize with your own photos, camera shots, music, narration, and more. The resulting creations can then be shared with family and friends. And, for a little inspiration, the built-in TinyTap store offers… → Read More
ID and fraud protection service AllClear ID, is launching a new feature today which aims to protect kids’ Social Security Numbers (SSNs) from being stolen and used to secure things like mortgages, loans and other big ticket items. It’s a major problem, the company says, noting in a new study that 10.7% of children have had their ID stolen.
The idea with the new service is to create the… → Read More
Parents looking for a curated selection of music and videos that’s a little more kid-friendly than YouTube have another option now, thanks to the launch of Jitterbug.tv. The new iPad app is the first subscription-based music service for kids, and is targeting the 2-7 age range. Included in the app are videos and music from top kids artists like 23 Skidoo, The Jimmies, Laura Veirs, Milkshake Music… → Read More
“Grumpy Cat! Grumpy Cat! More Grumpy Cat, please!” – That’s basically my two-year-old’s review of FarFaria, a new subscription-based children’s storybook app for the iPad. (To translate: she loves it, and especially that story about the grumpy cat.) The app, to be clear, doesn’t just offer the one story – not that my kid seems to care right now – it’s a collection of nearly one hundred stories… → Read More
If you own a tablet and have children, chances are that this will not come as news to you. For those who don’t but work in mobile, it’s something worth remembering when you’re concocting up your next big product: Kids are crazy about tablets.
According to some research out today from Nielsen in the U.S., in households that own a tablet, seven out of 10 children under the age of 12 use them. And… → Read More
Sometimes, reporting startup news can make a person feel old. Case in point: Woozworld, the virtual world maker for tweens, is launching a social networking service called WoozIn, which I’m saying with a straight face. I swear. WoozIn. It’s essentially a Facebook-lite/virtual world mashup that allows prepubescent youth to share, comment and like their friends’ updates, pictures, videos and more… → Read More
UK-based Lok8u (Get it? Locate you?) is a GPS-enabled wristwatch meant to be worn by children. The watch also features a built-in cell signal, too, which enables location information to be relayed rapidly to parents while waiting for the GPS chip to get its bearings or when there’s no line-of-sight to GPS satellites. → Read More
I don’t have children, but from what I hear they’re quite expensive. Instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on new shoes over the course of a couple years (that’s how much a family spends on shoes, right?) perhaps you could consider these INCHworm shoes, which adjust in size to match your child’s freakishly fast-growing feet. → Read More
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