Second life for kids - what happened to the first?

One thing which filled me with a sense of wonder and trepidation was the news that Disney were releasing a 'second life' site for children (Lara Sinclair's article 'Club Penguin suits Disney's virtual aims', in The Australian media supplement, p. 33, Thursday 7 August 2008).

Touting itself as an 'online children's community', it offers virtual playgound-like environment online, where each child's character or 'avatar' (represented in this case by an individual penguin) can interact with others.

The site doesn't allow any exchange of personal information (which supposedly keeps it safe for children).

Club Penguin is the most popular children's website in Australia. The site is free to visit, and has more than 12 million( ! )active players worldwide, and 700,000 paying subscribers. While it is free to chat on the site, customising one's penguin character or igloo comes at a cost of $5.00 (US) per month.

Doing the maths, it's little wonder that Disney paid $350 million (US) to purchase the site last year.

( The site is listed below, or if you click on the title of this blog you'll automatically navigate there. )

http://www.clubpenguin.com/

The main media focus on this issue is technology and profitability, with a small concession made for the safeguarding of the child users.

Apart from the fact that having accessed the site, there doesn't appear to be any particular impediment to an adult visiting it, my main concern is this: whatever happened to kids being kids, kicking a ball, running around outside with their mates? Is Australia not in the grip of an obesity epidemic where children's levels of activity are already alarmingly low?

There are obvious arguments that sites like these could be educational and facilitate children adopting necessary technologies, but I think so much care needs to be taken here - a crucial balance needs to be struck between the possible benefits of 'second life' and the long-term risks to health.

Blogs move boundaries for US news

Geoff Elliott (Washington correspondent)'s article in The Australian media supplement (31 July 2008, pp.31 and 35 - click on the title and you'll navigate there) is a topical introduction for me to the idea of blogging as a means to both report and affect events.

Elliott states that the abundance of US blogs and how they are 'influencing the narrative' should be taken into account by politicians, citing an example where he critiqued a statement made by former US Democrat hopeful Harold Ford (that Australia 'wanted to pursue nuclear weapons'). This was picked up by several US blogs, leading to much discussion (and derision for Ford).

A piece on Barack Obama written by Elliott was picked up by blog site 'The Drudge Report':

http://www.drudgereport.com/

Inside of an hour Elliott had been contacted, and within a day he was appearing on US national public and Fox radio stations in hour-long discussions on Obama. Mainstream media picked up his article as did several blog sites.

The most fascinating insight for me in all this was that several Americans stated that they went to foreign websites for their US political news. The immediate thought occurs that perhaps foreign press may be seen as more impartial, however I wouldn't see Australians doing the same thing for our political news!