Thursday
AOL to launch Kids OnLine - "KOL"
America Online this year has had mixed success trying to stem subscriber losses by offering such nuggets as sports clips, anti-virus protection services and exclusive music samples.
Now, the struggling unit of AOL Time Warner (soon to be just Time Warner) is taking off the gloves. The family-oriented service is taking aim at perhaps its subscribers' biggest soft spot: their children.
AOL on Monday will roll out KOL, its first service designed for kids ages 6 to 12. To be sure, AOL offers a kids' channel today that is among the Internet's top such sites, drawing 3.3 million children with chat rooms, pop-culture content and homework help. But it's a fairly static miniversion of the flagship AOL service.
KOL marks a dramatic makeover as it creates a sort of online amusement park for children, complete with video gamelike navigation, interactive bedtime stories, exclusive cartoons and comic strips, a radio show, dozens of games and even a dose of good-natured bathroom humor.
In charge of its creation was Malcolm Bird, vice president of AOL's kids and teens areas and a British children's TV veteran. ''This is a unique immersive experience for kids,'' he says. ''I want this to be something kids want to go to every day, something that makes them go the playground and say, 'Did you see what was on KOL?' ''
Meanwhile, he says, parents will be drawn to KOL's ''safe environment,'' made possible by parental-control features.
Some compelling numbers back AOL's courting of pre-adolescents. Forty percent of kids under age 12 are online, a figure expected to be 57% by 2007, Jupiter Research says. And a Roper ASW report says kids are playing an ever-bigger role in parental purchase decisions, such as picking an Internet service.
''Kids are a huge retention tool'' for AOL, Bird says.
AOL has lost more than a million subscribers this year, many to the broadband services of phone and cable companies. In that period, it has gained just 450,000 broadband subscribers -- who mostly pay an extra $10 to $15 a month to get AOL content on top of a broadband access service.
AOL officials and some analysts believe the kids' offering can boost that number because much of the animated content requires broadband. ''My feeling is it's going to help them hold on to a very key audience for them, which is the family audience,'' says Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.
But Jupiter Research analyst David Card was more skeptical. ''It looks like a really good offering with a lot of rich programming,'' he says. He says it surpasses online kids' content from rival services such as Microsoft's MSN and EarthLink, as well as children's content sites from Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network.
Noting a Jupiter survey showing less than 5% of online users would pay extra for kids' content, Card says, ''There's no pent-up demand for this kind of service.''
But Bird hopes he's concocted such a dazzling online world that kids won't let their parents turn it off. Youngsters choose personal desktop themes, such as ''space,'' ''ocean'' and ''jungle,'' and navigate by clicking on objects or characters in the elaborate settings.
Other features include a live daily radio show hosted by British TV and radio host Rick Adams in a small studio next to Bird's office; homework help from ''Brad the Robot''; an exclusive Batman comic strip; toy reviews; about 50 games, including Booger Bowling and Gross Golf; an animated series called Princess Natasha; and a ''big red button'' that unleashes surprises when pressed.
For ad revenue, Bird has set up fairly subdued corporate sponsorships, rather than banners.
Bird says the content is rooted in months of focus groups with kids, as well as his own experience in children's programming. He helped launch Nickelodeon UK, headed kids' programming for USA Network station WAMI in Miami and led international programming for Cartoon Network. AOL Chief Jonathan Miller, formerly Bird's boss at Nickelodeon, hired him for the AOL job last December.
His approach: ''How can you do something new, how can you make it better, how can you make it unique. I don't patronize kids. I've done it for many years, and I know the sort of programming kids like. I know some of it (stretches limits), but I don't go too far.'' The twist to online programming, he says, is to be interactive. The storybook, for instance, has ''Easter eggs'' -- hidden content morsels -- children can find.
A cherubic-faced, 36-year-old Brit who wears plaid suits and suede red sneakers and visits toy stores just to play with the latest products, Bird seems like a big kid himself. His office is brimming with toys and dolls. And a jungle of stuffed monkeys, spiders and other creatures hovers over his staff's cubicles. At about 4 p.m., each day, Bird picks up a slingshot and launches the daily Nerf ball battle.
''When you walk in here, I want you to know this is the kids' department,'' he says.
Now, the struggling unit of AOL Time Warner (soon to be just Time Warner) is taking off the gloves. The family-oriented service is taking aim at perhaps its subscribers' biggest soft spot: their children.
AOL on Monday will roll out KOL, its first service designed for kids ages 6 to 12. To be sure, AOL offers a kids' channel today that is among the Internet's top such sites, drawing 3.3 million children with chat rooms, pop-culture content and homework help. But it's a fairly static miniversion of the flagship AOL service.
KOL marks a dramatic makeover as it creates a sort of online amusement park for children, complete with video gamelike navigation, interactive bedtime stories, exclusive cartoons and comic strips, a radio show, dozens of games and even a dose of good-natured bathroom humor.
In charge of its creation was Malcolm Bird, vice president of AOL's kids and teens areas and a British children's TV veteran. ''This is a unique immersive experience for kids,'' he says. ''I want this to be something kids want to go to every day, something that makes them go the playground and say, 'Did you see what was on KOL?' ''
Meanwhile, he says, parents will be drawn to KOL's ''safe environment,'' made possible by parental-control features.
Some compelling numbers back AOL's courting of pre-adolescents. Forty percent of kids under age 12 are online, a figure expected to be 57% by 2007, Jupiter Research says. And a Roper ASW report says kids are playing an ever-bigger role in parental purchase decisions, such as picking an Internet service.
''Kids are a huge retention tool'' for AOL, Bird says.
AOL has lost more than a million subscribers this year, many to the broadband services of phone and cable companies. In that period, it has gained just 450,000 broadband subscribers -- who mostly pay an extra $10 to $15 a month to get AOL content on top of a broadband access service.
AOL officials and some analysts believe the kids' offering can boost that number because much of the animated content requires broadband. ''My feeling is it's going to help them hold on to a very key audience for them, which is the family audience,'' says Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.
But Jupiter Research analyst David Card was more skeptical. ''It looks like a really good offering with a lot of rich programming,'' he says. He says it surpasses online kids' content from rival services such as Microsoft's MSN and EarthLink, as well as children's content sites from Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network.
Noting a Jupiter survey showing less than 5% of online users would pay extra for kids' content, Card says, ''There's no pent-up demand for this kind of service.''
But Bird hopes he's concocted such a dazzling online world that kids won't let their parents turn it off. Youngsters choose personal desktop themes, such as ''space,'' ''ocean'' and ''jungle,'' and navigate by clicking on objects or characters in the elaborate settings.
Other features include a live daily radio show hosted by British TV and radio host Rick Adams in a small studio next to Bird's office; homework help from ''Brad the Robot''; an exclusive Batman comic strip; toy reviews; about 50 games, including Booger Bowling and Gross Golf; an animated series called Princess Natasha; and a ''big red button'' that unleashes surprises when pressed.
For ad revenue, Bird has set up fairly subdued corporate sponsorships, rather than banners.
Bird says the content is rooted in months of focus groups with kids, as well as his own experience in children's programming. He helped launch Nickelodeon UK, headed kids' programming for USA Network station WAMI in Miami and led international programming for Cartoon Network. AOL Chief Jonathan Miller, formerly Bird's boss at Nickelodeon, hired him for the AOL job last December.
His approach: ''How can you do something new, how can you make it better, how can you make it unique. I don't patronize kids. I've done it for many years, and I know the sort of programming kids like. I know some of it (stretches limits), but I don't go too far.'' The twist to online programming, he says, is to be interactive. The storybook, for instance, has ''Easter eggs'' -- hidden content morsels -- children can find.
A cherubic-faced, 36-year-old Brit who wears plaid suits and suede red sneakers and visits toy stores just to play with the latest products, Bird seems like a big kid himself. His office is brimming with toys and dolls. And a jungle of stuffed monkeys, spiders and other creatures hovers over his staff's cubicles. At about 4 p.m., each day, Bird picks up a slingshot and launches the daily Nerf ball battle.
''When you walk in here, I want you to know this is the kids' department,'' he says.
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