p2pnet news | product news:- The Walt Disney company has bought Club Penguin, a Canadian subscription site based in Kelowna, British Columbia, and aimed at children under the age of 13, from local tech entrepreneurs Lane Merrifield, Lance Priebe and Dave Krysko.

Kids’ parents pay $72 a year so their offspring can be members and the club has 12 million activated users, says the Vancouver Sun.

The Club Penguin trio will get $350 million in cash, with another $350 million coming by the end of 2009 if the site meets growth targets, says the story.

The company is going all out to the target not only children of all ages as actual and potential consumers.

When you’re dealing with “preschoolers,” there, “really isn’t a difference between education and entertainment at that age level,” said Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online spokesman Ken Goldstein recently.

The scheme is, “all part of our age-banded strategy where we are looking to follow the consumer through all their age levels and have something for them at every age,” he said.

There is, however, something to be thankful for.

“As the site’s founders, we will continue to lead and guide Club Penguin, retaining control over the day-to-day operations and direction of the site while working closely with Disney to make Club Penguin the best it can be,” say Merrifield, Priebe and Krysko.

“In addition, we remain committed to our policy of allowing no advertising on the site.”

Webkinz is another highly popular Canadian kids’ page, one of similar sites “purpose-designed to get kids who use them to blackmail their parents into buying product,” p2pnet posted, going on it’s a, “fuzzy toy site that’s sweeping the net, sucking in young surfers”.

Meanwhile, Disney was recently the centre of an unfortunate controversy when a five-year-old boy in New Jersey switched on the Disney Channel and found himself watching a porn show.

Slashdot it!

Also See:
Vancouver Sun - Disney pays $700m US for Kelowna-based Club Penguin website, August 2, 2007
through all their age levels - Disney targets toddlers, January 18, 2006
p2pnet - Curse of the Webkinz, July 13, 2007
watching a porn show - Disney Porn Time for 5-year-olds, May 4, 2007

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 9:23 am and is filed under Product News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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