Stardoll for Little Girls: Mattias Miksche (Part 2)

SM: How did Paperdollheaven come about? MM: Some of the ideas were already there – the initial magic of paperdollheaven.com was all because of Liisa, our original founder and her vision of a fun, creative place for a forgotten demographic on the web: young girls. The new team then added the idea of personalized avators

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Trend Radar 2008: Edutainment

Jeff Katz told me about the Tag when I interviewed him in the Fall, but I promised not to write about it. Well, now the announcement is out. Tag is the new reading product from Leapfrog, replacing the LeapPad franchise that took the company to heights in 2003.

Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 10)

SM: Do you work with foundations? JK: We do. We do not have what I call a structured program with any one foundation. What we have done in the past, in fact annually we do something with one or more foundations. SM: Given the strength is in the reading area, and Bill Gates is spending

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Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 8)

SM: Does this include the kids chatting with each other? JK: At launch we will not do that, and we are targeting that age range where today it is delicate. We have another product that is an expansion of our gaming line, where we are getting old enough kids that we will be able to

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Gen Y & Edutainment

I wrote a piece called Affluenza about 2 years back, discussing the spending habits of Generation Y, and the opportunity that might present for Edutainment products. Generation Y has since evolved to become a very important marketing target, especially because they are hugely reachable. Gen Y is the largest generation in U.S. history. There are

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Viacom’s Digital Strategy

Viacom, Inc. is a leading entertainment conglomerate operating through two segments: Media Networks, which includes MTV Networks and BET Networks, and Filmed Entertainment, which includes Paramount Pictures Corporation and Famous Music. The Company owns some of the most popular entertainment brands in the world including, BET, Famous Music, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Comedy

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Leapfrog’s Turnaround Strategy

Leapfrog (LF) seems to be in desperate need of a turnaround. Given how good a brand it has, this is a sad state of affairs. The company has had a recent CEO change, and I am happy to see that the new recruit comes from the Online world. My own thesis on Leapfrog is that

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Who Would Have Thought?

Imagine you are a venture capitalist, and some little punk entrepreneur comes in and presents a business plan that projects that little kids would be adopting virtual pets. Instead of parents having to clean poop and puke, when children come calling for a chocolate lab puppy, they would introduce the little ones to virtual pets.

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