| March 25, 1996 |  |
 |
Like Netscape, Yahoo! keeps beating its competitors to the punch. As the Internet community holds seminars, news conferences, and live debates concerning child safety and kid-appropriate content, Yahoo! is making things happen. Last week, Yahoo! unveiled Yahooligans!, the first Web search guide geared for kids ages 8 to 14.
Yahooligans offers original content from independent providers and SurfWatch software that parents can use to block questionable material from kids. The guide is organized into eight kid-appropriate subjects, such as School Bell, which provides a homework helper; Science and Oddities, which covers topics such as space, the environment, and dinosaurs; and Art Soup, which focuses on dance, music and theater. Young surfers can search on titles, URLs, and comments and retrieve three different kinds of content: categories, Web sites, and Yahooligans! categories where those Web sites are listed. The list of cool Web sites lists kid-oriented sites such as The White House for Kids, The Gymnastics Forum, and Time, the kids' edition.
Recognizing that kids are the fastest-growing group on the Internet, Yahoo! and Ingenious, developer of educational and entertainment products for kids, teamed up to take advantage of the demographic trend.
Although Yahoo competitors such as Lycos, Web Crawler, and Alta Vista have arguably more financial and technical resources than Yahoo!, Yahoo is so far the only Web guide that caters to kids.
And cater it does. Yahooligans! looks and feels a lot like its parent, but it's more youthful-looking than Yahoo! It integrates bright and colorful graphics on every page and uses easy-to-understand language--especially in its Help pages--that any 8 year old can grasp. To keep the site kid-friendly, Yahooligans screens Web sites and solicits kids to write in if they think a Yahooligans! site is offensive. If Yahooligans! agrees, it will remove the site and send the kid an award.
While Yahooligans is kid stuff, Yahoo's IPO next week isn't. As reported recently in The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo founders David Filo, 29, and Jerry Yang, 27, stand to make $50M to $60M each from the IPO.--Angela Hickman
Index to previous Trends Online articles.
Copyright (c) 1996 Ziff-Davis
Publishing Company