The Club Penguin Times is an online newsletter that covers the ongoing world of fictitious penguins. The L.A. Times mentioned that The Club Penguin Times has more circulation than New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Dallas Morning News. There are about 6.7 million monthly readers.

Club Penguin was bought out by Disney about a year ago. The Club Penguin Times has social networking and user-submitted content. The Club Penguin Times has about 30,000 daily submissions from kids that are ages 6-14. Club Penguin has about 12 million members.

“We try to figure out how can we answer the most questions by choosing
a handful,” stated Lane Merrifield, co-founder of Club Penguin in regards to which submissions are to be published. Merrifeld is also the head of virtual worlds development at Walt Disney’s Interactive
Media Group.

Related Link:
1. The L.A. Times
2. Club Penguin

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) is makin’ moves online.  In August 2007, the Mickey Mouse and “It’s a small world” creators acquired Club Penguin, a kid-friendly social network for $350 million.  And now the company announced that they will be creating virtual worlds with online games.  As a matter of fact, they hired a team to focus on these specific jobs.  This new team will be part of the Walt Disney Internet Group and will be called Disney Online Studios.

Disney Online Studios will be managed by Steve Parkis.  Parkis studied at Michigan State and Northwestern and then started his career working at Kimberly-Clark.  AFter that, Parkis became a MD at Windhorst New Technologies.  Today Steve serves as the Vice President of Premium Products for Disney Online.

The new Disney Online Studios team will also include Disney Online’s Virtual Reality Studio, Toontown Online, and Pirates of the Caribbean Online.  Disney is also creating a virtual world where kids can control Disney Fairies and characters from the Disney film, Cars.  Club Penguin will continue to report to the Walt Disney Internet Group.

Disney is taking over the market-share for virtual worlds made for children, a market that Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, could have easily done.  Second Life had about 1.3 million users log in around March 2007 [clickz].  I’m not sure what the current number of users are.

[Information Source:  socalTECH]

“Club Penguin embodies principles that are of the utmost importance to Disney — providing high-quality family entertainment and fostering parental trust,” stated Bob Iger, the President and CEO of Disney. “The founders have woven together new technologies and creativity to build an incredibly compelling, immersive entertainment experience for kids and families.”

The last time I wrote about Club Penguin was May 16, 2007. It was in regards to Sony pursuing a potential acquisition of Club Penguin for $450 million. However, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) announced today that they have acquired Club Penguin for $350 million.

The biggest benefit of Club Penguin is that it is a safe social network for children and is heavily regulated. “We have been actively searching for an organization that not only shares our values and concerns for children, but also has the ability and desire to help us bring Club Penguin to more children throughout the world,” stated Lane Merrifield, one of Club Penguin’s co-founder. “We’ve found that partner in Disney.”

Disney does not seem to want to change Club Penguin’s operations as far as making the founders relocate from Kelowna, Canada. But I would not be surprised if Disney starts integrating some of their trademark characters into the system, especially during peak blockbuster release seasons. There is a Welcome Club Penguin message on the Disney homepage already: http://home.disney.go.com/index

References:
[1] Associated Press (via Yahoo!): Disney acquires Club Penguin for $350M
[2] Pulse 2.0: Sony Advances Talks With ClubPenguin For Potential $450 Million Acquisition

I believe what makes ClubPenguin (CP) a great company is that it lives up to its purpose: to be an online world for kids where they could safely play games, have fun and interact [Source: About CP]. Although I do not use the website myself, I do have cousins that are about 10 years younger than myself that are proactive on the site. And they seem to enjoy the safe environment and the games.

When I read the news that Club Penguin may be getting acquired for $450 million by Sony Corporation on PaidContent, I can’t help but feel that this is definetely a company that deserves it. The site is only funded by subscriptions and not advertising. And also Sony would be able to leverage the content on Club Penguin for its consoles.

Club Penguin is based in Canada. More specifically in Kelowna, British Columbia which is about four hours east of Vancouver by car. The company was launched in October 2005 and had 4.5 million visitors last March. Club Penguin was developed by New Horizon Interactive. This past April, Club Penguin earned the prestigous award for the BBB Kid’s Privacy Seal of Approval. Less than a dozen other companies have earned this right.

If and when the acquisition completes, I’ll ensure to write about it.