RSS for kids

We've been busy adding RSS feeds all over Yahoo! We had previously released Yahooligans! Joke of the Day. Today, Ask Earl (a daily question and answer for kids) is available too. In Education, we now have Word of the Day and SAT Tip of the Day available. More to come soon!

Reported on Jeff Boulter's Weblog (via The Shifted Librarian).

I find this fascinating, particularly because most sites for children are rammed with things that move, squeak and leap out. How well will RSS go down? It seems that Yahooligans has done something of a controlled released of RSS, so they must have been getting positive feedback.

And this interview last year with a senior producer at Yahooligans suggests there is an appetite for just the info:

The one thing that we have that none of our competitors really have in the kids space is our search and directory, which is what Yahooligans! started with. It's a comprehensive listing of Web sites. We have a team of editors, they're all former educators, and they go out and look at Web sites, they make sure they're safe, fun and appropriate for kids, and they add them to the giant database.

After Games and Animals, it's probably the third most popular area. A lot of that usage is probably driven by, we think, teachers. It's very hard for teachers in the classroom to send their kids in the Web. I used to be a former teacher, and students, whether intentionally or unintentionally, can get in trouble pretty quickly by searching on the Web. Yahooligans!, because it's more of a database than a free-for-all on the Web, it's only going to search sites that we've already pre-screened and said are appropriate.

Interestingly, RSS also has the potential to route around some of the personal information issues that come with collecting and using email addresses.

Somewhat related: CBBC launched its child-friendly search last month. And before that they launched CBBC newsround headlines to mobile phones (with a whole category dedicated to news about animals).

What next? I think there's a lot of potential for giving child-safe news, search and directories the RSS treatment. Many parents only let their children navigate to sites they've already bookmarked together. Perhaps a daily stream of sites recently added to CBBC Search and the Yahooligans directory, combined with quality news sources (National Geographic Kids, CBBC newsround...), would give kids that much more to explore. Combine this with a facility for their parents, teachers and friends to bookmark their own finds (a kind of semi-private del.icio.us), and you've got an information-rich, safe, social space for children.