VentureBeat

KidZui is launching a series of social networking features for its kid-safe internet browsing software. Designed for kids ages three to 12, KidZui is a web portal for kids that is trying to draw an audience by adopting the same kind of features that have made Facebook popular.

Kidzui online services include links to more than 1.5 million parent- and teacher-approved web sites, games, pictures and videos. And now, when kids log in, they can see a live mini-feed with status updates from their friends, although all friend requests have to be approved by parents.

When sending status updates, kids can choose from a menu of moods or activities, such as “doing homework” or “energetic.”  And they can create their own Zui avatars, or animated characters, to use when communicating with each other. Instead of “poking” others as on Facebook, they “ping” each other.

The move to incorporate social networking into kids’ sites is becoming common. Glubble announced a couple of weeks ago that it has built social networking into its web-safe browser. Zookazoo, launched earlier this year, is also a kids’ game site with social networking features.

In general, these sites are like looking at the world through a kid’s eyes. The KidZui site has a new political page, where children can befriend the presidential and vice presidential candidates. So far, Barack Obama has more friends than John McCain.

“We designed this to be like MySpace and Facebook but in a way that works for kids,” said Cliff Boro, chief executive of KidZui.

The site tries to offer a balance of entertainment, education and community. On the education front, the company is launching Homework Helper, a teacher-designed system that gives kids access to a range of subjects from kindergarten to eight grade.

KidZui has about twice as much traffic as Glubble, according to Compete.com. But it has a long way to go before it gets anywhere near the traffic of the more game-oriented Club Penguin, Disney’s site for kids. The company also competes with Ask Kids, NetNanny, Cyber Patrol and Cybersitter, which filter out adult-oriented sites.

It will be interesting to see if the redesign helps KidZui. The company originally launched a subscription site in March but made it free in June to reach a wider audience. It shifted to a model where it makes money off ads for the free visitors. The company still offers a subscription of $4.95 a month for enhanced online reports for parents, Homework Helper, and other extras. It also has a virtual goods model, where kids can earn points if they discover new sites within the KidZui universe. They can use those points to buy a variety of virtual goods for their avatars.

To date, users have rated two million pieces of content and shared a million pieces of content. Kids use the site an average of three times a week. KidZui is backed by Maveron, Emergence Capital Partners and First Round Capital. It has raised $10 million in funding since 2006.

Glubble intends to make the Internet safe for kids and their parents to surf together.

The London-based company is launching Glubble for Families, the second version of its Firefox browser-based online activity center for families with kids under 12. The new version takes what was a browser filter and upgrades it into a social networking tool for families to share pictures, schedule events, and chat in a secure manner.

The software uses a plug-in for Firefox that makes it possible for kids to surf an approved list of web sites and to communicate with their families.

The first version came out a year ago and was downloaded more than 300,000 times. It has 200,00 active users and usage is up 300 percent in the last quarter, said Alexander Van Elsas, senior vice president of operations at Glubble. Kids can use the Glubble client to surf 2,500 ad-free web sites that have been pre-approved by parents.

The new version has features including Kids Pages, Collections of fun web sites, secure chat and instant messaging, photo albums and downloadable Play Art. Families can set up their own web pages where they can communicate with each other and share photos. They can leave messages, such as birthday reminders, on a Facebook-like Message Wall. Users are sending 10,000 messages a week.

The family networks are secure because access to them must be granted by the parent who creates the family site. When kids are using the brower, they won’t be able to access any other part of the computer except the Glubble-approved web sites. Google search results can be intercepted and filtered.

If kids want to add a web site that isn’t on the list, they can do so with the permission of a parent or guardian.  When that happens, Glubble sends a message to the parent, who, upon logging in via a web site, can approve or reject the request on the spot. Parents can actually join kids as they surf the web, said Willem-Jan Schutte, co-founder and chief executive of Glubble. The whole point is to bring families together, just as other activities such as reading books or playing sports do.

The company was founded in early 2007. It raised $1 million in a first round and then raised $3 million earlier this year. It has 30 employees. The company will distribute Glubble through partners, which include Highlights Magazine, Sittercity and Yahoo.

Schutte said that an Internet Explorer version will debut before the end of the year but a Safari version isn’t likely to be out soon. He said the software works on just about any web site and can surf on game sites that make heavy use of Adobe’s Flash software.

The company doesn’t have direct competition but it does have indirect rivals such as filtering software. Parents can use software such as NetNanny, Cyber Patrol, and Cyber City to filter out inappropriate web content. Most of the users are in the U.S. and the U.K., but the software is used in 125 countries.