kids Archive

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN – Three West Michigan dads announced today their newly launched website LessThan3Notes.com, which offers parents a new way to reinforce positive values and good decision-making with their teen children.

Less Than 3 Notes [<3 NOTES] was created by Jay Brooks, Steve Place, and Doug Slagh, three dads who saw a need and decided to help other parents take advantage of a technology known as short message service [SMS] to reach teenage children with daily inspiring messages. It couldn’t be easier! Parents simply go online to LessThan3Notes.com and register to have the life-changing messages delivered every day to their son’s or daughter’s cell phone. A carefully designed strategy combines thoughtfully crafted messages that communicate strong moral values with quotes from famous people, humor and trivia to create a platform that generates long-term interest and respect. Over time, the consistency of the positive messages will undoubtedly have a lasting impact, encouraging teens to hold strong to their values and make wise choices that lead to better and healthier lives.

“Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is to think of it as a 21st Century alternative to the old-fashioned lunchbox notes moms have been embarrassing their kids with for generations,” says Jay Brooks, “Only this is better!” With the extraordinary rising popularity of text messaging among the younger generation of cell phone users, a new opportunity to effectively communicate has opened up. Although a lot of parents will admit they don’t completely grasp the new technology, their kids are likely sending and receiving hundreds (or thousands) of text messages every month to stay in constant contact with their closest friends. It’s time for parents to take advantage of this exciting technology and use it in an effective way.

The goal of <3 NOTES is to provide a cool tool to help parents inspire teen children to make good choices every day and mature into responsible adults. “It’s cool to get text messages and it makes young people feel important,” says Steve Place, who coordinates the message strategy. “No one will tease them about hearing from mom and dad, and they don’t have to shove it in their pocket quickly before someone sees it. Best of all, parents win because their teenager receives a daily positive reminder of the values they’ve been taught.”

ABOUT THE NAME: The name was inspired from a text message Jay’s daughter received one day from a friend. At the end it was signed with the text language symbol for a heart — “less than 3,” or <3. See the heart on its side? It seemed like the perfect name for the business, since their purpose is inspired by the love parents share for their kids and a desire to communicate a relevant message in the language teens understand most.

Editor’s note: The views expressed in this post may not necessarily represent the views of CenterNetworks. This press release was paid for and provided in its entirety by LessThan3Notes.

One of the most interesting products I’ve seen in a long time is Kidos. Kidos is a multi-platform education and entertainment package that basically protects kids from harming a parent’s computer but it’s really a lot more than that. Once you setup accounts for your kids, you can browse the gallery of “safe” software and media to load into your Kidos.

Out of the gate, Kidos has a business model. Within the gallery, you can buy entertainment and educational software to load into their Kidos. What a smart idea as it works just like iTunes. Here’s Kidos founder David Van Osdol explaining how the software works:

Disney has announced the launch of an updated Disney.com site today. They have brought back the portal concept of the late ’90s. All of the updates are geared towards keeping kids on the site longer which allows Disney to keep hitting the kids with brand messages. Those brand messages might not be ads but they are certainly character ads. It’s a smart play to keep the Disney brand top-of-mind for kids and then to the parents.

The new features include a game portal with over 100 Disney games which is sortable by character and movie. A very deep video portal allows kids to make their own personalized videotapes to watch on demand. The video footage comes from the Disney archives plus a user-generated contest they participated in this summer. Both the video and the game portals tie into a character center where kids can find their favorite characters from Disney films and television.

Mobile content has also increased with the updates and Disney fans can access the Disney store from their mobile.  Lastly, there’s a new “my” page – you remember those “my” pages – they were all the rage in 1999. They are back! 

In related news, I heard on the radio yesterday that the big Disney store in NYC will be closing in 2010 when their lease expires. Disney execs noted that the sales performance didn’t keep up with rising costs to run the store. Apparently Disney is looking for a “much smaller space” in NYC to open a new store in 2010.