Why high engagement and high value come about when News meet Social Networking and Education? | The Whiz Times | Nelson Wee | Singapore

Place "News" and "Social Networking" side by side and couple that with "Education" for kids, and you would get a online service which could garner high engagement and value in your #dailyhabits amongst its key user segments - parents, kids, educators. Here is one such service - The Whiz Times - a one of its kind News, Enrichment and Entertainment platform for the entire family.

My friend and ex-colleague, Shalabh Pandey, Chief Whiz and founder of "The Whiz Times" tells me this about his platform service ... 

• The Whiz Times brings the real world closer to Kids (Tweens) via parents in a Safe, Simple and Fun environment. 
• Our content engine can 'filter' stories based on various age groups, users can get reward points for using the platform, get access to hundreds of stories, loads of custom produced videos and much more. 
• The idea is to provide a family friendly environment - that is 100% safe, privacy protected, full of custom produced content and tonnes of interactivity including videos, quizzes, games.

Why the engagement? The multimedia contents for worldwide and local news in The Whiz Times have been specially composed and published for kids and at times even published by kids themselves! See the video below.



Why the value? There is a growing trend and market attention on EdTech. Already we are seeing also trending increasing digital publishing and consumption of books and education contents today. And we are seeing in the last 2 years in 2012 and now into 2013 that niche vertical communities are positing themselves in the ecosystems and thriving in the markets around us. Social networks for kids with contents could offer huge and untapped ancillary revenue channels and opportunities as well!

Not to mention, that anecdotally (in online surveys done in Singapore and I am pretty sure is a worldwide phenomenon as parents always want the best for their kids), parents for kids age 7 to 12 years do tend to spend more on their kids (for example education) than on themselves. Well, I as a parent, would attest to this!

In closing, with niche social networks like The Whiz Times, with news content and which have educational value - as a platform for kids and families to participate and learn together on what's happening in the real world in a SIMPLE, SAFE, FUN manner - could help inculcate interest, instil passion in learning and creating contents in kids. This would bode well for the kids' future as digital literacy could well be the new financial literacy of the future.

What are your thoughts on such social networks and how they could play in today's new learning paradigms?


Talk soon,
Nelson Wee, Singapore
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