Girls' (social) fashion 2.0

Fashionology.com is pretty brilliant - but also a no-brainer retail for digital natives. It's not just brick & mortar retail for tween girls (it's online too). It's not just a t-shirt printing shop (it's hoodies, skirts, and dresses too, and it's design, production, and modeling). It's not just an individual design experience (it's a collective one too, online and offline, in fact it can be an on-demand girls' party). It definitely takes the Build-a-Bear, Webkinz, and ClubPenguin concepts to the next level (online, it's more social site than virtual world). A user is not just designing or using virtual and/or real objects or avatars; she's engaged in both or either virtual and/or real-world collaborative self-expression whose product she herself can wear to the "party" that the whole experience in effect becomes. Some may disdain all this as the commercialization of youth, but it would be hard to deny that creativity's involved - the kind that supports and energizes the highly collaborative m.o. of digital natives. The company itself sees its Hollywood retail store and Web site as "a dynamic new retail paradigm where girls can define and empower themselves through creativity and design," and - though Web designs do lead to a shopping cart and credit card input - at least the site lets girls create, collect, and share their designs without having to buy them. And it is a whole lot of fun - if economic reality, self-discipline, or parent allows - to be able to dress oneself, not just an avatar. So far there's just one Fashionology store - in Hollywood - another experience in creative networking or social producing. There - singly, with a friend or two, or as a whole group of birthday partygoers - girls can browse, design, produce, model, photograph and be photographed (see "Our Story").

ClubPenguin's newest competition

The New York Post calls it competition for Disney's kid virtual world, but it looks a whole lot more like competition for MGA Entertainment's Be-Bratz.com, the online world for Bratz doll fans, and Mattel's BarbieGirls.com (all three so very pink and purple - girls do like other colors!). The new kid on the block is ZwinkyCuties.com, now in beta testing and launching in mid-September, the Post reports. Interestingly, founder Barry Diller told the Post that his company, IAC, created ZwinkyCuties after "turning away thousands of users who attempted to register for [its two-year-old teen site] Zwinky.com, but didn't meet the site's age requirement of at least 13 years old." Like ClubPenguin, ZwinkyCuties will be subscription-based, not advertising-based (unlike at Zwinky.com, where teens users "purchase virtual currency on an a la carte basis using credit cards and PayPal accounts"). For insights into what sometimes goes on in kids' online worlds, see "Top 8 workarounds of kid virtual-world users."