Welcome FlowerChild

Today our two girls were invited to a birthday party at a farm called Graine et Ficelle. The set up is wonderful. The owner of this farm decided 6 years ago to abandon her hectic life in Paris to become completely bio. She has a wonderful terrain of 13.000 metres and keeps donkeys, goats, cows, rabbits, chicken, pigs and sheep. The children can feed the animals, clean the stables, brush the donkeys and the parents (in this case the birthday girls’ parents) pay 18 euro per child. Wow! But simple things as caressing a real donkey can offer a lot of pleasure and happiness to city kids. Not as much as the Tamagotchi who is returning with a similar success (at least that is what the company Bandai hopes for) as in the year 1996 when they sold 40 millions Tamagotchi globally. For the price of 35 euro you can take care of your little electronic pet on a daily basis. To me this feels like real poverty.

Today we met ex-colleague and founder of the company Virtual Fairgrounds Maarten Brands. He visited Cannes for the largest international audiovisual content trade show : MIPCOM. His company develops virtual worlds for children 6-12 years old. As he is on top of new developments in the market he informed us on the newest website for little girls: www.pixiehollow.com. All the Disney Fairies come together in this world and give girls the opportunity to play, learn and chat in a positive way. The developers of this game earn their money with the offline toys that will be available soon in several toy stores in the US. These offline toys have connections to the online world. There will be a bracelet for example that girls can wear and when they meet another girl in real life with the same bracelet, they can click them together. Automatically they will be friends online too. There are many more examples of these toys that can open new worlds online and of which we will soon hear more. I hope the developers of this magical Pixie Hollow World (that girls will love for sure), will stimulate girls to enjoy offline playing and sports as well.