Disney buys 6 – 14 year old social networking site Club Penguin

Founded by three Canadian fathers in late 2005, Club Penguin (www.clubpenguin.com) has quickly rose to prominence by offering children the ability to customize their own virtual penguins in an online community. Armed with their penguin avatars, children can chat with friends, play games and earn coins to buy items such as furnishings for their igloo homes.

These three fathers just sold their site, which employs now more than 130 people, to the Walt Disney Corporation for $350 million dollars and will stay on to see that it improves and grows and stand to make another $350 million by 2009 if they meet certain growth targets.

Club Penguin doesn’t accept advertising but their paid subscribers jumped fom 400,000 to 700,000 in the past year! The site will be renamed “Disney’s Club Penguin” but Disney doesn’t plan to change it in any significant way. Club Penguin’s founders will continue to run the site out of their headquarters in Kelowna, British Columbia, and the site will remain advertising-free.

By the way, every children’s minister should go to the site and read the parents caution statement which is as well a worded statement on the REASON why this site is so popular as it taps into what kids crave and need: community! Seems a great reminder that what they LEAST desire is a passive video instructor (a la Kidmo, et al.). Ah, but I digress.