A talk given to kid's app creators at the Dust or Magic conference. Trends like AI, VR, AR and the sharing economy will drive innovation in kids media but only if we get passed the Personally Identifiable Informaton conundrum.

1. Think Outside the App:
A Look at Real World Forces
Informing Kids Media Development

2. Artificial Intelligence
By 2020 algorithms will effect the lives of millions of people globally
What is a true thinking machine?
. Predictive analysis based on what it’s learned in the past
. Natural language processing
. Image Processing
Disease diagnosis
Likelihood of success in school
Insurance Rates
Finance– Robo Chats
Cybersecurity – biometric algorithms
If the child likes pizza, pizza shows up in math problems

3. A Few Examples
• THE ROLL: scans your photo albums for face
recognition, place –iOS
• Cornell AI
• Hanson Robotics “shelling” AI

4. AI through APIs

5. Does IBM Watson Know Me?

6. Organizing Principles of the Old World

7. The New World

8. Augmented Reality
By 2020 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality.
Sephora, Modiface, Neiman Marcus
Lego: https://youtu.be/PGu0N3eL2D0
Magazines like Esquire have AR editions with runway models

9. Adding Proximity and Mapping
What happens when you add mapping and
geo-location to AR apps?
What can you imagine when you map real
areas and transfer them to a virtual world?

10. Adding Interaction: Metaverse:
Make your own PokemonGo Game
letting kids “tag” their world - I’ve been
referring to it as “narrative geotagging” -
Kleeman

11. Virtual Reality
• At what age do kids distinguish
VR from reality
• Can they be made to feel
empathy
• Gender Difference – girls drop
out faster
• Steep ramp up to quick
mastery
• Focus and Meditation rather
than twitch?
• Mixed Media worlds/CoPlay-
• --David Kleeman

12. Voice Activation
By 2020 30% of people will browse the web
without a browser
Siri, Google and Cortana didn’t see it coming
Voice recognition for kid’s voices and languages
improves
Simultaneous translations?
Voice is intergenerational

13. BEHAVIORAL NUDGING
Monitoring Daily Routines and providing feedback
WEARABLES

14. Digital Currency
According to a survey of 2,000 U.K. parents commissioned by
financial technology firm Intelligent Environments, more than
1/4 of parents pay their children in digital currency to make
purchases in games like Minecraft or Moshi Monsters or for
online services like iTunes. Another 1/3 of parents transfer a
weekly allowance into their children's digital bank accounts,
and nearly four in 10 parents don't give their kids any pocket
money, instead putting the cash into savings accounts in their
children's names.

15. Video Trumps Text: The New
Wikipedia
• "Unboxing" videos
• Minecraft videos
• "challenges" (such as trying hot peppers),
• "morning routines" (which show how
• YouTubers get ready for the day)
• Weird factoids
• silly skits,unscripted, unpolished, authentic content
YouTube Kids is a response to many things: children’s distaste for
“walled gardens,” since they have interests at least as diverse as adults’;
parents’ desire for safe spaces for their kids; and Google’s interest in not
having to sanitize its adult-oriented platform

16. Internet of Kids Things (IoKT)
What could go wrong?
Everything has an IP address in capable of
communication with you and each other
Cybersecurity issues
Early hardware/apps had mixed success
What are the app opportunities?
http://iotlist.co/tag/kids
Unicef bracelet

17. Mobile Apps
Brands are giving up mobile apps in favor of loyalty points and
programs
More and more people using fewer and fewer apps
Apps most appreciated are proximity and context aware

18. The Sharing Economy
• Will they own cars,
houses or just share
them?
• What is the kids media
equivalent of an uber or
Airbnb where you don’t
own anything but the
match needs to
fulfillment?

19. Coding as Curriculm
Replacing foreign language as the “skill of the future”?

20. What do all of these technologies have in
common?
• They require Pii =
personally
identifiable
information
• The more you know the
better services you can
provide and the better
products you can make

21. How Should Kids Be Treated in a Pii
World
• COPPA: Not effective for its original purpose -
avoiding predators and protecting kids from
data collection.
• Compliance costs are high
• Social media and mobile apps rely on a fiction
- anyone with a mobile must have parents
involved

22. COPPA Amended in 2015
• If you have collected geolocation information and have not
obtained parental consent, you must do so immediately.
If you have collected photos or videos containing a child’s image or
audio files with a child’s voice from a child prior to the effective
date of the amended Rule, you do not need to obtain parental
consent. Best practices: Don’t collect photos.
Under the original Rule, a screen or user name was only considered
personal information if it revealed an individual’s email
address. Under the amended Rule, a screen or user name is
personal information where it functions in the same manner as
online contact information including email and screen names.
Persistent identifiers were covered by the original Rule only where
they were combined with individually identifiable
information. Under the amended Rule, a persistent identifier is
covered where it can be used to recognize a user over time and
across different websites or online services.

23. What to Do?
Laws for kids online
usuage are
• Long in the tooth (25
years)
• Caused many kids’
business to fail
• Every new technology
demands a personal
interaction
Kids apps are
• Less effective when
they know so little
about their customer
• Good content demands
an interaction and
personalization
• Putting your app out
there once and 4ever is
antiquated