How can preteens and teens chat online with their friends in a completely safe environment? This is something that toy and media companies have been fumbling over for the past several years. Well, Mattel has a pretty smart solution—it’s called Barbie Girls, and it’s a copasetic convergence between consumer product and online brand experience. Truth be told, I’m not sure why other consumer product and media companies haven’t made this connection sooner.

The process is simple—you go to the store, buy a Mattel Barbie Girl, and connect it to your computer via a docking station. When your girlfriends catch on and get one, you can authenticate your doll on their computers and vice-versa. Your child is now ready to communicate online with her friends and only her friends.

The online play experience is very Sim-like, in terms of game play patterns. Girls can go online and design their own rooms, check out their friends’ rooms and their objects, chat, play with their virtual pets and, of course, no little-girl pretend-play online experience would be complete without the all-important trip to the mall (where kids learn about online transactions). I’m only half kidding—I wouldn’t be surprised to see new Mattel products contextually placed inside the Barbie world, in-game advertising, or online conditioning for tweens.

The offline experience is not as robust as the online play experience, but the doll itself is an actual MP3 player; a good place to store Barbie tunes you downloaded from the website (note to Mattel: That one’s a freebie).

The technology is simple, and my guess is that this product will go a long way. Parents will be buying these toys for their kids and as presents for all their friends.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 9:37 am and is filed under social media, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.