Dave Banks has a great review up on GeekDad of Disney's Pixie Hollow, a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) that takes off from the company's surprisingly palatable Tinker Bell movie. (Seriously, it's not bad.) Our family's sole exposure to Pixie Hollow was my own - I joined the network, created a character myself, and tested out the service while Z was sleeping next to me on the couch. I was testing it to see if I even wanted to let Z know it existed, and quickly decided it wasn't worth it; I'd rather spend our time together on the computer doing different things, and at four she isn't self-sufficient enough to master its tasks herself. Banks' criticisms (consumption-driven, dearth of different activities, not well-designed for interaction/chatting between users) are all spot on; as for the community aspect, even Club Penguin does more to foster interactions between users. (And yes, I have also played Club Penguin by myself, and enjoyed beating pre-adolescents at virtual Mancala more than is proper.) But Banks also pointed out one very interesting aspect of Pixie Hollow that I wasn't aware of:

But the toys that intrigued me were jewelry items called Clickables. These bracelets and necklaces allow users to trade virtual goods and add online friends during their time in the real world. It works like this: Let's say two kids run into each other at recess and both have their own Clickables bracelet. By simply clicking the bracelets together on the playground (and later uploading via USB cable), they become friends online and are able to share virtual goods. It's an interesting idea, to say the least. [Link]

You can check out the full GeekDad review here. - Jeremiah