Smart indeed is innovation by the folks at Smartycard. They offer an educational games platform that ties in to a virtual currency with rewards ranging from subscriptions to virtual worlds and virtual goods (such as Club Penguin, Stardoll and Webkinz) to physical toys.
SmartyCard can be played for free, but kids won't have access to all the games or be able to cash out for rewards until parents top off an account with points. The points are sold for about 500 for $1.
As Chris Shipley, co-founder of Guidewire Group and Executive Producer of the DEMO Conference, said in a statement;
"For more than a decade, entrepreneurs have struggled to develop the market for Internet-based educational content for tweens, when all the while we've witnessed phenomenal growth in the online entertainment market for this same age group. SmartyCard is taking advantage of that adoption of casual gaming, virtual worlds and MMOGs and injecting an incentive-based rewards system into children's entertainment screen-time, reinforcing the universal value of learning and earning through a kids-safe, parent-approved educational experience….”
In some ways through initiatives such as Smatycard, online educational platforms are joining the convergence of all other forms of internet games, social networks and communities.
While Smatycard is proposing it’s own platform, one could bet that educational games could multiply in social networks, or web games in the form of social games with rewards, becoming hybrid virtual goods.
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