Back in 2008, a startup called Totlol emerged, offering
parents a kid-friendly collection of video clips pulled from the YouTube
platform on a single destination site. But that company, a one-man show,
eventually hit a dead-end and closed up shop. Today, it has returned with new
founders who are reviving the brand as well as porting the experience to
mobile.
The idea itself is solid enough, though the mobile execution
is still a little lacking. As any parent can tell you, YouTube is not a
destination you would want your young children to surf unsupervised. In a few
clicks, they can go from watching Elmo teaching children about the world around
them, to him cursing or ranting at kids in NYC’s Central Park.
In its earlier incarnation, Totlol was trying to solve that
problem, by curating a selection of YouTube videos that were more appropriate
for younger viewers. But the business was affected by a YouTube Terms of
Service change that prohibited the sale of advertising on sites that only
provided YouTube videos without other content on the same page.
These days, the need for kid-friendly video content is
largely met by a number of cable TV channels, many of which are available on
demand, and Netflix. Totlol now hopes to insert itself into this mix with a new
website and an affordable, mobile app which is free to use with in-app
purchases.
The company’s new founders, Michael Avni, an angel investor
and father of three, and Tiffany Stelman, have taken over the brand and
business. They feel there’s even more of a need for something like Totlol today
than there was when it first launched, in fact, as we’re now living in a
multi-screen world, where our devices are connected to the internet at all
times, and kids are playing with iPads before they’re able to walk.
Four Last year, the two partners decided to revive Totlol,
and created a community site where responsible parents help to build the
content library by first watching YouTube videos, then sharing the URL and
categorizing it. Site members also help police the content, by flagging videos
as inappropriate, which will then alert Totlol’s “Parent Editors” group to take
another look. The member who uploaded the flagged video is then contacted to
discuss the situation further (and, as one could imagine, further steps may be
taken if someone becomes a habitual offender).
The Parent’s Dashboard available on the web is the place
where members can contribute to the community by sharing videos, but the mobile
app is largely a simple video viewer already in “Kids Mode.”
The new Totlol also pulls videos from YouTube, but plans to
add more sources in the future, as well as other features like time limit
settings, a visual search engine, and an Android version of the mobile app.
Instead of running ads, the plan to generate revenue – at least for now –
involves in-app purchases. Parents will be able to buy video playlists in the
app, like an educational playlist, for example.
On Mobile
The iOS app itself could use a little work. After
installing, creating an account, and signing in, it still prompted me to login
again using Facebook after rebooting my iPhone. And before you can even get started,
it throws up math questions to prove you’re the adult (e.g. “what’s 16 + 58?”),
so it’s not quite as “hands off” for mom or dad as something like Netflix’s
“Just for Kids” section is, which kids can use on their own.
searchThe iPhone app only works in landscape mode, and the
big buttons at the bottom of the screen take up so much room that it’s
sometimes difficult to really see what’s in the video thumbnail. The video’s
title text is also quite small on the smartphone’s interface – Totlol is much better
on iPad. And finally, the red background also seems like an odd nod to Netflix,
when the rest of the app, the website and brand itself is more blue, white, and
orange.
According to Stelman, the design decisions were made with
the goal of keeping the app simple for kids’ use, and the team is working to
make it more polished in the future.
The four-person startup, based in Israel, is currently
bootstrapping. On a broad level, the service competes with kids’ television and
Netflix, but more specifically it’s also taking on other startups offering
curated experiences for children, like KIDO’Z or Kid Mode, which offer games in addition to video
content, or Happly for iPad which includes educational material.
