For those that read about the Alpa Girl marketing yesterday, I’m gonna make a prediction – my Geek Girl is gonna out earn your Alpha Girl! 

MIT came up with a computer language called “Scratch” (the site is swamped now, read this article in the Boston Globe to get an idea)  which uses graphical representations to allow kids (and everyone) to learn the basics of programming and logic.  The software has a speedy ramp up and kids generally can have their first program running the first day.  Pretty neat stuff.

I’ll be evaluating this very soon with my two test subjects.  Madison is a 9 year old girl, and will be pretty quick to let me know if it’s “lame.”  She’s a good use case for your average young girl.  MacKenzie is 8, and will more likely represent the “geek girl” as she’s very techinically savvy, having hacked my password two months ago.  She also is apparently doing “Webkinz Support” for the 2nd grade, judging by the calls she gets during the afternoon and early evening.  “No, you need to right click there…”  Never mind the discussion we had the other day about relational databases.

So we’ll see how it goes.  I’ll report back over the next few days.  This will postpone the review of Webkinz World, Millsbury and BarbieGirls by a few days, as my assistants may be a little busy.