Disney Launches Pixie Hollow- Social Gaming for Girls

Disney’s Pixie Hollow is the latest social network and gaming site targeted towards girls and pre-teens. Pixie Hollow has a fairy theme featuring the popular Disney character Tinker Bell. On the site, girls can create and customize a fairy, chat with other fairies, play games, and undergo tasks to earn badges for their “Leaf Journal”. Coming attractions for Pixie Hollow include the ability to embark on quests and host “Pixie Parties”.



The risk involved in creating a social network for young girls is apparent when considering what could happen to Disney’s reputation if something went wrong. Moderation and parental controls are therefore at the center of the registration process. Disney offers parents the ability to control chat levels and permissions, as well as the type of content girls can upload. User chat, the most compromising of social networking tools from Disney’s perspective, is extremely restricted. Users can type their own phrases but only using words from the Disney dictionary, or select from a list of pre-approved questions and statements. It's obvious that Disney spent a lot of time working on moderation, both from their own ideas and by taking cues from other social gaming sites like Stardoll. The effort has definitely paid off; PixieHollow's moderation is flawless.