Tagged

I am a sucker enthusiast for Leap products. We have accumulated a ton of them over the years from the LeapPad to the Leapster and various products in between. All of them have been quite good but when I think about it more carefully never quite as good as I had anticipated. Despite this I persist largely because the products seem so cool.

With this in mind, I purchased the Tag Reading System for my daughter's 4th birthday. This is an evolution of the LeapPad but doesn't require the pad but does require the expenditure on books. It is basically a pen and then you can buy books that the pen can read. Strictly speaking the books are just books but they give away downloads to the Tag pen that make it all work, play games and other things. They also allow the parent to monitor progress.

Well, my expectations were not necessarily high. But my daughter loves it; although I have to admit that it is more of a renewed interest in books than anything else. So there is precious little progress for me to actually monitor. Anyhow, given the choice between this and yet another cheap Hannah Montana toy, I am happy with my continued subsidisation of Leap's R&D costs.

Really stuffed toys

In Slate, Emily Bazelon thinks that the a new web site, Webkinz, will save her from worrying about stuffed toys. As she points out, children form an attachment to stuffed toys beyond what is hygienic or convenient. On this, I can only agree. Our eldest had, for what seemed the longest year (from 18 - 30 months), a life size Maisy mouse soft toy. And by 'life size' I mean, the size of a mouse. This meant that it was carried everywhere and was always hard to find. It got dropped in puddles, stepped on and mangled. We went on a longish trip and our main concern at all times was not whether we had our daughter but whether we had Maisy!

Maisy cost like $5. I should have bought 7 of them. So when Child No.2 came along and formed his unhealthy attachment to a small ET doll (he loved the eyes), I stocked up. We had several ET dolls of that size, some larger ones and then for his second birthday a life sized one that was essentially immovable. (Yes, the size of ET in the movie!) We were going to hedge our bets fully. Suffice it to say, at some point after he was three years old, he decided ET scared him and out it all went. We now have a shrine to ET in the hallway.

For Child No.3, she has had a Sid (from Ice Age) and now a standard teddy bear. If it gets lost, we are now hardened folks and will take the tears.

According to Bazelon, Webkinz is like some cheap back-up. Apparently, in her household, should one of these toys meet an untimely demise, if they are a Webkinz toy, their virtual counterpart will save the day. Her child will be satisfied because it lives on "in the computer." Yeah, but just wait until she wants to take your laptop to cuddle up with in bed. And what happens if it is a PC and crashes with a not so cuddly, blue screen of death. Try explaining that one. After all, that sort of thing routinely brings adults to tears.

Renting expensive toys

In the New York Times, David Pogue reviews the Pleo -- a robotic dinosaur -- that didn't make it in time for the holiday season but has launched since then. If you want to see what the fuss is all about, click here. Pleo is cute, seemingly fun, cutting edge and expensive. Naturally I couldn't resist getting it for my 7 year old son for his birthday. It also satisfied the requirement: "No you can't have a pet, but this is just as good."

For David Pogue, it wasn't just as good. It was fun for maybe a day but then it could go back. He came up with the suggestion that such things should be available for rent rather than purchase.

And so here’s what I think the world needs: a new Web site called WornOffNovelty.com. You’d list an object that you want to own -- but for only a short time. Other people sign up, too, so that a chain of purchasing is set up in advance.

You buy the thing at full price. When you’re finished with it, maybe a couple of weeks later, the next guy buys it from you for 85 percent of the original price. Then he sells it to the third guy for 85 percent of that. And so on, until the last guy gets the hand-me-down Pleo for, say, $25. Everybody’s happy, and there’s not a bunch of closeted Pleos all over America.

He sees it as "eBay without the uncertainty." At Amazon, Pleo currently costs $289 (down from retail at $349). On eBay it looks like you can sell it for about US$250 (used but undamaged) which less transaction fees and shipping gets you to less than 85 percent of the price. So, given that eBay can't make this work, do we think there can be another way of doing the job?

For us, we won't be selling. My son love his Pleo -- "Diny" -- and treats it as a pet. It has its own little bed, he takes it for walks and he teaches it tricks. He gets the love (at least for an hour or so a day under a full charge) and we don't get the mess. It is also cheap as pets go. I hope it lasts.