Yahoo! Kids

'''Yahoo! Kids (known as Yahooligans! until November 7? 2006 at 0:00 and Yahoo! Kids Beta''' until March 1?, 2009 at 0:00) was a public web portal  provided by  Yahoo!  to find  age appropriate  online content for children between the ages of four and 12.

The website had been used for both educational and entertainment purposes. It was established in March 1?, 1996 by Yahoo!  to give children a venue to find appropriate, safe Internet content. Yahoo! Kids was the oldest online search directory for children.

In April 31, 2013, Notice it changes Yahoo! Kids from Yahoo!.

History
Yahoo! Kids, originally known as Yahooligans!,| [1] was founded in March 1?, 1996 by  Yahoo!  to provide children with a venue to find appropriate, safe Internet content.| [2]  The website was the oldest online search directory for children.| [3]  | [4]  | [5]  The website's editors stated that Yahoo! Kids was "cool, goofy, fascinating, fun, hysterical, philosophical, surprising, sedate, silly, seismic, popular, obscure, useful, and interesting".| [3] In October 1999,  The New York Times  reporter  Michelle Slatalla  noted that Yahooligans! was a "heavily trafficked site", with 463,000 visitors accessing the website in August 1999.| [6]

In 2004, Yahoo! entered into a partnership with DIC Entertainment  to establish Yahooligans! TV, which gave users access to DIC's 3,000 hours of animated children programs. DIC Entertainment president Brad Brooks stated that the partnership "offer[ed] advertisers a cross platform purchase".| [2] Yahoo! sold the ads and the revenue from the commercials was split between the two companies.| [7]

Content
The website was used for both educational and entertainment purposes.| [8] The Yahoo! Kids' portal had directories such as "Around the World", "Arts & Entertainment", "Computers & Games", "School Bell", "Science & Nature", and "Sports & Recreation".| [8] Under the directory "School-Bell", the category "Homework Answers" allowed children to access websites pertaining to school subjects such as geography, history, and math.| [9]

The homepage also displayed links to games, jokes, news, and sports. For the latter three, the content was crafted for those younger than 12.| [8] Games provided on the Yahoo! Kids website included Chinese checkers,  Go Fish , and  Checkers. Age-appropriate offsite games were also accessible via the links under the "games" tab.| [8] The website offered an  instant messaging  gadget that allows children to participate in live chats with notable people. Bill Clinton, J. K. Rowling , and  Bill Nye the Science Guy  had been been guests in the chats.| [8]

In March 2011, Yahoo! Kids partnered with the TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars  near the season's finale to have children pose questions to Chewbacca. Question submissions were posted on SurveyMonkey, and Yahoo! Kids posted Chewbacca's answers on March 28.| [10] The approximately three-minute long video consisted of Chewbacca pantomiming responses to queries such as "How do you deal with all that hair?"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Jones2_11-0">| [11]

Reviews
In June 2005, reviewer Gail Junion-Metz of the  School Library Journal  praised Yahooligans! Games, writing that it is "[o]ne of the best spots to find kid-appropriate games that don't require downloads".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Junion-Metz_12-0">| [12] In a September 1998 review of the website, John Hilvert and Linda Bruce of  PC User  wrote that "Yahooligans is one of the best specialized engines, particularly for homework answers."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Hilvert_13-0">| [13]

In July 2007, reviewer Holly Gunn of Teacher Librarian praised Yahoo! Kids for its helpful, comprehensible results but criticized it for an interface that had too many ads and that was "too busy and filled with too many diversions. Useful material is buried amidst entertainment".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Gunn_1-1">| [1]

Trivia
In February 2013, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer  told an investor conference that the company aimed to slash their approximately 60–75 products to about 12, increasing their attention on mobile device applications.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-MacMillan_15-0">| [15]  In an April 19, 2013, blog post announcing Yahoo! Kids' closure, Yahoo! Executive Vice president of Platforms Jay Rossiter wrote: [W]e want to bring you experiences that inspire and entertain you every day. That means taking a hard look at all of our products to make sure they are still central to your daily habits. As part of that ongoing effort, today we are shutting down a few more products.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Rossiter_16-0">| [16] He said that Yahoo! would redirect those resources to newer products like email and weather mobile applications.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-MacMillan_15-1">| [15]

Rossiter wrote that Yahoo!'s "youngest users" could continue using the company's services. Children younger than 13 could create a Yahoo! account through Yahoo!'s Family Accounts program. Young users could also find age-appropriate movies through the "Family Movies" section of "Yahoo! Movies".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Rossiter_16-1">| [16]