PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - July 16, 2010) - Togetherville.com, a new social community for kids and their grownups, today introduced Allowance, a new site feature that helps teach kids financial literacy while providing parents with a way to reward good behavior, both online and off. With Allowance, parents can give a child Togetherville currency called "T-bills," which can be spent on virtual goods, games or gifts within each child's unique Togetherville neighborhood.
"Financial literacy is an important part of a child's development and education, and what better way to help teach it than with an online version of a traditional allowance," said Mandeep Singh Dhillon, co-founder and CEO of Togetherville. "Kids learn by doing and, in Togetherville, they can choose to spend their T-bills right away or save up for a bigger game or virtual goodie -- only the things they really want and will use."
Togetherville's Allowance feature enables parents to provide T-bills to their children. For adults to distribute an Allowance, they must first purchase T-bills in increments of $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 or $100 via a credit card (for example, $10 = 1,700 T-bills). Once they have T-bills, parents and adults can give Allowance to children for whom they are administrators. Kids and adults can use T-bills for virtual goodies, gifts and games. Togetherville's first set of premium goodies will include Funny Face characters, www.funnyface.com, which range in price from 50 to 250 T-bills, and premium games that will launch later this month.
As with any feature in Togetherville, a parent or other adult with administrative rights has complete control over who can give their child funds. Adults can write a personal message to kids to accompany their Allowance gift, and, just like in the offline world, a parent/administrator can suspend or eliminate a child's Allowance at any time.
To promote the new feature from July 16 to August 16, 2010, Togetherville is offering up to 2500 free T-bills to any parent who invites friends to join their child's neighborhood via Togetherville. Parents will also receive 250 T-bills for each friend that accepts the invitation and joins Togetherville. Parents/administrators who create a new neighborhood for a child will receive 250 T-bills during the promotion period. Parents can then award Allowance to their child at their discretion.
Togetherville accounts remain free for kids and their grownups, as are the majority of the site's gifts, games and activities, such as Parking Mania, Lil' Dress Up Time and Super Crazy Taxi Turbo 4.
Since the site's May debut, parents, kids and other trusted adults from around the globe have used a parent's Facebook network to create neighborhoods within Togetherville. In addition to the U.S., Togetherville neighborhoods have been created in more than 20 countries, including Canada, Australia, India, the United Kingdom and the Philippines.
For more information on Togetherville or to create a neighborhood, visit www.togetherville.com.
ABOUT TOGETHERVILLE
Togetherville is a new online community developed for kids and their grownups, where kids are free and safe to be themselves in their very own online neighborhood. Togetherville places parents and other trusted adults inside the child's experience to foster online interaction and learning, and to help them grow into responsible digital citizens. Togetherville fully complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and offers a wide range of activities, including controlled messaging, artwork creation, videos, learning apps and fun games. Backed by its co-founders and several angel investors, including FLOODGATE, Togetherville was developed by experts in social Web technology, child development, learning and online safety, and works with officials from ConnectSafely.org and the Family Online Safety Institute. For more information, visit Togetherville.com.
For past news coverage and product screenshots, visit blog.Togetherville.com/news