Smart Toy Talk

Emi asked:


I work at a new child’s educational toy company called PenPal Notes (http://penpalnotes.com/) that submitted our product for the iParenting Media Awards Program (http://iparentingmediaawards.com/). We paid $250 for our submission, hoping to benefit from the reviews they promise:

Three outside evaluations (evaluation sites may include: an expert, a family and a childcare setting);
Review by the iParenting Media Awards Executive Committee;
A snapshot of the evaluator feedback from the three outside evaluator sites.

Instead, this is the sum total of what we received:

I would condense the facts on each president to numerous cards, maybe have a practice test at the end of each presidents reign to test the facts, or add a few word games to make it fun. The place mat was a good idea but it did not come packaged I would suggest a tube packaging to store it.

The only things I would do is try to make the item less bulky so it can be stored easily or travel well. I would also make the cards laminated and put an expo marker with it for reuse. Lastly, I would make the stickers those reusable types.

I would make the post cards more sturdy, I found that they were very easy to tear if not held properly and taken care of. It might be nice to have them laminated like the place mat that came along with the set.

While their description led us to believe that the reviews would be quite comprehensive, they were in fact quite careless and did not even look as if they had been proofread! We contacted iParenting, and their response indicated that they did not think that there was a real problem. Do you think that we should pursue this matter further?

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