Kidipede - History and Science for Middle School Kids
What is Kidipede?
Kidipede is the leading homework help source for sixth-graders writing
history and science reports; nearly all of our visitors are kids ages 10-12.
Kidipede has been answering kids' questions for more than ten years.
Parents and teachers trust Kidipede to help kids find reliable information on
subjects ranging from Archimedes to the Inuit, from cell membranes to
volcanoes. With well over a thousand pages, Kidipede is the leading
homework help site on the Web today.
Call now to place an ad – 503-459-1707
Do you need to reach out to kids? We’ve got the audience you’re looking for.
Kidipede reaches more than a million unique pre-teens every month – more
than 40,000 kids a day, and nearly all of them are 10-12 years old. Your
product can be associated with a strong educational brand and quality
content on a site approved by the Public Broadcasting Service, National
Geographic, and the Discovery Channel – but at a fraction of the rates on
those sites!
Kidipede is the ideal place to promote your sports drink, hoodies,
skateboards, teen magazines, school supplies, educational gifts, books,
movies, and snacks. You can reach tens of thousands of pre-teens every day,
at a fraction of the cost of television. Local advertising is fine too – Kidipede
partners with Google to target ads by country, state, or zip code.
Kidipede’s privacy practices
Because we cater to kids, Kidipede doesn’t collect any personal information
about our visitors. No registration is required; no names, no birthdays, and
no hometowns. We do sometimes conduct anonymous polls to determine the
age of our visitors, and we allow Quantcast and ad brokers like Adsense and
Tribal Fusion to place cookies to track our visitors.
The story of Kidipede – History and Science for Kids
Getting started
Kidipede started out in 1995, at the very dawn
of the web, as a student project for
sophomores in a Classical Greek Civilization
class at Portland State University. Each
student wrote a section, and Professor Carr
linked them all together. Soon thousands of
school kids were using the site for their
reports.
Kidipede today
By 2000, Kidipede had outgrown its status as
a student project, and Professor Carr rewrote
the articles for a more even tone. Soon
Kidipede began working with advertisers to
support the bandwidth Kidipede used. Today
Kidipede is a profitable enterprise – but still
free to kids.
History content
From our beginnings with just Ancient Greece,
Kidipede has grown to include sections on Africa,
the Islamic Empire, Medieval Europe, Ancient
China, Ancient India, Mesopotamia, and North
and South America.
Science content
In the fall of 2008, Kidipede added a science
section with articles on the parts of a cell, the
planets, the evolution of living creatures (both
plants and animals), simple geometric proofs, and
much more. Plenty of pictures and diagrams make
it easy to understand.
Where we go from here
Kidipede is planning ways to integrate with the
rest of the web by incorporating shared videos,
Google maps, and links to other websites.
Kidipede wants to be the first place kids go to for
information on the web.
Kidipede grows bigger every year
Growth
Since 2001, Kidipede has grown from 100,000 visitors
a month to 700,000 – a growth rate of about 20% each
year. That growth rate continues into 2009 as well.
Unique visitors/day
Goals
Sales
Sales have increased every year by even higher
percentages than traffic. From total advertising sales
of $9,155 in 2003, Kidipede has risen to advertising
sales of $99,350 in 2008. That’s ten times as much, for
a growth rate of – incredibly - more than 200%.
Kidipede’s goal is to bring information to
people in a way that’s easy to understand.
Kidipede’s pages have short words and short
sentences, with lots of pictures, in an accessible
format. Free, reliable information helps
everyone – children, people who don’t read
English well, people with physical challenges,
and people living with censorship. Sponsoring
Kidipede sends a message that you care about
kids and about helping people everywhere.
Ethics
Kidipede works toward a fairer, freer world by
drawing attention to past and current
oppression of all kinds, and by valuing the
Diversifying the revenue stream
contributions of all people equally. Kidipede’s
Kidipede diversifies by selling paid subscriptions, and emphasis is on ordinary people and their
by licensing our content to other publications such as peaceful lives: what they ate, where they slept,
and what gods they worshipped. Kidipede
test booklets. Got an opportunity? Let us know!
emphasizes the intelligence and creativity of
people in all different cultures around the
world.
Gross revenue/month
Audience profile - Kidipede
Kids ages 10-12
Most of Kidipede’s visitors are in
sixth grade. This result of
anonymous polls on Kidipede is
confirmed by Quantcast.
People of color
Our visitors are 20-60% more
likely to be people of color than
the Internet average: one-third
are non-white.
Middle-class, Educated
Parents
Those kids’ parents also visit
Kidipede: adults visiting
Kidipede are twice as likely to
have kids as the Internet average.
These are solidly middle-class
families: two-thirds make
between $30,000 and $100,000 a
year, and more than half went to
college.
Two-thirds of our traffic originates in the United States; the next countries are the
United Kingdom (13%), Canada (8%), and Australia (4%).
Traffic numbers - Kidipede
Daily
Which pages?
Kidipede averages more than 37,000
visitors every day during the school
year – more on weekdays and less on
weekends. The average visitor
spends 3 minutes and 27 seconds
with Kidipede, and sees three
different pages.
Kidipede’s traffic is spread among more than a
thousand different pages, with no one page
getting more than 4% of our total traffic.
Monthly
Kidipede serves about 700,000
uniques in a month during the
school year, with more than 4.5
million pageviews and 20 million
impressions.
Banner formats
The top ten pages, in order, are
-
Home page (4%)
Ancient Greece (4%)
Ancient China (3%)
Ancient Egypt (3%)
Ancient Rome (3%)
Ancient India (1%)
Greek religion (1%)
Egyptian food (1%)
Chinese history (1%)
Greek food (<1%)
Because our traffic is spread among so many
different pages, Kidipede sells advertising space
728x90 leaderboard above the fold
by CPM – a thousand impressions – rather than
- this is Kidipede’s best value by the page.
at $8.50 CPM
300x250 box above the fold
- high visibility at $10.00
CPM
300x250 box in content
- highest click-through rate at
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Kidipede’s Marketing Plan 2009
Organic search results:
Kidipede gets two-thirds of its traffic from organic results on Google. With a Google
PageRank rating of 6, putting us in the top 1% of all websites, Kidipede’s in the top three
natural results for hundreds of searches ranging from “Ancient Greece” (#3) to “Ancient
China” (#1), “Medieval Islamic Food” (#1) and “Roman Environment” (#1). Kidipede
gets another 10% of its traffic from the other major search engines.
Direct traffic
Kidipede gets another 14% of its traffic from visitors who have previously bookmarked
the site, or who type the address directly into their browsers. This bookmarking reflects
the widespread use of Kidipede in schools, where school librarians and teachers set
bookmarks for their classes to use.
Links from related sites:
The remaining 10% of Kidipede’s traffic comes from other sites linking to Kidipede
because of our high quality. Kidipede does not pay for links – these are organic links.
Some of the many sites from which we receive link traffic are StumbleUpon,
Teacherweb, Kidskonnect, the Encyclopedia Britannica, PBS, and Wikipedia.
Plans for increasing traffic:
Kidipede works every day to increase the number of visitors. Traffic has been steadily
increasing, averaging 20% increases year over year. Kidipede encourages this increase by
contacting relevant websites and inviting them to link to Kidipede. Most days, we contact
at least a couple of new leads. Our links come from public libraries, middle school
librarians, bloggers who have middle school age children, and similar sites.
What kind of ads does Kidipede accept?
Appropriate for children:
In order to protect our brand and the children who visit our site, Kidipede does not
accept advertising for tobacco, alcohol, gambling, dating sites, or other similarly adult
activities. We also prefer not to see campaigns for diet products, which might unduly
influence young people visiting Kidipede.
Exciting for children
Kidipede likes to run campaigns children want to see. We have high click-through rates
on banners for pop music, soda, fast food, green environmental issues and nature
programs, casual games online, sports, summer camps, skiing, cell phones, and video
games.
Match for our audience:
Kidipede’s visitors are more diverse than the Internet average, skewing more AfricanAmerican, Hispanic, and Asian. We’d love to see ads targeting children in those
categories.
Appropriate for our subject matter:
The best campaigns, in addition to the above, are also designed to complement the
history and science themes of Kidipede itself. We are currently running a year-long
banner for the Orlando Science Museum, geotargeted to Florida, which is an ideal match
for us.
We’d also like to see brand advertisers working with us to sponsor essay contests and
interactive history and science activities: for instance, the best video illustrating a
scientific principle, or acting out a Greek myth.
Because many children are in school when they visit Kidipede, and few of them own
credit cards, Kidipede is not a good environment for direct marketing. Instead, buyers
should see Kidipede as an opportunity to associate their client’s brand with a reputable
website in the minds of children and their parents.
What do people have to say about Kidipede?
i had an assignment and with the help of your site i finished it. my assignment was on
Plato the Philosopher.
Thanks….
We are studying Islam today. I found your website very helpful aswell as Islam but also
othe Anciet Egypt ... My parents also enjoyed your website and thounght it was a very
easy for children to understand and has recommended it to the other parents… I thank
you very much for your time.
A 5th grade Student
I like your web site! This is my first year teaching World Studies to 7th graders so I am
doing a LOT of online research. You present potentially confusing information in a clear
and understandable manner. Thank you...
I will be back to get even more easily digested information!
Gainesville GA
Hi! I just found your site. It's wonderful! I plan to share it with some friends who home
school their kids. I'm sure I will refer to your site often. I like history and have been
trying for a long time to fill in a time line. It is so exciting when I start seeing it come
together. Thanks for all the hard work you've put into your site.
To History for kids
We realy realy realy like your site. We think it is a brill site for kids to do history on.
i my name is sam, I am emailing you on behalf of your website because I think it is
brilliant for kids to learn. I cane say this because I learnt a lot from it. SEE YOU SOON
I just wanted to let you know that I find your site fantastic. I found it very useful as I am
planning my Greece/Egypt unit. I will be teaching Grade 6 this spring and those are the
countries we'll be studying.... Thanks for your work!
I have just discovered your site. Many of the pages look great. I hope to use some of the
information in my classroom... I will visit again soon. - Montessori Elementary Teacher
I really appreciate your site for its tone, which the kids find far more accesible than other
sites which cover similar material. Thanks very much for your unique approach! - Middle
School teacher
Assoc. Professor Karen Carr, President of Kidipede
Education
After having a really great Latin teacher in
middle school, Karen Carr went on to
double major in Classics and Archaeology
at Cornell University, where she graduated
magna cum laude – with high honors.
Carr went on to graduate school in
Classical Art and Archaeology at the
University of Michigan, finishing her
doctorate in Classical Art and Archaeology
in 1992.
Professorship
Also in 1992, Dr. Carr took a position as
Assistant Professor in the Department of
History at Portland State University in
Portland, Oregon. In 1998, she was
promoted to Associate Professor. In 16
years of teaching, she has
taught Freshman Inquiry and
Capstone core classes
designed the first online History
classes
Professor Carr
Publications
Professor Carr’s book, Vandals to Visigoths:
Rural Settlement Patterns in Early Medieval
Spain, was published by the University of
Michigan Press in 2003 and received good
reviews in Antiquity and the Journal of
Roman Archaeology. Professor Carr has also
published articles on the Franks’
relationship with the Visigoths, and on the
Roman pottery from Leptiminus, a Roman
port town in Tunisia.
Family
organized the Portland Society of
Professor Carr’s two older children, Ansel
the Archaeological Institute of
(15) and Ruth (11) help her assess whether
America.
Kidipede’s ventures will suit the needs of
young teenagers. A third child, Simon (5),
Excavations
doesn’t know much history yet.
Professor Carr has worked on excavations
in Cyprus, England, Scotland, Israel, and
Tunisia.
Interview questions for Professor Carr
How did you get interested in archaeology and history?
I had a great Latin teacher in middle school, Emily Marston, and she really inspired me
to work with the Romans. Also, my mother was interested in art history, so I had been to
a lot of museums and monuments. But I still wasn’t sure - I really went on my first
excavation mainly so I wouldn’t have to live at home during the summer after my
freshman year at college! But I loved digging so much that I knew then that I wanted to
be an archaeologist.
How do you find out the material in the articles on Kidipede?
When I decide to write about a new subject, I buy two or three books on that topic, or I
take them out of the university library. After I’ve read those books, I usually have some
questions left, so I look in article databases on line to see if anyone has written an article
about that specific question. Sometimes I find the answers, and sometimes I don’t –
sometimes nobody has written about that question yet. Right now I am trying to write
about the history of architecture in China. I just talked to a colleague who works on
China who gave me some tips.
What advice do you have for kids who want to be archaeologists or
scientists?
You should read as much as you can about the things that interest you. Learn to keep
your work organized – a lot of science is gathering data and keeping track of it. And take
advanced language and science classes in high school. Archaeologists have to be able to
read and speak other languages, not just English!
Contact:
Karen Carr, President
Kidipede
2007 NE 25th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97212
USA
503-459-1707
karen@kidipede.com
http://www.kidipede.com
http://historyforkids.org
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