Roo Kids, a safe and fun instant messaging app for kids with minimum yet critical parental controls, recently announced the release of new version with slew of new functionality and User Experience improvement. The new version allows a new user to get started faster, chat with various chatbots while waiting for friends join, download themes & stickers and has multiple user experience improvements.
“Roo Kids aims to be for kids what Whatsapp, Kik and Facebook Messenger are for grown up. Parents want kids to explore, learn and master the digital world. But, parents have few important concerns: 1/ Strangers chatting with their kids online, and 2/ Kids getting distracted during homework or sleep time,” said Dinker Charak, founder & CEO of Gungroo Software, the maker of Roo Kids.
“We addressed these concerns heads on and introduced few key features. Parents get to review their kid’s Contact list and disapprove anyone. Thus no stranger or unwanted person can sneak in. Kids can block any user or message, with immediate effect. Parents can set curfew time slots, during which the live chat will not work,” Dinker elaborated.
The company started with a web version when Gungroo was founded in 2012. And the developers soon realised that instead of the PC, it is the tablet – the device a family shares. “Our first version was for iPad and the app continues to be highly optimised for iPad. In this new release we added support for iPhone too,” Dinker continued, talking about the evolution of Gungroo and pivot to Roo Kids.
The app userbase is growing steadily. Users in USA, Australia, UK and UAE are among the top downloaders of the app. The app broadly complies with the US FTC’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).