There are new trends in technology seemingly popping up every few weeks and one that has caught our attention are super-focused subscription shopping sites that fit a very narrow niche. We told you about one such company a few weeks ago called Love With Food that sends you a basket of snacks every month. Another service called GuyHaus lets men set up a simple shopping list to ship directly to their doorstep.

But what happens when tech entrepreneurs “grow up” and have families? They start sites like Wittlebee, which comes to you via former MySpace employee and current CEO and Founder of Fine Folks, Inc, Sean Percival.

Percival’s company is funded by the red-hot Science, Inc., a technology “studio” with former MySpace CEO Mike Jones at the helm.

Wittlebee is a subscription service for kid’s clothes, and as Pervical can attest to, kids grow fast thus needing new clothes almost monthly. Here’s what the CEO had to say about the Wittlee launch:

As a parent and a technology entrepreneur, I appreciate any product or service that makes my life easier and gives me more time to focus on my family. Parents today are already pulled in a million different directions, I saw an opportunity to automate shopping for basics by giving families access to our personal shopper mom squad who put together the ideal package of clothing for each child.

Automation Station

Automating purchases that we tend to make on a bi-monthly or monthly basis is all the rage and there’s no sign of slowing down. It’s a trend that Percival has been watching closely, so I asked him what caught his eye:

I have been tracking the subscription commerce trend for several months. I knew I wanted to make an entry into it with something for parents. I like these properties that have a narrow focus because it allows them to really super serve their audience. In most cases the result is a very compelling offering, something you won’t find in retail or on Amazon.com.

By paying $40 a month, you can fill out a simple questionare about the type of style that suits your little one, including their favorite colors and personality. Based on this “profile” of your child, the Wittlebee shoppers will curate a box of clothing for you and ship it right to your door every month. This style of site takes the browsing completely out of shopping and the trend is on fire.

Another trend that Wittlebee is capitalizing on is the rise of Pinterest, which we’ve noted has a huge female audience. Pervical told us that just by adding “pin-it” buttons to the site, the traffic coming back to Wittlebee has been immense. The site also offers a 50% off promo code for first time customers. The code is PINTEREST, of course.

By honing in on a niche audience of shoppers who would rather not have to hit the mall to do their very specific shopping, anyone with passion and vision can set up a site like Wittlebee. While curating these boxes isn’t easy work, it is a sign of the times that big e-commerce sites like Amazon might start losing their luster. Forget searching and long live curation!

➤ Wittlebee

You’ve got to start them young, right? With kids picking up on how to use a computer faster than ever before, why not teach them how to program too?

Kids Ruby is a piece of software and set of tutorials that teaches kids the art of development, with Ruby as its programming language of choice. Forget science fairs, your son or daughter could be the next Mark Zuckerberg.

The software is available for Mac or PC, or if you’re feeling really adventurous, you can install the KidsRuby OS, which is built on Ubuntu. Now that’s a cool weekend project, especially if you’ve purchased a new household computer for Christmas.

Teach your kids how to program

The KidsRuby site speaks about programming in a way that kids can understand. It often suggests that children “hack” their homework:

When we say “hack your homework” we mean “learn how to write a computer program to help you with your homework”. For example, writing code to solve a particular math problem. By showing kids that programming can apply to the real world, like any subject, it becomes a lot more interesting to learn about.

The term “hack” in the computer world, means to be able to do something with hardware or software that the original designers did not realize could be done, usually in a good way. This term is often confused with the term “crack” which means to bypass security of some kind, usually considered something bad that you do not wish to do.

How adorable is that? Soon, your kids will be running around the house looking for things to automate. They might even come up with the next big thing, you never know.

With the KidsRuby editor and curriculum, children can jump right in and start creating simple programs in Ruby:

With all of the code for KidRuby sitting on GitHub, people are starting to collaborate on it and make more curriculums for your budding rock star developer. The site even announced a new learning game for programming called “RubyWarrior”, which is also available on GitHub. By learning commands in Ruby, you have to navigate your warrior up a set of stairs to beat the game.

Even though this is a text-based game, think of it as two-dimensional where you are viewing from overhead. Each level is always rectangular in shape and is made up of a number of squares. Only one unit can be on a given square at a time, and your objective is to find the square with the stairs. Here is an example level map and key.

If you unleash your children on KidsRuby, be sure to share your experiences with us in the comments.

➤ KidsRuby

With the Holiday season arriving fast, it’s time to step back and think about others who are less fortunate. With all of the commerce happening online, it’s a perfect time for big companies to start Social Good campaigns to get gifts to those who can’t afford them. Social commerce site eBay has teamed up with Toys for Tots for the “Give-A-Toy Store” campaign.

Toys for Tots has been in operation since 1947, and is one of the most popular organizations to donate to around the Holidays.

With the tap of a button on your mobile device, you can give a gift to someone who deserves it.

Cheief Marketing Officer of eBay North America, Richelle Parham, had this to say about the “Give-A-Toy Store” initiative:

This holiday season, we’re giving people an innovative way to window shop for good that will benefit Toys for Tots. We’re leveraging our mobile technology to power The Give-A-Toy Store, which offers a differentiated, interactive experience for shoppers who wish to give using their smartphone.

You can donate anything from $2 to $25 for popular toys via eBay’s mobile app.

This isn’t just a mobile experience, as there is a physical Give-A-Toy store in New York City at 35th Street and Broadway near Herald Square, in addition to a location at 117 Post Street in San Francisco. You can even scan custom QR codes to automate the donation of your toy of choice. The QR codes cause the toys to animate, bringing you a feel-good experience when making a donation.

Here’s a video from the company, explaining the initiative:

If you’re not in NYC or SF, you can simply go to eBay’s “Give-A-Toy” website and donate there.

On Facebook, eBay is allowing its fans to customize toys, and $1 will be donated to Toys for Tots for every toy customization, up to $50,000.

Download the eBay mobile app today, visit the website, or visit one of the stores physically to make your donation. You could turn a child’s Holiday into an amazing experience, just by doing some Social Good online with eBay.

➤ “Give-A-Toy Store”

Stickery, a company that is building a mobile learning platform focused on games for kids, generates progress reports for teachers and parents, using curriculums that are approved by educators.

The company has announced its seed funding led by Google Ventures and 500 Startups, so it’s clear that education is ripe for innovation, and these two titans believe in Stickery’s vision.

With games such as “Mermaid Waters: Adventures of Hana and Cory” for iOS on its platform, the company is taking the education field by storm with its serialized adventure and learning platform. The app is currently Free to celebrate its launch and is featured by Apple in the “What’s Hot” section of the app store under Education.

This particular game has missions like this one that let kids pick which fish tank has more fish in it. With the amazing graphics and animations, we can see why both kids and parents could get a lot out of this platform.

As we know, kids of all ages play with iPhones, iPods, and iPads, and in some cases, are shocked when the things they touch don’t interact with them. The company thinks that games like “Angry Birds” aren’t enough to educate our kids, as well as bring kids and parents together on their progress.

We talked to Stickery CEO and co-founder Bjorn Lee about the idea behind Stickery and the future of the education gaming platform.

TNW: Please tell us about the Stickery team and why the focus on Kids’ games

Bjorn Lee: Jarrold and I were classmates at Stanford and Stickery is our 2nd tech startup together. Our third member, Fadly, is an award-winning media producer and used to work in TV and the education industry. We are stoked by how kids grok touchscreen devices like ducks to water. This new generation has no legacy knowledge of media or software on traditional devices like TV or computer. We are focused on the preschool segment for now and are really excited to be one of the pioneers and rethink how entertainment and education could be for the society of tomorrow.

TNW: What is it about Kids’ games that is ready to be disrupted

Bjorn Lee: It is the relationship of parents with kids’ games. We think the mobile phone is under-utilized today for parents. It is more than just a container of games to distract kids. We want to start by making parents understand their kids better through the games through data and context. Our goal is to eventually make the smartphone an on-demand “teaching assistant” for parents.

TNW: What are your goals to change the way kids interact with games?

Bjorn Lee: Young kids do not control their access to games. Parents do. We are looking at a dual-user model here which is very fascinating because of the value of games for learning. Learning means very very different things to kids and parents but yet is the bridge to why children’s gaming is such a big market.

TNW: What are your business goals to keep Stickery around for years to come?

Bjorn Lee: Our vision for Stickery is to change the model of children’s gaming – for modern parents on mobile devices. We will be focused on the preschool sector for the first few years before looking at the K-12 market.

With Xbox Live-like incentives and interactions built into the platform, Stickery is in a prime position to draw great game developers to build the best education games around for devices that some kids have been using since birth. With a backer like Google Ventures, we’re sure that the company won’t run out of money anytime soon, either.

Don’t know how naughty the kids have to be to deserve this…

More at Sketchy Santas

Via Gizmodo