Mind Candy, the creator of Moshi Monsters, is back with another mobile app for children. It’s called PopJam and offers an Instagram-inspired “creative community” where anyone can share drawings, photos and stickers with their friends.
Each post is a square-crop, just like Facebook’s popular photo-editing app, although here Mind Candy has traded filters and adjustment sliders for colorful stamps and paint brushes. All three modes – draw, photo and sticker – can be used separately or combined for a truly eccentric piece of art.
Users can then share these with their friends, or like and respond to other posts with their own creations. Everything is tied to a simple vertical feed which again, sorry to labour the point, is almost identical to Instagram’s mobile apps.
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Mind Candy wants to break new ground, however, with a ‘Discover’ section where children can follow professional accounts related to popular brands, products and TV shows. The current selection includes LEGO, Minecraft, Doctor Who, Adventure Time and Frozen, although the company says it wants to incorporate education-focused channels in the future.
“Stealth education is a key part of Moshi Monsters and we want PopJam to be no exception,” Michael Acton Smith, CEO of Mind Candy said. “We’ve always believed that amazing things can happen when you make learning fun.”
PopJam is free and there are no in-app purchases for parents to worry about. Some sticker packs are locked out at the moment, but children can gain access by improving their follower count. To do this, they’ll need to share the app and their creations with friends – a move that will no doubt help Mind Candy to grow PopJam’s user base in the months ahead.
The app is only in the UK, although a wider roll-out in the future seems likely. It’s already available in the App Store and should hit Google Play in the next couple of hours. We’ll let you know when the latter is live.
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