After near­ly a year of work, we’re excit­ed to announce that Jel­lies is now live. Jel­lies began because we noticed our chil­dren were increas­ing­ly encoun­ter­ing inap­pro­pri­ate video con­tent in apps, even apps meant for kids! As par­ents and peo­ple who build apps for a liv­ing, we thought we were unique­ly posi­tioned to solve this prob­lem and not just for our own children. 

While we start­ed by test­ing Jel­lies in our homes and with our friends, our goal was always to make it easy for every­one to access qual­i­ty kids videos. That’s now pos­si­ble. You can down­load Jel­lies and try it free for 30 days. Here’s a look at what you’ll find in the new Jel­lies app for par­ents and kids.

Made for Parents, Loved by Kids

With Jel­lies, we aspired to give par­ents more pow­er over what videos their chil­dren watch. We cre­at­ed a closed, curat­ed envi­ron­ment that ensures that kids start out in a safe place and then stay in a safe place, instead of wan­der­ing across videos they shouldn’t view. We also removed all adver­tise­ments, which often are not age-appro­pri­ate or fail to meet par­ent­ing stan­dards. These deci­sions cre­at­ed a sol­id safe­ty foun­da­tion for Jel­lies and the com­mu­ni­ty we hope to use it. We didn’t stop there, however.

We want­ed to empow­er Jel­lies par­ents and care­givers even more by giv­ing them the added abil­i­ty to cus­tomize their child’s video library. In Jel­lies ​“Par­ents Mode,” adults get to select which top­ics appear in Jel­lies ​“Kids Mode.” We felt it was impor­tant to give par­ents this added ele­ment of con­trol as only they know their child best. For exam­ple, do you have a child who loves trains, needs some help with their ABCs, or is afraid of thun­der­storms? In Jel­lies Par­ents Mode you can add trains, planes, dump trucks, trash trucks, and oth­er sim­i­lar top­ics to your child’s library while steer­ing clear of the light­ning top­ic. You could also add in an edu­ca­tion­al ABC top­ic for good mea­sure. If you notice your child isn’t as engaged in a top­ic as you expect­ed, you can eas­i­ly remove that top­ic from their library and replace it with one of Jel­lies’ many playlists. 

Jel­lies Kids Mode pro­vides an immer­sive play­ground where chil­dren can swap between top­ics eas­i­ly and explore a vari­ety of relat­ed videos. We designed Kids Mode to offer a play­ful and fun expe­ri­ence where their videos are the stars of the show. We test­ed and watched our own kids inter­act with it and found that it’s easy to nav­i­gate even for a 1‑year-old. Par­ents are ulti­mate­ly the ones who decide what con­tent appears in that play­ground. Chil­dren also can­not leave Kids Mode because of our parental gate; they need to know mul­ti­pli­ca­tion to pass through. If a child man­ages to close out and re-launch Jel­lies, the app will auto­mat­i­cal­ly open in Kids Mode. There’s also a way to keep your child from leav­ing Jel­lies or any oth­er app to begin with.

We Watched Thousands of Videos...

…so you didn’t have to. We made sure we includ­ed videos kids love in Jel­lies. The ideas for the top­ics came from our own chil­dren. First we iden­ti­fied the char­ac­ter­is­tics of videos that both kids and par­ents want. We reviewed con­tent to make sure we includ­ed the most fun, amus­ing, age-appro­pri­ate videos that inspire fur­ther learn­ing, cre­ativ­i­ty, and enthu­si­asm for explor­ing the world. In doing so we elim­i­nat­ed the kind of kids con­tent you may encounter in oth­er apps. We decid­ed to remove unbox­ing videos, toy play and reviews, child celebri­ties, sur­prise scare and dis­turb­ing videos, and videos with inap­pro­pri­ate lan­guage and imagery from Jellies.

Our team of video review­ers combed through the mil­lions of videos on YouTube to find the ones that met the Jel­lies cri­te­ria above. We watched every sin­gle video with­in Jel­lies, and then watched it again to make sure. Those thou­sands of hours of watch­ing and review­ing was done so par­ents would feel secure that no mat­ter what video their child stum­bled across in Jel­lies. All videos in Jel­lies are not only appro­pri­ate, but fun and edu­ca­tion­al as well!

Help Us Shape Jellies

As Jel­lies grows in pop­u­lar­i­ty, we’ll con­tin­ue to improve it and lis­ten close­ly to your feed­back. We hope to build a com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple who care about our mis­sion. Your voice will help us decide what new top­ics we should add to Jel­lies next. Tell us if there’s a top­ic you’d like to see more videos for, or a top­ic we’ve yet to add. We also have a num­ber of fea­tures we plan to work on in upcom­ing releas­es… we can’t share all of them yet, but we’re listening!

We want your help shap­ing Jel­lies as it grows. Inter­act with us on Face­book and Twit­ter. You can also keep an eye on the Jel­lies blog for more par­ent­ing resources or check out our FAQs for guid­ance on how to use Jellies.

Down­load Jel­lies now!