BYE BYE PENGUIN: Club Penguin co-founder Lane Merrifield is leaving his position at Walt Disney Interactive (which acquired the iconic online community for children in 2007) to work on FreshGrade, a startup he founded that so far is pretty mum on details. (AllThingsD describes it as a "cloud-based educational assessment tool teachers can use to figure out how a student learn.") The Los Angeles Times suggests that Merrifield's departure comes at a time when Disney Interactive Media Group is under pressure to steer the ship toward profitable waters. Hmm, going from social games to crunching ed data--where have we heard that before?
