It looks like Nickelodeon is getting a little further into the games business by releasing both SpongeBob SquarePants, iCarly and Dora The Explorer learning games for the iPhone. They will be available later this year.

My question is this: do children of that age really use the iPhone or iPod Touch that much? Most of the people I know who own one or the other are adults or at least teenagers. While I can see some market for SpongeBob SquarePants (which has some adult crossover appeal), I just don't see the grown-ups buying iCarly or Dora.

All three franchises are available as audio or video on iTunes. This makes more sense because more kids own video iPods than iTouches or iPhones.

In fact, while a couple of cute SpongeBob iPhone apps already exist on iTunes (one as a game called SpongeBob's Atlantis Treasures and one is a virtual pet called the SpongeBob Tickler), no results come up in an app search on either Dora or iCarly.

Is the iPhone breaking into the kid's market or is this simply a lark on the part of Nickelodeon? We'll find out after these new games are released.