Look Out: More Online Worlds for Kids to Come

My 10-year-old has cooled on Webkinz, where she used to love spending time designing rooms and comparing the online digs she created for her real-world stuffed animals with her Webkinz-loving friends.

Alas, there are many more virtual worlds vying for her online alteregos on the horizon.

As the New York Times reports, adult virtual worlds like Second Life got lots of media attention in 2007, but virtual worlds designed for kids are getting the real traffic.

Disney-owned Club Penguin gets seven times the traffic as Second Life, while Webkinz had 6 million unique visitors in November 2007, up 342 percent over the same period a year earlier, according to the ComScore Media Matrix research firm.

All of which means the enterprising minds at Disney, Nickelodeon, and beyond are busy developing new worlds to capture the eyes and hearts of kids as young as toddlers. No surprise here, but many will be tied to movies and merchandising real-world products. From the Times:

• Disney, which last month introduced a Pirate of the Caribbean world for kids 10 and older, has worlds in the works for Cars and Tinker Bell, in time for the release of a movie in her honor in fall 2008.

• Nickelodeon, owner of one of the first and most popular online worlds for pets, Neopets, is spending $100 million to develop several new worlds.

• Warner Brothers Entertainment is working on worlds tied to popular cartoons and comics.

Mattel, Lego, and independent startups are also developing worlds in the hopes of drawing some of the 20 million kids eMarketer predicts will be members of in 2011. Now, virtual worlds for kids claim 8.2 million members. 

So what does this mean for parents? As always, keep an eye on where your kids are spending time online and talk to them about why they like spending time on the sites they choose. When sites are tied to merchandising, talk about that, too. Kids are smart. Most know when they are having fun and when they are being pandered to. Talking with us about the differences between the two can help sharpen  the good judgment they will need to interact online at every age.