Look Out: More Online Worlds for Kids to Come
Wed Jan 2, 2008 11:28AM EST
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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.
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7 Posted by phantopp on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:09PM EDT Report Abuse
Actually, MTV Networks bought Neopets, rambkowalczyk.
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6 Posted by guinevere4719 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:14PM EDT Report Abuse
You hit this bang on, Dory! I think talking with your kids and educating them about marketing in general is a terrific idea. It's not just from "screens" but whenever they open a magazine or drive past a billboard. My son used to quote commercials when he was very young, telling us why he "needed" a new toy. He could recite the tag lines for products verbatim. This was something we explained very early to him as marketing, what it meant, and why things marketing campaigns said were not "truths" (you don't NEED to conquer your friends with the new xyz robot. You just may enjoy it). Webkinz, Club Penguin and the like are marketing vehicles but they are also very real communities. Virtual or not, kids can hang out together and interact in a fun and safe environment. These games aren't created to pull your children in for hours at a time. Webkinz has many activities you can do for under 5 minutes. Talking with your children, or, even better playing with them online, will show them that you aren't too traditional to understand what is fun for them when they are inside or in front of a screen. Limit their time and teach them how to be safe, tell them why some games require them to be over 13, or why they may need parent's permission for something, and then let them enjoy these areas. I am not saying they shouldn't play outside and see the sunshine, but having a virtual pet you can give a bath and dress up on a rainy day is pretty cool, too.