While we adults were geeking out about the potential of Second Life, the kids had their own virtual-world revolution. Brooks Barnes reports in NYT that Webkinz (by toymaker Ganz) had 6 million logins in November. I can attest personally that most of those sessions were probably longer than one hour and ended only with lots of nagging and threats from peeved parents.
Meanwhile, Disney’s Club Penguin, only the first in a portfolio of virtual worlds for kids, now has seven times more traffic than Second Life. One analyst predicts that 20 million kids will be members of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8 million and change today.
So, I wonder when will the parental backlash will begin? In my household alone, I’m sure that my three Webkinz fanatics have amassed collections of animals ($10-12 each), charms ($3 each) and trading cards ($3 per pack) worth hundreds. I don’t think we could afford for the kids to join yet another virtual world without us being bankrupted in the real world.
Check out the article Web Playgrounds of the Very Young.
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