Category: News

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Virtual worlds are huge with kids today… and they are about to become even bigger.

Nick announced today that it’s developing an entire virtual world, “involving games, avatars and a strong social-networking component, based on network hit ‘Spongebob Squarepants.'”

What is a virtual world you ask? Our own David R. Smith in his recent Youth Culture Window article on virtual worlds defined them as “3 dimensional internet communities that couple the attraction of online social networking with the appeal of online gaming.”

Have you heard of Gaia Online? Club Penguin? Webkins (I’ve blogged about them)? Neopets? Nicktropolis? These are just a few examples of these online worlds where kids can create a character (avatar) and live in an online la-la land.

Are these just for kids? Nope. They’ve been around long enough that many of today’s younger teenagers have grown up with them. Ypulse‘s Anastasia listed virtual worlds first as one of the biggest trend with teenagers in 2007. Anastasia shares…

I have no doubt that virtual worlds, like Habbo Hotel, Zwinktopia, Gaia Online, There and MTV’s worlds have become a hit with millions of teenagers. I just don’t sense that it’s teens en masse quite yet. But I think eMarketer got it right when they predicted that “by 2011, 53% of them will be going virtual.” This year, the real explosion of virtual worlds happened for kids and tweens. Club Penguin and Webkinz can almost be seen as the mothers or fathers of the next wave of virtual worlds for kids.

Rueters reported today about Nick’s development of an entire virtual world and…

Nick also is expected to announce that it is developing Monkey World, a social-networking and massive multiplayer game based on an original concept and not tied to any of its existing franchises.

The network also will announce that it will increase the interactivity on its Neopets site through a new virtual world called World of Neopia, and will add a paid tier to Nicktropolis, the overarching virtual world that’s divided into sections based on Nick television shows and other properties. SpongeBob, Monkey World and Neopia also will have paid tiers when they launch next year.

Nicktropolis currently averages about 1.5 million visitors per month, and executives said the paid tier will preserve that traffic by charging only for additional features like personalization. The company declined to disclose pricing details for the new tier or say what it might charge for various virtual words, though it’s likely that pay tiers could be a key part of its revenue strategy.

It sounds like eMarker’s prediction of 53% of teenagers going virtual by 2011 might not be far off.

Hmmmmm.

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Any youth worker or parent who has read anything about this young generation has frequently seen the word “multi-tasking.” Today’s kids can multi-task like no generation before them.

Media Life came out with an article yesterday about kids browsing the internet WHILE watching TV and how marketers are using this opportunity. TV watchers have probably noticed this phenomenon in the last year. You can’t watch American Idol or even a football game without being repeatedly pitched to jump on their web site and vote or participate in a poll. You might not be responding to these plea’s… but our kids are.

According to the above article:

overall 64 percent of kids go online while watching TV. Just under half do so frequently, between three times a week and several times a day.

It also found that 73 percent of those who are watching TV while online are engaged in active multitasking. That’s up dramatically from the 55 percent of kids who said they had engaged in active multitasking back in 2002.

Some 50 percent said they had visited a web site in direct response to something they’d seen while watching TV. That’s up from 41 percent.

Some 35 percent said they had sent an email or instant message to someone who was watching the same TV show, compared to 18 percent in 2002.

Further, one third said they went online to participate in polls, contests or games after television programs have directed them to while still watching the tube. That’s up from 21 percent.

Another interesting thing to come out in the study is that when kids are on the internet while watching TV, it’s the internet that tends to hold their attention as the primary medium.

I found that last fact fascinating– when in comes to engaging in internet and TV simultaneously, the internet wins in the fight for attention. Perhaps because it is “interactive” by definition.

More on this research in this article. (thanks for this one Anastasia)

Today’s teenagers have never known the world without the internet. That, combined with all the other gadgets readily available to them has created a generation of media junkies who can handle more than a couple mediums at once. I talk about this in Chapter Four (click here for that chapter in article form on our web site) in my book THE NEW BREED, describing how to recruit today’s young professional as a volunteer.

Years ago every report was about the effects of TV– families who leave the TV on during homework or during dinner. Now we’re seeing a shift to people doing everything “while browsing the internet.”

Hmmmmmmm.