Cartoon Doll Emporium, for example, aimed at children between six and 16, now has around 3 million visitors a month, while Stardoll, aimed at children aged between seven and 17, claims 8.8 million members.Īnd Disney is just the latest of the big media groups to get into the pre-teen market. Yet sites like Webkinz and interactive dressing-up sites aimed primarily at young girls are proving very popular. While much media and analyst attention has been paid to the growth in social networking sites, such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, the rapid growth in games sites and virtual worlds targeted at younger children has largely slipped beneath the radar. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, the Webkinz site attracted 4.1 million unique users in May, outstripping long-established brands such as Barbie, ToysRUs and Hasbro. Ganz has sold more than 2m of the toys since 2005 and the website has seen an elevenfold growth in market share of visits for the year to April, according to Hitwise, the internet metrics company - more than double that of Club Penguin.
Each toy comes with a code that can be entered into the website to create an animated virtual version of it. Webkinz, developed by privately owned Canadian toy and gift company Ganz, is a range of soft toys aimed at children between the ages of six and 13. Among the latest crazes is Webkinz, a website that lets young children bring their real-world fluffy toys to life online within a virtual world. With a claimed 700,000-plus young subscribers paying $57.95 (£28) for a 12-month subscription, it's clear that social networking for the young is likely to be just as big - and as lucrative - as websites such as Facebook and MySpace.Ĭlub Penguin is by no means the only place for children to interact online.
The corporate giant last week acquired Club Penguin, a virtual world aimed at children aged between six and 14. When dancing penguins are sold to Disney in a deal worth up to $700m (£345m), you know that websites aimed at kids are a serious internet phenomenon.