Monthly Archives: July 2006
We aren't all pirates
A good article in the LA Times today about copyright.
Standout quote:
“As they [Congress] weigh the entertainment industry’s pleas, lawmakers shouldn’t
assume all consumers are bootleggers and every digital device is a hand
grenade aimed at Hollywood.”
Webkinz - Second Life for kids
I recently heard about a new children’s toy known as ‘Webkinz’. This has to be one of the best (and most lucrative) ideas I’ve seen in a long time.
The basic gist is that kids (or rather their parents) purchase a standard plush toy animal. Then kids, using a secret code that comes with their toy doll, ‘adopt’ the cuddly critter online at the webkinz website. Once the toy has been ‘adopted’, kids can create virtual rooms on the webkinz website, find friends online, interact with each other, chat, and go hang out in other kids virtual rooms. It’s like Second Life for kids.
So here’s the clever parts:
Kids can purchase additional virtual accouterments for their rooms and by using ‘kinzcash’. Everything is available for sale, from wallpaper to virtual food for your pet. From reading the website, it seems as if ‘kinzcash’ can be earned by taking quizzes and playing games, but I’m wondering if you can buy ‘kinzcash’ with real dollars. If not, you should be able to! This is like all those Barbie accessories of days gone by, minus the manufacturing and shipping costs to the toy maker. Pure profit.
The price point for webkinz is perfectly set at around $10 - 15 – just right for a birthday gift. The toy makers know that the real money is made from having a huge online community of kids. Rather then paying $15 for a toy that has some neat software attached to it, this is more like buying a yearly subscription to a social networking service, and receiving a gift of a free doll. And once a kid starts using this service, you can bet they will scream bloody murder if their yearly subscription isn’t paid up and renewed.
Word on the street is that these toys are flying off the shelves, and like any other truly popular technology, the value of the toy increases as more kids sign on to the website. This encourages other kids to actively market the product to each other. It’s a viral plush toy combined with social software! Yipes!
Update: I just found out that the average number dolls that a webkinz owner has is 1.6! Impressive, from a marketing standpoint…