World of Barbie-craft: 3 Million Sign-Ups in 2 Months!
And they’re adding new ones at the rate of
50,000 a day.
This week, the biggest bit of news in the online world industry didn’t come from E3 in Los Angeles; no, it emanated from the DigitalLife conference in New York City, as reported on the blog of Scientific American, of all things.
“…in the first 60 days of its existence, the new online virtual world Barbie Girls has signed up three million members, and they’re adding new ones at the rate of 50,000 a day.”
By contrast, it took World of Warcraft four months to reach just half that amount. Yes, largely an apples-to-Orcs comparison, but in terms of eyeballs, attention, and enthusiasm, still a fair one.
The overarching point is how much online worlds have come to be dominated by pre-adults. The GigaOM Top Ten MMO list is roughly half kid-oriented virtual worlds - Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin, Webkinz, Gaia Online, and arguably RuneScape - and doesn’t even include sites like Zwinky, NeoPets, and other child-centric social networks with MMO/avatar-based elements.
And one conclusion in the article is that the subscription model may be in decline.
Posted: Mon - July 16, 2007 at 10:07 AM