WildBlueSkies - Trends and strategies in Digital Media

A friend in Canada, was recently mentioning the computing classes that her 4 year old was taking - yet another indication of the ease with which the new generation is taking to the Internet, and the incremental role that it is acquiring in defining how we interact, and in fact in our complete lives.
Look a little deeper, and you find that 53% of all children on the Web are expected to belong to a virtual world within four years, more than doubling the current population of 8.2 million members, according to a recent report from eMarketer.
As the age barrier for going online drops lower, companies are discovering the huge potential this market holds especially when it comes to virtual worlds, as kids are naturally drawn towards imaginative, character-driven environments. Moreover for a number of toy producing companies it is the natural extention to their toys, television shows etc.
For instance, Mattel was forced to launch a virtual world for Barbie, to catch up with market-unknown Stardoll.com, a Sweden-based virtual paperdoll site, which reportedly attracts 6.4 million worldwide members.
Neopets, acquired by MTV recently is the one of the oldest virtual worlds on the Net with a community of 45 million people worldwide racking up about 11 million average monthly visitors, while Nickelodeon’s virtual world Nicktropolis that launched in January, now has about 5.5 million registered users who on average spend 55 minutes on the site per visit.
The potential of this market is evident from the $35 million projections of Club Penguin, which was acquired by Disney for $350 million. According to some, kids’ virtual worlds are the only ones that are successful so far, given the multiple sources of revenue - advertising, subscriptions and sales of virtual goods like pets or accessories.
Given the increasing emphasis on Indian mythology series, this seems like a very viable route for kids’ television channels in India to increase loyalty.
Creating for kids however would necessitate a new approach to design, one that would focus on ease of use, and presentation of information that would be different from how we know it today.

Filed under: Business, Digital culture, Trends