« What is Web 3.0? | Main | The automation of social life »
Growing up virtual
August 09, 2007
From my column in today's Guardian:
Compared to Club Penguin, Second Life, the much-hyped virtual world aimed at adults, is something of a ghost town. It's managed to attract only about 95,000 paid subscribers so far, a fraction of Club Penguin’s 700,000. In fact, all of the most popular virtual worlds are geared to kids and teenagers. The venerable Habbo Hotel, originally launched in Finland in 2000, attracts 7 million visitors a month, Sweden’s Stardoll attracts 5 million, Webkinz and Neopets attract 4 million each, and Gaia Online reports nearly 3 million monthly visitors ... Clearly, there are big commercial rewards to be had by enticing children to spend a lot of time exploring virtual worlds. What’s less clear, though, is the long-term effect on the kids themselves.
Read.
Advertisement: Are you ready for "The Big Switch"? Fast Company calls Nicholas Carr's new book "compulsively readable - for nontechies, too." Salon says it's "magisterial." Order now from Amazon.com.
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
Nick's new book:
"Future Shock for the web-apps era" -Fast Company
"Ominously prescient" -Kirkus Reviews
"Riveting stuff" -New York Post
Greatest hits
Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians
The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock's avatar
Other writing
The end of corporate computing
Nick's last book:
Order from Amazon
Visit book site