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| Moderated by: Britt |
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Britt Forum-Blogger© Original500© Member  Learning Contentment
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 Webkinz is a safe and protected Internet community for children 5 years and up. There are interactive games, contests and community events, and opportunities to earn KinzCash. Users begin by adopting a pet and then keep their pet loved, happy and healthy in a virtual house. Meters to the left of the screen help children monitor their pets. Kids can invite friends to visit their virtual homes and play games together in KinzChat. The site is well-reviewed. Parental controls are included, offering the option to turn off KinzChat and permit access to games only. "Webkinz pets are lovable plush pets that each come with a unique Secret Code. With it, you enter Webkinz World where you care for your virtual pet, answer trivia, earn KinzCash, and play the best kids games on the net!" THERE IS A $15 FEE FOR LOGGING ON TO WEBKINZ. The Webkinz site address: http://www.webkinz.com/ Check out this review from Matthew Barakat of the Associated Press: http://business.bostonherald.com/reviews/view.bg?articleid=1011100 Review: Webkinz children’s site has broad appeal without aggressive promotional tie-in Associated Press Friday, July 13, 2007 - Updated: 06:56 AM EST FALLS CHURCH, Va. - For about a week my 6-year-old son, Mark, was having a grand old time on Webkinz, one of several children’s Web sites that have exploded in popularity in the last year or so. Then it dawned on him. His online pet, a gorilla named Ben, was playing games like "Rock Paper Scissors" and "Go Fish" against the other denizens of Webkinz World, nearly all of whom were pink kittens or fluffy-maned horses. "Is PoniesRock!24 a girl?" he asked. "What difference does it make?" my wife and I responded. "Yeah, but is PoniesRock!24 a girl?" We finally conceded: "Probably, yes." Click. He quickly reconciled his little internal conflict and was soon happily back on track. And that was fine with us. Webkinz is one of the few sites that has captured our son’s attention without aggressive promotional tie-ins for superhero movies or television shows. He doesn’t need a lot of parental help to navigate the site. And Webkinz has broad appeal. While it seems that the sweet spot in the Webkinz demographic - what with the cutesy-pie graphics and the proliferation of fluffy felines in pastels - is probably the preteen girl, the site has something for everybody. When we boot Mark off the computer to go play outside, either my wife or I will often play a few games before we shut it down. To log on to Webkinz, you first have to buy a specially designated stuffed animal for about $15 or so. (The toys themselves appear a little cheaply made, like what you’d find at a roadside carnival. My wife has already had to stitch Ben up twice.) The price compares favorably to another popular site, Club Penguin, which charges about $60 a year for full access, though limited features are available for free. The toy comes with a code giving you one year’s access to the Webkinz World site at webkinz.com. There your toy gorilla or cat or frog or bunny becomes a virtual pet, and it’s your job to keep it happy, healthy and well-fed. You do this by "buying" food, toys and amenities with Webkinz cash, which you earn by playing the games and fulfilling various tasks. Or just buy another stuffed animal - you get 2,500 or more in KinzCash for every subsequent toy you purchase, compared with 3 to 50 by playing games. That is assuredly part of the reason many people seem to collect dozens of WebKinz toys. The huge variety of games and activities is by far the site’s best feature. Some are habit-forming and addictive, including math, word and shape puzzles in the vein of "Tetris" or sudoku. Most reward critical thinking in some fashion or another. Some games appeal to the very young - my 3-year-old laughed uncontrollably at one game where you whack a puffball-type creature with a club - and others appeal to adults and teens. I suspect many players are adults, either using their children’s accounts like we do or childless adults who have moved on from their Beanie Baby collections. The games can be played solo or two-player, and the Web site will usually find you a challenger in seconds. You can see the site’s appeal to adults late at night, when the arcade is still hopping and the level of competition on those word puzzle games rises dramatically. [continue]
 "All that you have is your soul." --Tracy Chapman |
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24HourNut Administrator  Body pillows rock!
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Hi Britt, one of my kids had me searching through the stuffed animals and toys to see if they had their bar-code tag for some online interaction tool, but we couldn't find one ... the pressure is on.
The best human beings start good new topics and vote on the better posts. |
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Britt Forum-Blogger© Original500© Member Learning Contentment
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Yeah, it's a bit of a racket, these paid children's sites, but I have heard good things about Webkinz. One of my friend's subscribes to it for her four year-old. Poor kid has to be torn away from the computer, ha-ha. (They are nurturing a future hacker, much like her dad.) It is very safe, the number one benefit. Good luck obtaining that key. I don't envy you this evening, Young Man. Those stuffed animal characters are bewitching.
"All that you have is your soul." --Tracy Chapman |
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