IAC’s Zwinky has been carefully growing their pre-teen social networking service. It started out as an online avatar creation tool. They later created a virtual world where those avatars could socialize. Usage of the service has been growing, under heavy advertising, as well. They currently have over 9.5 million registered users with 4.6 million active users per month that spend an average of 64 minutes a day in their virtual world, Zwinktopia.
Zwinky is now expanding the service to their users pocketbooks, or rather those of their parents. The site is now letting users purchase batches of “Zbucks”, their virtual curency, instead of having to earn them. They join a growing group of other tween sites with paid virtual economies as well (Club Penguin, Habbo Hotel, Gaia). Users can purchase them using PayPal or credit card at a rate of about $10 for 2,000 Zbucks. With the Zbucks, users will be able to purchase their own avatar accessories or furnish their virtual rooms in Zwinktopia. Zwinky is not only making money from the Zbucks, but also through sponsorships and sales made through the virtual goods.
So far users have spent over 500 million free “Zbucks” on the site since launch. There’s no telling how strong the uptake of the new paid currency will be, but other services have shown a clear market for virtual goods. The passion around World of Warcraft drove a black market for virtual gold. SecondLife has also driven a paid virtual economy. While virtual goods seem hokey for outsiders, startups that create a meaningful environment find their customers willing to pay to save time earning currency or get at exclusive items.
I wondered what Zwinky were doing - there ads seemed to be everywhere for a while - I guess now we know
9.5 million registered users? Wow! Great growing. I wonder who will came with buying offer soon?
Hi Nick,
Check your title –and I didn’t know our second life started so early.
At this growth rate , they will be acquired by some corporate very soon i guess.
I don’t understand the attraction to these time wasters… ah well, back to playing my video games
Jon
9.5 million users and I have never ever heard of them. IAC has been doing a great job lately
My daughter has been talking about Zwinky avatars for some time. Won’t be long before she finds Zwinktopia, I assume.
How long before Zbucks, Linden dollars and WOW gold get on the currency markets?
There commercials would come on at midnight during Jay Leno, every night on the dot. I thought they were going after a much older crowd, but i guess Jay Leno is huge with the pre-teen crowd.
my kids have been playing at club penguin now since the disney acquisition and, as far as i can tell, you can NOT purchase coins. You have to earn them…
please, anyone, correct me if i’m wrong… but club penguin does not sport a paid virtual economy…. a virtual economy? yes. But in the context of this post it sounds like it’s being lumped in with the services where you can actually trade real money for fake money across the board which, to my knowledge, is simply not the case.
I surely forsee myspace picking them up.
You spelled Economy wrong.
Who said that the new frontier is not virtual worlds? Actually who said it and how many here poopooed the idea?
Again, I will repeat myself… virtual worlds are the future but the interaction semantics must change. Do not ask me to what … I am also trying to figure it out.
I don’t know - have you heard the word “over saturated”… my duaghter started out with some doll thing - then moved to the pinguin thing, had a stnt on some horse thing [ horse died of starvation] and now she has disneys thing and yet more of these social sites come out. Do people really have the time?
I know I would not give my duaghter $10 real bucks to buy fake imaginary cloth for an online avatar… I’d rather spend it on comic books………lol
This is spyware.. these guys install all kinds of crapy software along with the every download. A search assist which is a browser hijacker is included as well. Come on frekos, you are already earning so much, why the hell do you want to include all these nonsense as a bonus. Can’t you offer a clean download of the software??
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