Filed under: Community Building
Quick, what’s the second-stickiest site on the Web, has 25 million members worldwide, and gets 2.2 billion pageviews per month?
If you said Neopets.com, you’d be right. If you don’t immediately recognize that name, you probably don’t have young kids. Neopets lets its members “adopt” a virtual pet, and then care for it, buy it accessories, exercise it, and so on. There’s a Neopet currency, NeoPoints, that can be accumulated and used for virtual purchases.
A WIRED article, The Neopets Addiction, discusses how much time members spend immersed in this virtual world. Not all members are kids - the article describes Jane Ash, a 51-year old market research director in New York City, who spends a couple of hours a day collecting Neopet Prizes. (Her collection has grown to 16,000.)
The traffic and stickiness of the site has attracted attention - Neopets has lots of big-name advertisers and was acquired by Viacom for $160 million in June.
I find it interesting as a phenomenon - is this the direction in which humanity is headed? Will virtual communities replace physical interaction for all but the most basic human needs? Neopets isn’t the only example - online games like Everquest, discussion and blog communities, chat and instant messaging, all allow interaction with other people who aren’t physically present or even nearby.
To the extent that individuals can interact with others who share common interests by virtual contact, this is a good thing. If individuals completely abandon their local, “real”, communities, though, we could be damaging the fabric of our society.
Real-world communities thrive in part because of the altruistic involvement of individuals who help others and support local institutions. Of course, those who spend their time in virtual communities can be giving of their time, too. Many online communities function with the help of volunteer moderators, for example, and are popular because members help other members. Even Neopets has room to volunteer - the WIRED story describes a grandmother who spends hours per day caring for abandoned Neopets and placing them with new owners. This is fascinating and scary at the same time…
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very scary indeed..
Comment by mkk 02.04.06 @ 8:09 pm