Times Union Article 9/22/05

[Asparagus Queen]

Article about Neopets in the Times Union. Good article, except at one point it says "There are no banner or pop-up ads; it's up to users to choose to play games such as McDonald's Meal Hunt or Limited Too: Mix & Match." Erm... no banner ads?

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story. ... =9/23/2005

Virtual animal kingdom
Neopets and owners frolic in games, shops and fantasy life online

By MICHAEL LISI, Special to the Times Union
First published: Thursday, September 22, 2005

Meghan Conner was concerned.

Her Hissi might be hungry, her Shoyru might be lonely and her Wocky, well, she didn't like being left alone for too long.

But there was little Meghan could do. She was in the hospital, unable to check if her Neopets were comfortable at the Grand Neopian Neolodge, where she left them to be cared for while she was away.

All that changed when the 9-year-old Clifton Park resident discovered the hospital had a computer with access to the Internet.

"She walked to the (hospital's) resource room, wheeling her IV pole the whole way to check her NeoMail," said Meghan's mother, Kathy Conner.

Every day, millions of people log on to Neopets.com, a fantasy online world where users create and care for Neopets, colorful, cartoon-like cyberpets that look like unicorns (Uni), cats (Aisha), penguins (Bruce), monkees (Mynci) and fantasy beings (Jub Jubs and Chias). The pets live in Neopia, a mythical world with 11 lands, each with games, shops and activities.

"There are so many games," said Anthony Reinemann, 9. "I like Mootix Drop, where you're a flea with a parachute and you have to land on targets to earn NeoPoints."

Created in 1999 by two British college students, Neopets has grown into one of the Web's most popular play sites for tweens and teens, counting more than 92 million accounts -- created by more than 25 million individual users -- as of December 2004.

Spreading interest

As of May, Neopets users averaged almost six hours monthly on the site, longer than eBay, Yahoo! or Disney.com, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings and comScore Media Metrix. It reaches more than 90 percent of Internet users worldwide and is translated into 11 languages.

NeoPets Inc. is developing a trading card game and has twice teamed up with McDonald's to give away mini stuffed Neopets in Happy Meals.

In October, Neopets will have its own PlayStation 2 game -- "Neopets: The Darkest Faerie" -- on the market, one of six Neopets Play Station 2 and PSP games slated for release this winter and a movie will open in 2006.

And if that's not enough, MTV Networks purchased Neopets for $160 million in June, a deal that could lead to a television show and a merchandising line.

"Our preference is to build on our success and let it grow around our audience," said Stephanie Yost Cameron, executive vice president for business and legal affairs for NeoPets Inc., in a recent phone interview from Neopets' Glendale, Calif., headquarters.

Neopets users form clubs called guilds, make their own Web pages, invest in the Neopian stock market, the NEODAQ, and hold auctions to sell fantasy stuffs such as Springy Veespa toys or paintbrushes to paint Neopets.

There's even a Neopets online newspaper, The Neopian Times, with stories, artwork and comics generated by Neopets users.

"I auction a lot of stuff," said Meaghan Gray, 9. "One time, somebody from China bought something from my shop. That was cool but weird, because they sent a message to me in Chinese, but it was in English when it popped on my screen."

Starting out

Neopets neophytes start by creating a free account and choosing a Neopet. Players get four pets and can create new pets only after sending old ones to the Neopian Pound for adoption. Users play games to earn NeoPoints, which are used to buy food, toys and other luxuries for their new friends and their pets, called Petpets.

Like real life, there is inflation, and you search for deals on food, clothing and essentials.

"My son seems to enjoy Neopets and it does require him to use reasoning skills," said Diane Reinemann, Anthony's mom.

While market forces are at work with buying and selling, Yost Cameron emphasizes Neopets is an entertainment site, not an educational site.

Neopets' advertiser list includes companies such as General Mills, SONY, McDonald's and Warner Brothers. PBS Kids advertises on the site, as does Nintendo, Nickelodeon and New Line Cinema.

Consumer society

Neopets has been knocked by some consumer advocate groups that claim the company's habit of "immersive advertising" -- games based on brand products and integrating advertising messages into the site's content -- unfairly targets youngsters.

Yost Cameron says advertising is less than 1 percent of Neopets' total site content and is labeled. There are no banner or pop-up ads; it's up to users to choose to play games such as McDonald's Meal Hunt or Limited Too: Mix & Match.

"We would love to be able to have a free site with no ads, but that's not how life works," Yost Cameron said.

Neopets adheres to the federal Children's Online Privacy Act, which prohibits companies from gathering personal information from Web surfers younger than 13. It voluntarily follows the guidelines of the Children's Advertising Review Unit, run by the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

"Age 8 is about our start level on Neopets, because you need to be a fluent reader to really enjoy the site," Yost Cameron said.

Users younger than 13 must have written parental permission to NeoMail or read or post on the site's chat boards; parents must sign then fax or mail it to the company.

To keep the site family-friendly, NeoMail and Neopets' chat boards are watched by site staffers 24 hours a day. The monitors are trained to look for "inappropriate" questions or messages, covering everything from vulgar language to conversations about sex. The site uses filtering software to spot bad words.

That makes Conner and Reinemann feel better about their kids getting carried away with Neopets.

"I just think that the pets are so cute and that there is always a goal to look forward to," said Conner.

Mike Lisi is a freelance writer from Clifton Park.

[anchororange]

Created in 1999 by two British college students, Neopets has grown into one of the Web's most popular play sites for tweens and teens, counting more than 92 million accounts -- created by more than 25 million individual users -- as of December 2004.

Which means that in average, there is one person for every four accounts.

I just found that interesting.

[Fishblade_Bluestream]

I hate it when these articles interview little kids, because the majority of Neopians are over thirteen, aren't they? It just... irks me.

[Daze]

A fairly good article, but written with a very obvious ploy of interviewing a girl who is in hospital. Talk about serving up the smoltz.

A very blatant lie about the banner ads.

[Cranberry]

As of May, Neopets users averaged almost six hours monthly on the site

Wow, six hours a month? That probably seems like nothing to almost everyone here.

[Zenial]

About the banner ads... euhm... maybe it's because I live in holland, but I haven't seen a banner ad from an outside advertiser in weeks... just the neopets banners... Do others still get a lot of ads for things other than neopets?

[Asparagus Queen]

I actually wouldn't know the content of the banner ads anymore, because I pay for premium, but when I hop on one of my side accounts I do still see them. (Since you can only add 1 sub account if you're broadband.) Which made me mad about the temple. If it hadn't been posted here, I never would have known about it, since I didn't see the ad for it.

Aside from having the little girl and the banner ad, I thought it was a pretty good article. It didn't say that it's a gambling site, or that pets will get put in the pound if you don't feed them, or anything else non-factual about the site. So it was a pretty good article about Neopets, if they'd been honest about the ads.


Edit: http://timesunion.com/forms/contactus.asp Is the page to tell them about corrections in the story. The story ID is 401502. I sent it to them under 'General Questions'. I just told them that there are banner ads, and gave them a few examples, and that only if you pay do you not get the ads.




Edit again 9:30am:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8319.asp

I found another good article. That one talks about how many adults play, and there are adults interviewed in it. I couldn't c/p it because there's a few links and pictures to the Neopets site that are interesting, and even a link to pojo's neopets guild on amazon. Good article

[sirclucky]

From a person who has gotten the times union before but stopped for, um, certain reasons - it doesnt surpize me when not all that information is accurate. It also seems to cast neopets as "up and comming" when it really hit its peak long ago and is down and falling.

[Zenial]

It is?

[Pixa]

As of May, Neopets users averaged almost six hours monthly on the site

Wow, six hours a month? That probably seems like nothing to almost everyone here.

I probably spend double that in a day.
I also found the individual users part interesting...

[Duke of Earl]

Yay! Mootix Drop got mentioned, lol. But mootixes aren't fleas to me

[The Lizard Queen]

About the banner ads... euhm... maybe it's because I live in holland, but I haven't seen a banner ad from an outside advertiser in weeks... just the neopets banners... Do others still get a lot of ads for things other than neopets?

Not in the top bar, but I have Google banners at the bottom of every page.

[labbiedor]

I don't know why but I found that article a little...sappy. I mean, I felt bad that girl is in the hospital, but it made it sound like Neopets cured her or something.

[IcyBlue]

It sounds like it was written a loooong time ago and finally published a few days ago. Could be the case. Or they just used very old information from a very old interview. But the only out of date thing is the banner stuff.

[Q]

*meep* You can have more than just the one alias on premium if you have broadband, tons of families get the dial-up account with 5 sub accounts and just keep using their broadband connection. It's cheaper than buying several webpacks. Sub accounts are full accounts, while the alias from the webpack is just a side account.

Heh that article is funny, I don't think they interviewed Stephanie Yost Cameron but rather lifted that info from old articles.

*screams* MOOTIX ARE NOT FLEAS!!!

I hope that poor kiddo doesn't get frozen for having multiple accounts, logging in on a computer that bunches of other kids are probably playing Neopets on