My kids like Webkinz World, Ganz's kids-oriented virtual world that is based on the purchase of real-world stuffed toys. During a visit to my parents this morning, they said they wanted to play it on their older model Mac mini, and I was concerned it might not work (Webkinz technical problems have been problematic for us in the past).
But then it occurred to me: If it were an iPad, there would be no hope of Webkinz working at all. It requires Flash, which Steve Jobs does not want to see on his mobile devices, including the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
That's excluding a lot of people. One estimate that I found a few months back puts the number of Webkinz users in the millions. And that made me wonder: What about all of the other kids-oriented sites that are out there? Is the iPad excluding these audiences as well?
I did a quick check on the Web. Club Penguin: Requires Flash Player 9. Games on Nick.com require Flash, too. I put the question out to Twitter about any other cases. @Atul asked about PBSkids.org. I checked. Sure enough, Curious George and many other games indeed require Flash to play.
The irony of Steve Jobs' anti-Flash mantra is that kids really do love the Apple's touch-enabled features. My kids love Cro-Mag, Bounce On, and Paper Toss on my iPod touch. I read with much interest this account from an EMC CTO, who describes his teenagers practically abandoning laptops and desktops for the iPad. Some kids-oriented brands (such as the SpongeBob franchise, which has Flash-only games on Nick.com) have branched out to the iPhone/iTouch /iPad platform with dedicated apps.
It's pretty clear that Jobs wants all rich Web applications to retool themselves to a new world order, in which sites conform to official Web standards or conform to the App Store standards dictated by Apple Inc. For companies like Ganz that have invested years in building up a complex suite of Flash-based games that play on most desktop PCs, neither option may be possible (does HTML 5 even support the sort of artwork and UIs that Ganz has for Webkinz?), or palatable, owing to the raw costs and rearchitecting that would be required. That's unfortunate for everyone involved -- Jobs, Ganz, and an audience of mostly young kids numbering in the tens of millions.
Or is it? This is exactly the sort of situation that could lead to an opportunity for a tablet maker or software partner that recognizes a compelling niche opportunity in an area which Apple doesn't want to play.
This is a post about a remarkable pop song that you've probably never heard of, unless you have kids under the age of 10 who are familiar with an online kids-oriented virtual world called Webkinz World. The song is Hug A Pug. It has legions of young fans who know the lyrics and the dance moves, and play it repeatedly at home. I conservatively estimate that it has been played millions of times since it was released last November, without any radio or cable TV exposure or touring. I think the song offers a lesson on how the music industry can approach content partnerships in the years to come.
Hug a Pug (see video below) is a catchy, danceable number that's under two and a half minutes long. It also has an accompanying animation featuring Webkinz characters. I've tried to find the names of the talented artists who wrote and performed it, but to no avail -- the credit and copyright is given to Ganz, the privately held Canadian company which launched the stuffed animals called Webkinz and the accompanying virtual world in 2005. Judging by the fact that the other monthly music videos are by no-name songwriters penning music and lyrics based on the lives of stuffed animals, my guess is Ganz probably shelled out a relatively small amount of money for the unknowns to write and record Hug a Pug and the other songs on spec, in exchange for most or all rights to the music.
There's an animated video of Hug A Pug on YouTube (see below) but you won't find it on any radio playlist, CD store, or iTunes. Most people have heard it when logged onto Webkinz World, where it is a featured song of the month for November 2009. I don't know how many kids are currently registered to use Webkinz World, but 18 months ago it had over 7 million users, according to Oxford Analytica. You can't miss the song, as it's featured prominently on the site. Many young users watch it over and over again -- it's very catchy, and it also has its own dance moves, which encourage lots of practice in front of the computer screen as the video plays. This leads me to believe it's been seen by at least a few million people, and probably played at least five million times.
Another interesting thing about the song is you can't buy it anywhere. It's not for sale. It's a freebie thrown into the Webkinz World mix, which includes lots of online games (copies of Battleship, Connect Four, word games, etc.) as well as a place where kids can dress up the online versions of their real-world stuffed animals and decorate their Webkinz' rooms.
Why spend money to produce a song, if it's not for sale, and eats up lots of IT resources to host and stream? My theory is the song is intended to boost engagement by encouraging return visits to the online world, which is one of only two places it can be played (the other is YouTube). This not only leads to sales of "pets of the month," but also indirectly builds loyalty to the virtual world and additional purchases of the real-world stuffed animals and other merchandise offered by Ganz. Most Webkinz cost between $10 and $20 on Amazon (see ad at right for the current US$ price for the Webkinz pug), but the company has expanded into lower-cost items for existing customers (clothes, charms, etc.) as well as more expensive toys. A Webkinz "Zumbuddy" might cost anywhere from $25 to $40, but lets users unlock a secret part of Webkinz World where there are more activities to play. Getting users more engaged in the world, and not getting bored of old attractions, is the key to keeping them coming back and spending more money. It's a strategy I've seen for many other virtual worlds and MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft, where new expansion packs and campaigns are released every year or two.
While some people in the music industry may chuckle at Webkinz World and the idea of writing music for 8-year-olds, the fact of the matter is Ganz has a minor hit on its hands (check out some of the hundreds of comments under the YouTube video). Struggling record labels know that getting a hit and connecting with niche audiences is no easy feat. There might even be an opportunity for them to leverage virtual worlds to give their own artists or musicians some extra visibility ("Miley Cyrus sings the Webkinz World June 2010 song of the month!"), work out additional merchandising arrangements in the real/virtual world ("Slash's hat for your pug!"), or take on tasks relating to commissioning appropriate songs and establishing in-world radio stations with other exclusive material that can help virtual world producers keep people online.
There are also some additional opportunities for Ganz and the musicians. Why not sell Hug A Pug or another popular song, "Mustache Louie," on iTunes? Or, sell a disc of monthly hits or B-sides by the same artists? I am sure there are a lot of 9-year-olds -- and even some of their parents -- who want to hear these songs on their iPods.
Watch the video below, or leave comments in the field at the bottom of the post. If you know the artist who wrote and performed "Hug a Pug," let us know!
Video: Hug a pug
Sources and research: Ganz corporate website, Webkinz World, YouTube, CNet, Oxford Analytica
Longtime readers of the I, Lamont blog may remember an episode from a few years back, involving the Ganz Corporation's poorly planned and executed foray into virtual worlds. Our issues were eventually resolved, but many webkinz users were ripping mad over the technical problems.
But tonight we got another taste of Webkinz frustration, after attempting to log on following an interval of about 3 months. First, my child was greeted by a EULA about the length of the Constitution and equally impenetrable. Then, we watched the system get hung up on the "loading" screen. We waited for 10 minutes before I put her to bed, but I left it on longer, thinking it might need to reconfigure her "world" based on the long break since her last logon, or some other new introduced variable relating to the EULA, expired pets, or something else. I gave up another 20 minutes later.
I don't know if we will bother anymore. There are other online worlds for kids, or we can do something else -- board games or books.
A few weeks back, I wrote about my son and I modeling objects using legos. Now the girl is getting into it, too. A few of our latest creations:
Lego people -- totally my daughter's idea:
My son made a stairway/table for his mini plastic racoon:
A ship, which I made using longer lego crossbeams and plastic planking:
A mutant dinosaur that I created (I didn't like it, but my son did):
I'm pretty encouraged by how well both kids are taking to coming up with ideas and modeling them in plastic. The girl is already an experienced Webkinz user; maybe it's time for her to start modeling using 3D graphics tools? What should I start her on -- Sketchup, or something else?
I've gotten a spike in traffic over the last week or so to this blog, caused by hundreds of people searching for help for their Webkinz accounts. They enter phrases like "webkinz problems," "webkinz still not loading," etc. into Google and Yahoo, and my blog shows up on the first page of results.
Why? About 10-11 months ago -- right around Christmas 2007 -- I documented a huge failure in the kids-oriented virtual world that prevented many Webkinz owners from logging on and accessing their rooms. Scores of other readers also had the same problem. My blog became a makeshift community for the people who had been locked out. We commiserated and shared tips, and railed at the Ganz Corporation, which obviously didn't design a system that could scale to handle the Christmas rush. It was like the early days of Second Life or Twitter, except the people most impacted by the outage were small children. Ganz' terrible customer service compounded the problem. Eventually the problem went away -- or frustrated customers (including my daughthter) just drifted away.
But something is once again driving readers to my blog. It could be that Google's algorithm has been tweaked and more people searching for those terms are being sent my way. Or, it could be another scaling issue, which is once again locking thousands of kids out of their rooms. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for you. Other readers offered Webkinz tips earlier this year that seemed to help, but I don't know if they'll work now. Post here if you have found any solution to the current (October 2008) outage.
My apologies to the legions of frustrated Webkinz parents who were following this blog in the wake of the Christmas Webkinz outage. I had a terribly busy week, and things only returned to normal yesterday.
I have good news and bad news to report. The good news: Our daughter's Webkinz is back to normal. She can get into the room and interact with her pet just like she did before December 23. Here's a shot of her yard, newly tricked out with a pool and other decorations:
The bad news: A lot of you are still struggling with your accounts, judging by the continued traffic to this site driven by Google searches for "webkinz account issues", "webkinz loading", and "webkinz technical difficulties." There have also been a few new comments on earlier entries reporting problems with the site, such as this one from yesterday (January 14, 2008):
They can't even respond to emails or have live people pick up the phones. What a joke of a company...
I hope someone from Webkinz actually cares that they are losing customers. I WILL NOT ever buy another Webkinz again because of this. IT stinks because we invested so much money already, but they will not get another dime from me ever again. This includes their parent company, GANZ. I will never buy any of their products again due to their poor customer service.
There was also another comment a few minutes ago:
This back and forth, we can get in we can't get in. Sometimes the site is working, sometimes its not. We will be looking for new internet pets to buy. We have decided not to invest anymore money than we already have into this company. They would have to pay us to stay at this point. Yes, the customer service is maddening. Like it was your fault? They didn't see why you were having the problem? They are denser than I thought. Or was that just a lame excuse for having a poor product that doesn't live up to it's claims? It's a fun site when it's up, my child really enjoys it (when he can get on), but to not be able to log on consistently is still causing trauma to these children as they try to take care of their animals. The very nature of this program makes it necessary for Ganz to get itself together! Wake up Ganz!!!
At this point, it's worth explaining the interactions I had with Ganz prior to my daughter's account returning to normal. It may help others get back into their accounts.
On Saturday, January 5, I followed the recommendation of one of the commenters on an earlier post. He/she said:
Go to Customer Support on the Webkinz home page. Click on "I keep getting an error message" and at the bottom of the list on that page there is a option,"I cannot load my room". You can enter your name and such - they claim they will get back to you w/in 1-3 days.
Here is the link to the Webkinz "error message" page. The "cannot load room" link is the last one. I clicked it. I filled out the form, and shortly received an email which read:
Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 23:51:41 -0500
To: ianlamont@++++
Subject: I Cannot Load My Room
From: "Webkinz Support"
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL.
This is an automatic response to let you know that Webkinz World has received your information.
A Customer Support representative will respond to your request in approximately 1 to 3 business days. Please note this time estimate may change without notice if we are receiving a high volume of requests.
Webkinz World Update: For more information about Webkinz World and the Clubhouse, please visit the Parent's Area on the Webkinz World homepage at www.webkinz.com.
After three days, there was no improvement. On the fourth day (January 9), I received this message:
Subject: Webkinz Customer Support - About your room
From: support@webkinz.com Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Hello from Webkinz World!
--- Ticket # (private)
We are sorry about the problem you experienced. Since that time, we carefully checked your account, and made it work again. If you continue to experience difficulties please feel free to contact us again.
Thanks again for contacting us and we hope you enjoy Webkinz World!
Your information:
(private)
Now, after seeing this message, we were very excited. We were cured!
Unfortunately, our hopes were misplaced. We had the same problem attempting to get into our daughter's Webkinz room that night, and for the next few days.
However, on Saturday, January 12, we were once again able to get into the room. My daughter was very happy, and proceeded to blow all of her Kinzcash on decorations for her pet's room. But her pet was sick -- despite spending lots of Kinzcash on "medicine", her dog was hurting -- the "heart" and "hunger" scores were low, because she hadn't been able to care for it during the outage. In my opinion, Ganz should have reversed her medicine expenditures during the outage and upped her heart and hunger ratings to 100.
Nevertheless, we're still very happy that she's back online. I don't know if we'll be buying any Webkinz next Christmas, though ...
Still no go on Webkinz World. The room problems continue, and there is no help from Ganz.
However, Mrs. Smith, the blogger behind the Webkinz Help site, pointed me to one unlikely solution, for a family that has been shut out of the site since June:
The Davises called the Webkinz manufacturer, Ganz, repeatedly, but never got through. They also sent e-mails. After three months, they finally got a call back, but it didn't help.
Michael Davis called the situation "absolutely frustrating."
So the Davises called 5 on Your Side. A quick Internet search revealed a lot of people have the same problem with white screens, as well as other issues. Many people also said the customer support was little help.
Ganz spokeswoman Susan McVeigh told WRAL they take care of most complaints in "three to five days." She admitted to "bad handling" of the Davis' complaint.
She also said the most recent number the Davises were calling wasn’t the right number. They said it was the number they were given.
Regardless, a Ganz representative has since called the Davises. The problem turned out to be a program plug-in. The Davis' home computer was apparently too new, and their version of Internet Explorer defaulted to the wrong player plug-in.
Ganz said Real Player has to be turned off for Webkinz to open. Another option that worked for the Davises and others – open Webkinz using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.
If only we all had a television news reporter personally intervening to solve the problem.
As for the "program plug-in" being the root issue for the Davises, that may have been true a few months ago, but it's not the case for me and most other people experiencing Webkinz lockout right now. For one, in our case, we were able to operate Webkinz fine before December 23. Two, we don't have Real software on the family iMac. Three, we've tried loading Webkinz on two different computers using IE7, Firefox 2.x (Mac and PC) and Safari. Four, Ganz admits that it's a technical problem, as described in this Newsday article:
Although Ganz, the company that makes Webkinz and operates the site, had run tests and had been prepared for the holiday load, it ran into a "programming issue that was unforeseen," said Elaine Parsons, director of operations.
Stay tuned for more updates here and on Webkinz Help ...
I wish I had some good news to report to everyone, but unfortunately there's almost no changes in the performance of the Webkinz World site.
Well, actually, there's one. My daughter got this error dialog when trying to get in to her room last night:
We haven't seen this error message before -- usually you just see the frozen chair, as shown here. However, I was unable to duplicate the new error message this morning -- I just got the frozen chair.
Still, for some failed room attempts, the developers have programmed an explanation to appear, in an attempt to demystify what is going on. Does it make customers feel much better? Judging by the stream of angry comments that continue to be posted to my blog, I'd say the answer is a resounding "no." A lot of people are very upset, and they want Ganz to pay, as this commenter said this morning:
I agree that a lawsuit should be started if Ganz is not responding by the end of the month. I gave many Webkinz as Christmas gifts, including charms and trading cards. When the kinz cash and virtual gifts disappear, Ganz is not just taking cyber money, but real cash from millions of customers. I have a few more Webkins that I had purchased for birthday gifts which I will be returning as it is not worth the aggrevation. I just heard that TY is coming out with similar pets with a scratch off code. I hope they have better customer service!!!
One other piece of information to pass along: In my last post about Webkinz World, I asked the group if anyone has seen any mainstream media coverage of the outage. No one responded, but I did discover that one other parent has started a blog about the Webkinz meltdown. Head on over to Webkinz, help! to vent, commiserate, or visit the links to other Webkinz fan communities.
My daughter has been taking the Webkinz room outage in stride. She only discovered Webkinz about a week or so before Ganz's servers started crashing on December 23 and 24, and didn't really build up as deep a "relationship" with her little dog as some other kids have.
Don't get me wrong -- she loves the site, and especially liked shopping for the dog, taking care of him, and decorating the room. But she still has fun with the limited functionality of the site. Her response to being shut out of the room tonight:
"You stinker!"
As several other users noted, the site experienced slowdowns in service earlier this evening. Some folks were unable to get on, but I just observed very slow loading times for the webkinz.com logon page -- I timed it at 55 seconds at around 8:15 pm EST, using a FIOS connection at home. Five minutes ago, there was no delay ... all of the East Coast kids have gone to sleep.
I'm hearing a lot of frustration from other parents. This family is having an especially hard time, with mixed levels of service for different Webkinz accounts:
I have 2 children with webkinz. Both were registered and working fine for weeks. Then, on Dec. 21st one child's room stopped loading. The other one still loads. So - I know it's not a flash plug-in or anything else that needs to be updated. We've tried them both on several computers and the same thing happens on all computers. I sent an email with no response. My child whose room doesn't load is very upset because the other child's works fine. Very frustrating!
This confirms that the outage only affects some accounts. It also shows that the problems started a few days earlier than what I observed. This also indicates that Ganz took a full 10 days to post an explanation.
And the company is still not responding to customer service emails, as reported here.
One last question for the group: Has anyone seen media reports about this? Other than this Newsday article from five days ago, I haven't seen any mainstream press relating to the the Webkinz outage.
After yesterday's attempt by Ganz to reassure its Webkinz customers that things are on the mend, it's pretty clear that normal day-to-day use of Webkinz World is still extremely limited for many people. My daughter's virtual room is still inaccessible, and her attempt to log on at about 7:15 pm EST was greeted with a "Sorry -- cannot connect" message. She tried again about 15 minutes later and was able to log on, but is currently limited to playing Webkinz Flash games.
However, a handful of commenters to my blog have reported a strange new problem: Webkinz.com doesn't display the normal logon screen and other links. This is what they see instead:
We can't even access the Webkinz site! If you type in www.webkinz.com, you get some generic page, just like the webkinz domain name has never even existed. I've even tried accessing the site through search engines, and several other methods but they all send me to this generic site with a picture of a girl in a backpack. Is anyone out there having a similar problem, or can you shed light on this? It's very bizarre!
One other person has confirmed this behavior. It seems to be a symptom of chronic server overload -- attempting to initiate too many connections to a Web server at once tends to result in error messages and other wacky behavior.
At least on the customer service front, Ganz is finally sending personal responses to customers. Unfortunately, the one report we have of a real response from Ganz was not only way overdue, but was completely bogus:
My daughters new webkinz (which is the pet of the month) cannot register. it says the "code has already been used" and they have yet to respond to my email. So my poor daughter is devistated that she is missing the daily prizes that the pet of the month gets. My son cannot get in his room. All the kinzcash and nothing to do with it. Again, webkinz doesn't repond. My daughters other webkinz had everything disappear from her room. All her hard work down the drain. Webkinz did respond 8 days later by saying some very wise words "someone has gotten your password and stolen your stuff". UM NO, no one had, as she still had her money and her clothes. Bizarre and beyond unprofessional. It took 5 days of me constantly trying to get my sons wekinz to register. As much as they charge for a stuffed animal I would think they would be more professional. It is totally frustrating and I am glad to see that we are not the only ones.
That's an interesting way to get angry customers off your back -- rather than seeing reported problem as a symptom of the larger technical issues engulfing the site, blame some unknown, mysterious baddie, give a virtual shrug, and hope that the customer will somehow accept this excuse and leave Ganz alone.
Another commenter, CraigU, brings up an interesting support-related question:
How does a company get away with not having a customer service phone number????
Well, Craig, My guess is that there's no way they'd be able to handle the flood of calls. Remember, there are millions of Webkinz customers and Ganz would be overwhelmed if just a few thousand of them called every day. According to this source, there are just 600 employees, many of them tied up in Ganz's other lines of business -- clothing, holiday and garden items, candles, and picture frames.
But I do know that at least one Ganz employee is aware of what's being said on this blog. This afternoon, my Web traffic logs showed a visitor from Ganz's mail server in Canada. He or she looked at some of the posts for less than three minutes, and then quickly left. There's not much of a reason for Ganz's corporate employees to linger here -- it should already be abundantly clear to them that Ganz has a public relations disaster on its hands.
(Update: Since writing this post, I have launched a company which is dedicated to helping people understand complicated technologies and concepts. Besides creating online posts which address questions such as What Is Dropbox and What Is Google Drive, I have also published a series of guides under the In 30 Minutes brand.)
More than one week after the Webkinz servers started to melt down, Ganz has finally responded. A terse message on the front page of the Webkinz home page ("Important Message from Ganz. Read This.") directs people to this page, which describes the underlying technical problems. I've taken the liberty of adding a few of my own comments, in square brackets:
Recent Technical Issues
Over the past week, technical difficulties have reduced the level of service of Webkinz.com below acceptable levels [understatement of the year]. We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for these issues [one week after we should have apologized] and tell you what we will be doing for all of our great members [all six million +] who were inconvenienced [that wasn't one of the words coming out of my five year old's mouth after the third day] over the holidays.
Our main problem [you mean, the problem that caused the other problems, because to users the main problem was not being able to get online or to their rooms] was a technical issue that impacted the Adoption Centre leaving some of our newest members stuck in the adoption process [didn't know about that, but that must have been a terrible experience for a lot of new users]. If this problem has affected you, please know that we are currently in the process of fixing all stuck accounts [I would certainly hope so!]. This process is running day and night, and we expect all of the affected accounts to be fixed over the next few days [I'm glad to see a timeline, but am pessimistic that it will be achieved, considering the complete failure of the Ganz Corporation to even tell people what was going on for a full week]. When your account is fixed you will be able to complete your adoption and begin enjoying everything Webkinz World has to offer. If you have contacted Customer Service about a new account, you will receive an email when your account is ready (note: some of these emails were sent blank [wow. how low can you go?]). If you received a blank email, check your account, it has been fixed [so you say, but you told people things would be fixed before and they weren't]).
Additionally, further technical issues led to interruptions of service for many of our users [no kidding!]. We are confident that the fixes we have implemented have dealt with our key problems and that service will now be back at a level where everyone can fully enjoy our great site [if "now" means right now, this instant, I am afraid you are mistaken -- I just got a "500 - Internal Server Error" when I hit the Log In link on your home page].
As a token of our appreciation for your patience, we will be awarding an extra 500 KinzCash and a 1 month account extension to all accounts that were affected by these issues [unfortunately, some of your older and new customers won't be able to enjoy them. They've already given up. Also, what about health levels, and wasted virtual medicine used to keep our kids' pets health up while we couldn't get into their rooms?]. This award will be done automatically at some point in January [I hope you mean January 2008] when we are certain that all affected accounts have been properly fixed and the issues successfully dealt with. You do not need to request the reward in any way [that's right, we wouldn't want to inconvenience the few actual human beings on your staff who ever check the customer service email].
Thanks again for your patience and we hope you enjoy your stay in Webkinz World.
Happy New Year,
Ganz [doesn't anyone at Ganz HQ -- such as the CEO -- have the guts to sign his or her name?].
I am glad that they finally posted a message about this, but it's one week too late. The company handled this major service outage like amateurs, and that reflects very poorly on their prospects for actually solving the fundamental infrastructure and management problems. In other words, I am skeptical that they will be able to get the Webkinz service back to normal within a few days.
Feel free to weigh in below, and check back for updates ...
It's the new year, and Webkinz World is still limping along. There is a ray of good news, though: Nancylynn, One of the commenters on an earlier post, noticed that at least a one new Webkinz account holder can get some satisfaction:
We still cannot get into my little girls room. She got two Webkinz for Christmas, and she has gotten over 6000 kinz cash. She wants to decorate her room so bad. :( I sent the useless email to customer support and got an auto-response that they would email me in 1-3 business days, unless it takes longer. No really, that is what it said.
Today I gave up and bought a new webkinz and tried to register it under a completely new account.
All is well and the rooms and everything works fine.
I hope I will hear back from the precious folks so that I can still use my other account. We have spent HOURS playing, and I spent HOURS on the useless CS pages.
I read something that if you buy pets within 30 days, and register them under different accounts, you can "merge" them via Customer Service, but you lose all from the account you are closing. Great.
As Nancylynn wrote, that's not much consolation for existing account holders, but at least a few new customers and older customers opening new accounts can get some satisfaction. Note, however, that another commenter who is a completely new customer has not been able to completely use their new Webkinz account. So please don't assume buying a new Webkinz and opening a new account will work for you.
There's more bad news, too. She and other commenters say that attempts to get a real response from Ganz customer support have so far been unsuccessful. Another anonymous commenter claimed yesterday that virtual items are disappearing from his or her child's account. This person and several others have suggested suing Ganz ... and I see in my blog traffic logs that people are interested in finding out information about a Webkinz-related lawsuit:
Num
Perc.
Search Term
6
12.77%
virtually jenna
6
12.77%
webkinz problems
3
6.38%
webkinz room logged out
3
6.38%
webkinz, technical, room
2
4.26%
problems with webkinz world
2
4.26%
webkinz room issues
2
4.26%
i promise ui
2
4.26%
webkinz support
1
2.13%
problem loading room in webkinz
1
2.13%
webkinz room problem
1
2.13%
webkinz wor;ld
1
2.13%
ganz customer support
1
2.13%
webkinz world
1
2.13%
webkinz world log in
1
2.13%
webkinz site problem
1
2.13%
mmorpg chinese phrases
1
2.13%
webkinz world problems
1
2.13%
webkinz lawsuit
1
2.13%
jenna 3d
1
2.13%
webkinz not loading room
1
2.13%
webkinz problem
1
2.13%
******* cheat codes
1
2.13%
cannot log into webkinz worl
1
2.13%
webkinz loading room
1
2.13%
webkins, unable to get in
1
2.13%
webkinz not working
1
2.13%
webkinz room problems
1
2.13%
webkinz loading furniture stalls
1
2.13%
webkinz world/ my room
47
100.00%
This is not Ganz' first experience with lawsuits. Less than a month ago officials in Vermont filed a fraud lawsuit against Ganz for allegedly selling jewelry with high amounts of lead.
As for the blog traffic logs, this data reflects the most recent batch of visitors to I, Lamont driven by search engines, especially Google. I've been writing about virtual worlds and other 3D technologies for years on this blog, but the continuing Webkinz World crisis is shaping up to be the hottest topic by far.
Webkinz World received a nice boost from the New York Times this morning, in a front-section report by Brooks Barnes entitled Web Playgrounds of the Very Young. A couple of other blogs have picked up on the article, including Terra Nova.
However, it seems that Barnes wrote this article several weeks ago, or didn't do enough research, because there is no mention of the Christmas server shutdown or continuing room access problems in the virtual world. Rather, the article gives an overview of virtual worlds aimed at children, and the business models that drive them.
Still, there was one bit of information that I found particularly interesting -- the size of the Webkinz World customer base:
Worlds like Webkinz, where children care for stuffed animals that come to life, have become some of the Web's fastest-growing businesses. More than six million unique visitors logged on to Webkinz in November, up 342 percent from November 2006, according to ComScore Media Metrix, a research firm.
Let's make a few creative guesstimates here. First, let's assume that two million new unique customers were added between November and today, thanks to the holiday shopping season. Second, let's assume that the world lost a half-million existing customers, kids who outgrew the world or graduated to a new video game system or game. That makes 7.5 million uniques for December. That's a big number -- comparable not only to other kids-oriented worlds like Habbo Hotel (estimated to have around 8 million active monthly users in May) but also some of the largest gaming virtual worlds (like World of Warcraft, which has more than nine million subscribers) and well above the number of active users in the largest adult social virtual world, Second Life, which apparently has plateaued at around 550,000 active users.
In other words, Webkinz World is not just a fringe toy concept. It's a big deal to a lot of people.
It also means Ganz has a lot of customers to keep happy -- not just millions of kids who own the pets and want to maintain them virtually, but also their parents who want to keep their kids happy. So far this holiday season, Ganz has been doing a terrible job, not just by allowing its toy sales and customer growth to outstrip the ability of its technical infrastructure to scale, but also by keeping its customers in the dark about what's going on.
Update to the Webkinz World logon situation: While parent company Ganz has reactivated the virtual world's logon servers, at least some users are still unable to get to their rooms. We updated to Flash 9 (as recommended by the site) on December 28, but this did not make the site perform any better than it had on December 23, when we first observed problems getting into our daughter's dog's room.
I have also tried multiple browsers on two different computers (a five-year-old iMac running Tiger, and a brand-new T61 ThinkPad running XP) but the same thing happens: We click "My Room" and the Flash animation stalls on "loading furniture" (see inset image). Is this what everyone else is seeing?
People are definitely getting upset about this. I received lots of traffic from Google since my last post on Webkinz World, and the search terms are mostly related to site loading problems. Four people left comments, including this angry message from "Spitting Angry Kitty":
It seems pretty rotten of the Ganz company to sell overpriced stuffed toys (not to mention the charms, body sprays and trading cards!) with the WebKinz world tie-in as the big selling point, and then NOT have sufficient server capacity to make it a fun, non-frustrating experience for all its old and new customers. It's sure soured me on future WebKinz purchases for my daughter, and I'm definitely more tempted to check out some of the new competitive sites. Shame on you WebKinz!
While there are other virtual worlds aimed at young people (such as Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin) I don't think there are any that have such an extensive real-world toy tie-in. That just adds to the frustration -- lots of people bought Webkinz animals and trinkets as Christmas gifts for children, and now the kids are unable to fully enjoy them. The terrible customer support on the Webkinz site, which is compounded by nonexistent or inaccurate messages about site outages (as noted by this commenter) has compounded the fury.
If this were a MMORPG or adult-oriented social virtual world, I would categorize it as a textbook lesson on poor customer support and P.R. practices. But companies like Blizzard and Linden Lab have really learned a lot about support in the past few years, and understand the importance of keeping customers informed when World of Warcraft or Second Life goes offline. Ganz, it appears, still doesn't get it.
My daughter has been an enthusiastic Webkinz World inhabitant for about three weeks. She received a Webkinz dog at a party, and after entering the dog's code into the website, proceeded to explore the site, set up the dog's identity and room, played some of the casual games, and -- to my alarm -- figured out very quickly how to shop for virtual clothes and other accessories.
Just before Christmas, however, Webkinz World began experiencing problems. She could log onto the site, but couldn't get into her room. This impacted her shopping and care-related activities ("feeding" the pet, petting him, etc.) but she was at least able to continue playing the games.
For Christmas she received some real-world Webkinz goods, and entered the codes into the site for virtual world equivalents or alternatives (for instance, entering the code for a Webkinz mousepad granted her a virtual framed print) but was still frustrated by being shut out of the room. I tried searching the support pages and switching browsers, but there was no help there. I assumed that the rush of Christmas-related Webkinz purchases had slowed down the site.
Then, today there was an even bigger problem. She couldn't log on at all, and was presented with the messages shown in the inset image. She seemed to take it in stride, but I can imagine there is probably a core group of Webkinz users who are driven frantic by the loss of access to their virtual pet.
I've seen this before in other virtual worlds and online communities that aren't able to scale during peak periods, or to handle a sudden inrush of new users. For instance, regular visitors to Second Life are accustomed to outages caused by too many people entering the same virtual space at once, or the inability to logon during peak times (see my earlier blog entry about this entitled Second Life's temporary population ceiling). However, at least Linden Lab (Second Life's parent company) is relatively open about technical issues and usage data, and has a pretty deep support section on the Second Life website. Webkinz World's support pages are nearly useless -- they're written for children who need to get started with the site, and avoid specifics relating to the nature of site problems or troubleshooting advice.
In summary, I think Webkinz World is a great concept, but the scaling and support issues definitely need work.
(see ad at right for the current US$ price for the Webkinz pug), but the company has expanded into lower-cost items for existing customers (clothes, charms, etc.) as well as more expensive toys. A Webkinz "
