Neopets - the most popular little site you’ve never heard of

Tyler heard about the Web site from a girl named Anna down the street. He initially dismissed Neopets as “little ponies and stuff,” but before long he had given up Grand Theft Auto for Faerie Paintbrushes…

A generation agrees. Neopets has a staggering 25 million members worldwide. It has been translated into 10 languages and gets more than 2.2 billion pageviews per month. These dedicated Neopians spend an average of 6 hours and 15 minutes per month on the site. That makes Neopets the second-stickiest site on the Internet - ahead of Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and eBay… What’s more, its demographics are the stuff of marketers’ dreams: Four out of five Neopians are under age 18…

Not unsurprisingly, the game makes advertising an integral part of the experience. (Forget product placement, think sponsored characters, minigames, etc.)

Your kids will live inside massively multiplayer online games. If they aren’t already doing so.

Link: Wired: The Neopets Addiction
See also: Neopets.com