FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Woodbridge, ON, Canada—With recent stories highlighting the dangers of the social networking sites popular with teens, safe Internet etiquette needs to be reinforced in kids at a young age. One of their favorite play sites, Webkinz World™, has a ‘chat’ format that both parents and kids enjoy. Webkinz World (www.webkinz.com) combines the timeless play value of plush pets with the interactivity of the Internet. Each Webkinz™ pet carries a secret code that can only be revealed after purchase. After logging into the site, kids enter the code, adopt and name their pet, and join a virtual world where they feed and nurture their new pal, dress it, create rooms, play games and do trivia quizzes with other members. With the code as their key, kids can join Webkinz without giving out any personal information such as their e-mail, last name or phone number. “Kids are learning about Instant Chat and messaging at younger and younger ages, but they’re not ready for the responsibility or aware of the risks involved”, observes Karl Borst, Creative Director of Webkinz.
Webkinz Provides Safe Online ‘Chatting’ in A World Where Kids Are Still Kids!
“Naturally, they want to be as ‘cool’ as the older kids, and are much more Internet savvy than their parents realize. They need a safe world where they can talk, play and make a community. That’s where KinzChat comes in.”
KinzChat is constructed messaging—pre-written sentence options that are selected and sent from one member to a ‘friend’. Kids can invite other Webkinz members to join their ‘friend’ list, and safely send messages back and forth. Members choose from over 900 sentence options to construct their own questions, comments and conversations. Members can issue challenges for games, invite pals to hang out and watch TV in their room, or talk about their pets. KinzChat gives kids flexibility and lots of topics! “There is no chance that kids can share any personal information, or talk to anyone who isn’t a Webkinz member”, notes Borst.“It means parents can let their kids ‘chat’ in confidence, and helps show kids what safe chat is all about.” Introduced in April 2005, Webkinz pets have been sweeping North America, playground by playground! We now have over 200,000 members caring for almost 400,000 Webkinz pets.
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