An exceedingly late write-up of a talk I went to on Moshi Monsters at Handheld Learning earlier this year.

At that point, Moshi had seven million registered users and was adding over a million a month. About a third of these were based in the UK, a third in the US and a third in the rest of the world. Seventy percent were female. Most were playing for free – and almost a million items were being sold (for in-game currency) in the Moshi shops.

The focus is on the social side – the monsters are pets rater than avatars.

The subscription model works well for young children, as their parents are paying. Micropayments work better for teens, who are often paying for themsleves, sometimes via their phones.

Moshi doesn’t have real-time chat like Club Penguin and Habbo. This means that messages can be approved before they appear on the site.

Another example of a successful site for this age group is Poptropica, which has over 70 million sign-ups.