Visits to the popular children's social media website Moshi Monsters for the week ended March 20, 2010 were 23 times greater than for the equivalent week a year earlier, and the site now accounts for 0.41% of US Internet traffic in the Entertainment-Games category, according to Experian's Hitwise Intelligence.
UK-based Moshi Monsters offers kids the chance to adopt and care for a pet monster—and earn virtual currency called Rox by solving educational puzzles.
Among other leading social sites for kids, Club Penguin accounted for 1.29% of visits in the Entertainment-Games category for the week ended March 20, up 20% from the same period a year earlier, and Webkinz accounted for 1.34%, down 41%.
Upstream Traffic to Moshi Monsters
Google accounted 24% of upstream traffic to Moshi Monsters—the biggest referral source to the site; some 74% of those visits were from returning visitors (those who had visited the website in the previous 30 days).
The share of returning visitors to the site from Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo Search, and Yahoo were higher, however.
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Visitors to Moshi Monsters tend to be from affluent families: 25.7% were from "Affluent Suburbia" and 19.4% were from "Upscale America" during the four weeks ended March 20.
Such affluent consumers are more likely to pay for site membership, according to Hitwise.
Membership to Moshi Monsters is not required—unless kids want perks or the ability to purchase additional Rox.
The hugely popular social media site now has 1.8 million registered users worldwide, according to Reuters.
