Whyville is a virtual world and networking site for kids aged 6-16. Over 5 million people inhabit the Whyville virtual world, making it one of the most popular virtual worlds on the internet. Through a series of games, discussions, sponsorships and community efforts, Whyville seeks to educate kids about topics ranging from science to art.

As one of the very first virtual worlds on the internet, Whyville has enjoyed an exceptional longetivity. In a field where user attrition is high, Whyville has managed to hold on to its user base over more than a decade. Key to the success of Whyville has been its exceptional focus on user experience, learning, and building a sense of community ownership.

Design

Whyville clearly felt ancient when compared with snazzier designs of modern social networking and virtual worlds like Maple Story or Facebook. Colors and artwork look dated and can be a bit harsh to the eye. Users familiar with the design of Google’s Spartan, or clean lines of Twitter may feel a bit shocked at the abundant use of color on Whyville. In terms of design, thus, Whyville is a disappointment.

Features

Whyville describes itself as “A free website dedicated to learning through exploration and communication”. True to these words, Whyville offers a host of games and roleplay opportunities to learn about a particular topic. As one of the very first simulation based virtual worlds dedicated to learning, Whyville was key to understanding and improving upon the concept of online learning, and has played a major role in molding ideas about how the internet can impact education.

A main feature of Whyville is its “virtual economy”. Whyville was among the first websites/virtual worlds to incorporate an internal virtual currency. This currency is called “clam” and a thriving trade has built around it in Whyville.

Users can earn ‘clams’ by participating in various activities – playing games, answering questions, helping other members, etc. Once a user has enough clams saved up, he can start his own store to sell self-created “face parts” or graphics for others’ virtual avatars, homes, and cars.

Clams can be spent on a wide variety of things – from decals for cars, furniture, homes, to clothing and face parts for virtual avatars. This buying and selling of clams has helped create a thriving, vibrant virtual economy.

The primary focus of Whyville is education and learning. Through a wide variety of games and role playing actions, users can learn about topics ranging from art and history to geography and physics. The use of personalized avatars and a host of attractive characters has lent a mass appeal to Whyville’s online learning and education component.

Other features include elections to select ‘senators’ that teach members about the electoral process, concerts by popular acts like Jonas Brothers and the Cheetah Girls, and a weekly newspaper populated with user submitted stories.

Sponsorships

Sponsorships have been a prevalent feature of Whyville since its inception. A host of private and public companies have sponsored certain games or activities in Whyville. These range from private sponsors like Toyota Scion (after which all cars in the Whyville world are named), Disney, and EMI, to public sponsors like NASA, Univ. of Texas System, and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These sponsorships have helped inculcate strong values in Whyville’s audience of pre-teens through various games and community features.

Website Performance

Whyville is rarely ever offline. Despite its popularity and the large traffic it attracts, Whyville boots up fairly quickly and performs well on even older systems.

Conclusion

Whyville might look and feel a bit dated compared to its snazzier competition, but few can match its online education component. Parents might have to be a bit vary of the amount of safety the site offers to their kids, but with sponsors as respected as NASA onboard, your kids will only pick up some good values through Whyville.