Another Virtual World for the Younger Ones: Build-a-Bearville

Another Social Networking place has opened up for the elementary school age children.

Build-a-Bearville has joined others like Webkinz, Club Penguin, and BarbieGirls. Build-a-Bearville which was created by the Build a Bear Workshop people, does not seem to REQUIRE a child to purchase one of the furry friends in order to play and participate in their online world.

I Don’t Have A Furry Friend.That�s okay – you can still play in Build-A-Bearville. There�s a lot to do and explore, even if you�re by yourself. If you do get a furry friend later, you can bring him or her into Build-A-Bearville to play games with you, go on quests, and much more.

That is in difference to the other worlds, where you need to purchase an annual membership and/or get the access code buy buying the stuffed animal.If you do have a purchased “furry friend”, it looks like that you can “bring” it to life on screen.

Features of the online world include:

• Boutique, where you customize your avatar
• Condo, where you and your stuffed animal will live. Customize your living space
• Games- play by yourself or challenge others

I signed up without having a code for a stuffed animal. You do need an e-mail address in the registration process. After choosing a username from a combination of two drop down menus, I then had to enter my birth month and year. The next step was to choose from two chat options: Safe Chat (recommended for guests under 12 years old) and Open Chat for the over 13 years old crowd and only available if a “furry friend” has been added.

In order to complete registration and activate the account, once has to follow the link provided in the e-mail sent to you. I will start playing a little and report the possibilities later. I will also add our Jose, the Travel Bear to see what options open up within the online world.

A small byline on the front page announced

Site currently available in American English, coming in French 2008

I like the fact that they are culturally aware of the difference between the languages (even if they are all called English) and that they are planning on going multilingual. I wonder if there is a German or other language version in the future too? It looks like the company is NOT represented in Spanish speaking countries. I wonder how easily one will be able to switch from one language to another or if you will be locked into one or the other after registration. It would be great if the company takes into consideration that there are bilingual children and students (who are learning a second language) that would benefit from interacting in two languages at the same time (or easily switchable between the two of them).