BOSTON, MA--(MARKET WIRE)--Oct 29, 2008 -- As Halloween quickly approaches and real-world neighborhoods nationwide prepare for hordes of trick-or-treaters, the virtual economy is booming. Popular interactive avatar community WeeWorld is seeing the massive spending typically associated with Halloween costumes, talking skeletons, candlelit pumpkins and bags of candy infiltrate their virtual world. Twenty-four million WeeMees are gearing up in free gorilla suit costumes and purchasing animated coffins, cat costumes and blood spurting axes. WeeWorld's Halloween store has already become the site's most successful theme campaign to date.

Source: WeeWorld
Popular interactive avatar community WeeWorld is seeing the massive spending typically associated with Halloween costumes, talking skeletons, candlelit pumpkins and bags of candy infiltrate their virtual world.

Teens have emerged as one of the most powerful spending groups, and according to eMarketer teen spending will reach $208.7 billion in 2011, up from $189.7 billion in 2006. In addition, the National Retail Federation and BIGresearch recently found that 18-24 year olds plan to spend $86.59 on Halloween-related items, such as costumes and candy, compared to the $64.82 that the average consumer plans to spend.

"Today's youth may be too old to go trick-or-treating this Halloween, but they love dressing up on WeeWorld," said Lauren Bigelow, General Manager and SVP of Marketing, WeeWorld. "The economic downturn isn't going to stop media-savvy youth from doing what they are driven to do -- define their identities both online and offline."

Based on user downloads, this year's top free Halloween costume is the skeleton, but scary clowns and flirty cats are also favorites. Since WeeWorld introduced Halloween-centric objects on the social networking site and within the Halloween store in its virtual world, users have purchased a record number of premium objects ranging from flaming and glowing eyes to an invisible dog and zombie attire. Supporting this explosive growth, In-Stat predicts that the total registered users of virtual worlds will exceed one billion and the total revenue -- driven primarily by the sale of virtual goods -- will exceed $3 billion by 2012.

In addition, downloads of functional objects like the magic ball, hot meter and Zoltan fortune telling machine have increased by 75 percent in October as users download four times more functional objects than decorative objects for their rooms on WeeWorld in preparation for Halloween.

To experience WeeWorld and create your own WeeMee, visit: http://www.weeworld.com.

About WeeWorld

WeeWorld (www.weeworld.com) is the most popular interactive avatar community and a trusted site for dynamic self-expression, creation and communication. Through an expansive palette of features, clothes, accessories, hobbies, etc., WeeWorld users can create their personalized WeeMee avatar, connect with friends, decorate their own visual space, send animated messages, play games and more. More than 24 million WeeMees worldwide are redefining avatar demographics and establishing the WeeMee as the world's most widely used and recognized avatar. WeeMees can be created on many sites including Windows Live Messenger and AOL's Instant Messenger, and are portable to all major social networks and blogging sites. WeeWorld has offices in Boston, London and Glasgow, and is funded by Accel Partners (www.accel.com) and Benchmark Capital (www.benchmark.com).

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