About
Neopets is a website that features virtual pets users can adopt and care for. The site was founded by Adam Powell and Donna Williams in 1999. Pet owners can open up virtual shops, play games, earn and spend money within the world of the game.
History
After two years of prep work by founders and college students Adam Powell and Donna Williams, Neopets.com was launched on November 15th, 1999.[4] The site expanded its languages to include German, Dutch, and Chinese, among others in 2004. In June 2005 Viacom bought Neopets for $160,000,000.[5] The site design, as well as the appearance of many of the pets were redone in 2007.[6] The site has the victim of a major identify theft scam in July 2009, when young users were convinced to leave the site to visit another that downloaded malware onto their computers.[7]
Reception
In August 2001 Neopets was the fourth most popular site on the web, ranked an entire eight spots above Google.[10] It was dubbed a “sticky” site because users tended to stay on the site for long periods of time.
Traffic
Neopets receives over 50,000 visitors a month from the United States alone as of Novemeber 2013.[8] 57% of their traffic comes from the United States, with 8.5% coming from Canada, 4.7% from Germany, and 4% from the UK.[9]
Types of Neopets
There are fifty-four species of Neopets including Poogle, Uni and Bruce. Thirty-one are trademarked.[1] Like Pokemon some types resemble animals (Bruce, for example, appears to be a penguin wearing a bow tie) while others, like Gnorbu aren’t similar to any animal. Each species has its own biography that explains its traits and what kind of environment it lives in. Neopet users may choose the animals color and name once it’s adopted.
:https://blog.compete.com/2007/10/01/top-ranked-web-sites-popularity-2001/