- Guest written and photography by Megan Kane

…Moshi Monsters won the ‘Toy License of the Year’ award and our Moshlings by Vivid won ‘Collectable Toy Of the Year’ too!

Michael and the team celebrate our win alongside some partners!

In the photos are Innovation First’s CEO Tony Norman, Chief Marketing Officer Joel Carter, Jason and Brad from Moshi TV.

Keen Moshi fans and parents, armed with their favourite Moshi cards/figures/toys had been queuing up for about an hour before we started!

The Moshi Bus crew kept some of the kids occupied by doing some ‘Mash Up’ card trading in the queue.  The highlight of my day was meeting a family visiting from Spain who changed their holiday schedule & made a special detour just so they could get on the Moshi Bus!

Keep your eyes peeled in the next few months for the tour….!

- Written by Akira Cheng

- Written by & photo’s by Megan Kane.

On board, kids will have the chance to draw and colour monsters at the art and craft sessions, enjoy clay buddy modelling and trade Moshi toys and cards. There will also be Moshi giveaways, quizzes and competitions to win Moshi merchandise, including a special “Busling” Topps trading card. You can even browse and buy your favourite Moshi merchandise in the Mobile Moshi Monsters Store at the top of the bus. And if that’s not enough…there’s a slide so that kids can have as much fun getting out as they did going in!

The bus will stay there till December 23^rd with Mr Moshi making a guest appearance on the 18^th for a meet and greet between midday and 3pm.

It will then move on to Manchester’s Trafford Centre where it will park up at The Great Hall entrance car park from Wednesday 28th December until Monday 2nd January.

Keep an eye out as next year it will be touring shopping centre’s and festivals all across the UK! Check out www.moshibus.com for the latest news from the Moshi bus.

The two final contestants Zara and James had to create an online game with the help of Mind Candy. The winner, Zara went for ‘Piggy Panic’ whilst runner up James went for ‘Crazy Cabinet.’

The Mind Candy team put in a lot of hard work and turned the games around in just 2 days.  Some of our favourite screen shots are below!

It was a fantastic turn out with a lot of excitement in the air. The first people in the queue had been there since 9:30am even though the event started at 2pm. Two children in the queue had even been up till midnight the evening before drawing pictures especially for the event!

Thanks to all those who came along.

Want a job? visit our recruitment page or follow @mindcandyjobs on twitter.

The pair made quite the cheeky duo as David grilled Michael on the trials, tribulations and darker moments of becoming a Tech Entrepreneur. They also discussed future plans and Michael’s vision for making Mind Candy one of the first billion dollar businesses to emerge out of London’s Tech scene.

The event proved very popular, pulling in hundreds of people who were keen to hear the Mind Candy story.

Thanks to the team at Glasshouse for hosting a fantastic event and to all those that came along.

Pictures by @paul_clarke

The popular and well respected Glasshouse events are hosted by Judith Clegg (@judithclegg)

Michael and David take to the stage

Deep in chat…

That tequila moment!

The event drew a great crowd

As the party buses arrived and the crowds flooded in to our Shoreditch-based offices, the party kicked off. We had a DJ, an Awesome band (Skalectrix), a photo booth (along with some dashing accessories) and lots of other fun treats including candy floss, retro sweeties and the obligatory Moshi tattoo’s – many of which were placed prominently in the middle of foreheads…hot!

Thanks to everyone that came along – we hope you had as much fun as we did. (and managed to scrub off those temporary tatts in time for your early morning meetings).

A few pics below – more here

Our son suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome and, whilst he looks like any other 7 year old, his condition means that there are certain things that he really struggles with. His difficulties became so great for him that he is no longer even able to attend school and is now home educated.

Since discovering Moshi Monsters earlier in the year, we have seen some major improvements in him. He is happy to talk to anyone (and everyone!) about Moshi Monsters – and yet he normally finds it difficult to even say hello or goodbye due to the social communication difficulties he experiences.

Like many other children with Asperger’s, creativity can often be a problem. Yet he has amazed us all with his constant outpouring of Moshi ideas. He wakes early each morning and designs a new Moshling, Moshi food or Moshi idea.

Doctors and therapists have been astounded by the progress he has made in his handwriting – he is happy to practice his handwriting using Moshi words like ‘roarberry cheesecake,’ and Moshling names like ‘Ecto,’ ‘Iggy’ and the others and can even manage cursive-style handwriting when focused on Moshi words.

He has been able to write stories for creative writing about Moshi Monsters – sometimes many pages long (previously it would be a struggle to get any form of story more than a couple of sentences).

Often parents complain about the negative effects of the internet and computer games on their children’s wellbeing and yet, thanks to Moshi Monsters, our experience has been an extremely positive one.

We genuinely believe that the progress that our son has made in the past six months or so would not have been possible without the fabulous concept that is Moshi Monsters. Thank you Moshi for all you do.

After a fun night – and a very mixed bag of abilities throwing the more strategic into disarray – it was poker novice (and Senior Software Engineer) Greg Roodt who took home the trophy. Resident IT guru James Minerve followed as a close second and the latest addition to the marketing team, Tanya Laird, came a very respectable third place!

It’s good humoured at the beginning…

But when the chips are down…

…and the pressure is on…

It’s about bringing home the win! …Well done Greg :)

We’ll also be throwing a party during the evening on day two, so grab the party bus outside Olympia at 6pm, come along for a drink and mingle with the Moshis :)

BLE Keynote Speech – 13:00 Tuesday 18th October – The Licensing Academy

Monster Party – From 18:00 on Wednesday 19th October – (Please note this is a trade event only)

To attend the party or request a meeting RSVP to licensing@mindcandy.com

Unfortunately there were no awards for the little Monsters this time around, but with some of the activity Mr Garnham and team have up their sleeves next year has to be our year!…

Congratulations to all of last night’s winners from team Moshi!

Team Moshi

Indiana Furi takes to the big screen

What…it’s black tie? Yes boys, but you look lovely all the same…

The government are increasingly intrigued by the buzzing tech startup scene in Shoreditch and Lord Sassoon wanted to come and check out what it’s all about…

Fans were treated to various Moshi delights at the dedicated Moshi Monsters Marquee including, glitter tattoos, colouring activities, online games, meet-and-greets with Katsuma – and a very special visit from Moshling starlet, Lady Goo Goo (who made her first ever public appearance).

The turnout was monstrous and a fantastic time was had by all :)

The Moshi team hanging with McFly!

The kids adored the new Lady Goo Goo costume character…

The Mind Candies had a busy weekend.

(Pictures from Scott Davies)

ABC figures released today reveal that within its first six months on shelf the Moshi Monsters magazine has reached a circulation of 113,748 (Source ABC – 1 April to 30 June 2011), eclipsing its rivals and ranking at number 70 within the top 100 magazines sold in the UK overall.

Fantastic news – the team at Moshi HQ are chuffed :)

Emma (Editor) and Andy (Product Manager) celebrating success!

The cover of issue #7 – 3D themed issue out August 18th

Last Friday Toys”R”Us in Times Square, New York, played host to an exclusive Moshi Monsters toy launch party. It was a fantastic event that saw thousands of kids queueing to check out the range and get signed goodies from Mr Moshi.

Toys”R”Us stores across North America will stock Moshi product exclusively until the end of the year.

This weekend also sees the Monsters setting off on a U.S. Mall Tour – set to reach over 1million kids! Check out the Moshi blog for more info.

Moshi Rocks! Michael, Darran and Eric hit Times Square

The fans meet Mr Moshi!…

…And Poppet

Getting creative.

A fantastic time was had by all in attendance and it’s great for the company to win its first games industry accolade :)

The Develop Industry Excellence Awards form part of the Develop Conference, which took place in Brighton this week. Michael closed day one with a keynote speech that went down a storm.

Check out the awards write up on Gamasutra

Michael collects the award

The Mind Candies celebrate

Michael with Ian Livingstone, creator of Fighting Fantasy and one of the reasons he got into the games industry

The team picked up the Venture Capital-Backed Management Team of the Year award, having previously scooped the London and South-East regional heat.

Nice work guys…keep ‘em coming!

Divinia, Toby and Ed were at hand to collect the awards

Next week, the Mind Candy team will head out to the Las Vegas International Licensing Expo to exhibit for the first time.

The show brings together brand owners (such as ourselves) with licensing partners – but most importantly, is also attended by retail buyers who are keeping their ears to the ground for the latest must-have properties.

Drop by and visit us at booth 5669 and head over to our brand presentation at 5.30pm on Wednesday 15th June – Mandalay Bay Convention Centre, 3rd Floor, Jasmin A&B.

There will be about 8 Mind Candies at the show, so drop us a line if you’d like to arrange a meeting – licensing@mindcandy.com

Mind Candy kicked off the inaugral Silicon Drinkabout event last week – a casual Friday drink in Shoreditch to bring together like-minded tech startup folk.

Tonight’s event will be at the Strongroom (120 Curtain Road) from 6pm ish.

The venue will change each week so keep your eyes peeled for updates via twitter (#SiliconDrinkabout) and Facebook

Poster kids for the first Silicon Roundabout - Mind Candy, Moo, Songkick, Group Spaces

Journalists and their children were invited into the hub of Moshi Monsters for a morning of monstrous fun and games! We had a fantastic turn out including The Times, The Independent, The Evening Standard, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Glamour, Vogue, Mother and Baby, AskAMum, Tums2Mums, First News, The Licensing Source Book and Ad Age.

Children were delighted to meet the Moshi team and our many special guests including Poppet, the real life McNulty pup, Piff the Magic Dragon and the star attraction, Mr Moshi himself.

Our guests enjoyed a speech from Mr Moshi (including some top secret upcoming Moshi plans), party games, face painting, drawing, dancing, general dive-bombing into our much loved bean bag ‘Glumps’ and plenty of yummy treats.

An office full of children, a puppy and copious amounts of sugar could have proved challenging, but with no tears, no sickness – despite the sugar-fuelled dive-bombing! – and lots of happy faces, we’d like to count it as a big success!

Mr Moshi welcomes the guests

Meeting the Monsters

Sweet Treats…

The Real McNulty Pup

The ‘Glumps’ were a smash hit!

The kids get ‘Moshified’

Axel (our designer) gets glumpy…

Around 70 guests turned out to join the discussion on how social gaming changes everything and why maturing businesses need to retain customers, not buy them.

Michael was joined by Patrick O’Luanaigh (nDreams), Dylan Collins (ex Jolt Online, DemonWare) and Andy Moseby (Kemp Little) on the panel which was hosted by Nicholas Lovell from Gamesbrief.

It was a great discussion with a healthy amount of debate – and a few jibes at Mr Lovell for his recent blog posts!

A great evening had by all.

- Moshi Monsters was rated amongst the top 5 favourite websites for both boys and girls between the ages 4 – 12 years old including the likes of Facebook and Miniclip
- Moshi was voted the 2nd favourite website amongst girls 7 – 12 years old, 2nd only to Facebook!
- The site is equally liked amongst both boys and girls 4 – 6 years old

It’s quite incredible to see how Moshi Monsters has grown such broad appeal amongst both boys and girls, with children as young as four playing in over 150 countries worldwide! It just goes to show how magical and unique Moshi Monsters is as we continue to strive to revolutionise the kids entertainment space!

Go Moshi!

The revellers enjoyed live music from Amber States, beat-boxing from the talented A Plus, quirky Moshi themed cocktails and a photo booth – which produced some very creative shots (none of which made the cut for the Mind Candy blog)

All in all a fabulous event…and hopefully the first of many!

APlus takes to the Mic

Party Posers

Michael introduces Amber States

The Mind Candies mingle

More photos here!

We won in the Virtual Worlds category and were just pipped to the post by Spotify, who were crowned as the overall Winners, but took a very respectable second place.

Very exciting news – with hopefully many more to follow throughout 2011.

Check out press coverage here:

The Telegraph

The Telegraph

The Wall Street Journal

The Moshi team celebrate the win.

With plenty of cool bars, great lunch hang outs and other interesting companies in the area, East London really is the place to be for any up and coming media company.

Mind Candy has taken residence on the 4th floor of the old Lipton Tea Building, a lovely 30s industrial style space with many of the old features and much of its character carefully preserved.

When not hard at work at their desks, Mind Candies can be found gathered in our two large glass enclosed meeting areas, having one to ones on “Glump” beanbags on our artificial grass, having lunch at our 16ft dining table or playing games on the velvet sofas beneath the sparkly chandelier in the library.

There is still plenty more we are looking to do with the space but it is already proving very popular with our staff, and our neighbours!

Look out for future Mind Candy events to come and take a look for yourself.

Michael will be speaking during two sessions at the market; Digital Distribution: Monetising Content on New Platforms (Monday 4th April, 15:15pm) and Connected Creativity Forum: Innovation from Around the World (Tuesday 5th April, 16:10pm).

The dynamic duo will be spreading the word on Moshi TV – an all-new online kids platform that will play host to video-on-demand programming including bespoke Moshi Monsters content, safely moderated user-generated content and third party programming.
The player’s key differentiator will be a social element that allows kids to comment, rate and recommend shows to their friends across Moshi Monsters’ network of 37m registered users.

Michael and Darran will be in Cannes until Wednesday so drop them a line if you’d like to talk Moshi TV

Michael@mindcandy.com
Darran@mindcandy.com
We’ll also be recruiting several new roles within the Moshi TV team so keep an eye on our recruitment page.

News of the new Monster platform hit The Guardian this weekend. Read here.

This year’s event was held at Shoreditch House, an absolutely stunning venue, and started off with a bit of breakfast and some strong coffee in a room aptly named the Biscuit Tin.

Michael Acton Smith our CEO, kicked off with an inspirational speech about the company’s amazing journey so far and ambitious plans going forward.

Exciting updates were given by team members across all departments including a great video from our US team. For everyone it was an incredibly eye opening morning, and never more obvious to me what a hard working and innovative team we have at Mind Candy.

Lunch was mini bowls of lovely food, my favourites included pork and apple with crackling, mushroom risotto and tomato and mozzarella salad.

A short taxi ride and Moshi quiz later and the whole team were go karting at Team Sport near Tower Bridge in electric karts. It was a nail biting finish but our Web Designer, Leo just managed to steal victory.

A great day was had by all.

We are already planning the next event – MoshiCon 2011 for the summer.

The day started with a VIP preview which attracted the likes of The Evening Standard, The Guardian, The FT and a host of bloggers and their children.

By 11am crowds were swelling with dedicated young fans who had traveled the length and breadth of the UK to visit the shop.

Excited children came face-to-face with the monsters (Poppet and Furi) in real life and we handed out free copies of our newly launched Moshi Monsters magazine. The highlight for many young fans was meeting Michael, aka Mr Moshi as he made his way around the crowds chatting to the children and signing autographs.

The shop – complete with Moshi Monsters themed walls and furniture, fake grass and (one of my personal favourites) ‘glump’ beanbags – came to life as children flooded in, creating art work and sticking it on the walls, gathering around laptops to play the game online, playing with products and having their faces painted.

The quiet before the storm…’The Glumps’

With 1700 parents and children making it through the doors on day one, we were left shattered and absolutely blown away by the reaction to our first ever pop-up shop.

To top it all we made the front page of The Guardian on Wednesday – another awesome week for Moshi Monsters and we’re thrilled to see the fans enjoyed it just as much as we did!  It was such a hit that we’re now seriously considering opening our first permanent Moshi shop.

Check out footage from our launch event here Moshi Popup Store on Youtube

The shop in full swing

Filming with the FT.com

Mr Moshi meets his fans

The kids get creative

Moshi Monsters has grown very rapidly in the UK, both on and offline, but our next big challenge is to crack North America. The US is currently our largest single market in terms of registered users (12m+) but our licensing program and general awareness is at an earlier stage.

Michael Acton Smith (CEO), Darran Garnham (Head of Licensing), Rebecca Newton (Chief Safety and Community Officer) and Nicola Duarte (Head of PR) are planning a New York invasion from Feb 13th to 20th to tell the Moshi story and meet with a wide range of partners.

Shea Stadium was booked, so the fab four will be speaking at Engage, Toy Fair and Kidscreen.

Michael will be speaking at two events:

Feb 16th 11:30h at Engage during Toy Show
Moshi Monsters: How We Built a $100m Transmedia Monster
http://www.engageexpo.com/2011/01/19/future-is-online/

Feb 18th 11:00h at Kidscreen
Moshi Monsters: The Making of a A $100m Web-driven Hit
http://summit.kidscreen.com/2011/sessions.html?s=64813

Rebecca Newton will be speaking on a panel:

Feb 16th 15:45h at Engage during Toy Show
Community Management: The Long View
http://www.engageexpo.com/2010/10/22/community-management/

Drop Darran, Rebecca, Nicola or myself a line if you’d like to arrange a meeting while we’re in town

michael at mindcandy.com
darran at mindcandy.com
rebecca at mindcandy.com
nicola at mindcandy.com

Christmas party 2009 (80′s fancy dress)

Christmas party 2010!

Growing a company at this rate whilst continuing to build more amazing products can be a point of concern for management teams, but thanks to a great company culture, strong company values revolving around passion, playfulness, entrepreneurialism and respect and a strong team foundation have made it a joy, and working at Mind Candy feels even more close-knit than it did last year.

Here’s to a fantastic 2011!

Toby

The league started at the beginning of November and despite no one having picked up a netball since school and the freezing cold weather it’s been a lot of fun. The team has improved so much since the first game (a 21-2 hammering from a team that really shouldn’t be in the same league!) that we have now managed our first win!

So it’s onwards and upwards in 2011 for Team Moshi and surely it’s now a Boys vs Girls competition to see who will bring back the first trophy…

Yesterday we released a HUGE new feature – ‘Moshi Missions’ – starring the ‘Super Moshis’. Moshi Missions brings a deep and involving narrative gameplay to complement the successful social features of Moshi Monsters, check out the trailer below:

It’s easy to see how exciting Missions is going to be from a users point of view, but from a development point of view it’s super exciting too. It’s a great project to work on creatively, imaginations have been set free to run wild and behind the scenes there is a lot of cool new technology powering the Moshi Missions.

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures of the Super Moshis!

A few nights ago, TechCrunch held their annual european startup awards, the Europas, at Centre Point in London. Over 350 people, including VCs and entrepreneurs attended the evening and of course Mind Candy were there to join in the fun.

We’re pleased to say that Moshi Monsters took home two of the many awards up for grabs that night. Firstly, we are thrilled to have been awarded the “Europas Grand Prix” – the top award of the evening – where we were presented with a JoliCloud Vye netbook by JoliCloud’s Tariq Krim.

In addition, we were named “Best Learning Startup” in recognition of the hard work we have put into making Moshi a great place for kids to learn as well as to have fun.

For more details on the awards, check out the article over on TechCrunch.

There once was a squad,
who persisted to plod,
through the Battersea League 6-a-side.

Week after week,
a win they did seek,
but alas their best efforts went wide.

But on one fateful night,
when they brought the fight,
they claimed victory, fame, fortune and pride!

This is an exciting week at Mind Candy’s MoshiMonsters.com site as we’re searching for three young Moshi fans to star in our new Moshi Bandz TV Ad competition. The TV ad will be run on national television in the UK. We’re also running the  Monstro City’s Got Talent (MCGT Summer Shades Edition) competition this week, and have nearly 400 entries.

The internet presents people of all ages with opportunities we normally wouldn’t have available to us. Because of social media tools, Moshi can provide an opportunity for three UK kids between the ages of 11 and 14 to star in a TV advertisement that will be broadcast nationally.  [If you have a budding young TV star in your life, you can read about how to enter here in our blog.

We’re privileged to live in amazing technological times, where we can share information globally in seconds. We can meet people from all over the world and learn about each other’s cultures. We are presented with life-changing opportunities daily.

Now and then we hear from well-meaning people who think the net is unsafe for kids. We believe there is no reason to be afraid of social media.  Rather, we should teach each other, at every age, to behave responsibly in the online world just as we do in the offline world. We certainly wouldn’t get far if we hid in our homes and never came out because we were afraid of unfortunate things happening to us. Avoiding the online world is not living in the world – it’s hiding from world.

Thankfully, most of us don’t live this way. Instead, we are taught how to live in the world as safely as possible. We look both ways when crossing the street. We wear helmets when riding our bikes. We don’t take candy from strangers on the street. We don’t get into cars with people we don’t know. The online world is an extension of our offline world. We have a responsibility to teach each other how to be safe online.

When we ask for videos in our contests, we always ask for Monster Owner names and no other personal information to be shared. We monitor the submissions. And we flag any potentially problematic submissions to YouTube or the content site where the video is uploaded. Educating people on how to be netwise but still enjoy the wonders and opportunities of the internet is paramount to Moshi’s success.  Here’s to appreciating and encouraging creativity online and offline.

Here is one of nearly 400 entries from our recent Monstro CIty’s Got Talent Content. We’re thrilled to facilitate sharing their talent with the world.

Miss Pinky

With a new player joining Moshi Monsters every second, we are continuing to grow at a phenomenal rate and are on the lookout for creative, talented and ambitious folks to join our growing team.

If you fancy joining a fast paced and growing tech media company that is ‘set to make waves in the near future’ then check out our latest vacancies here.

If you’re attending any of these events come and say hello to us afterwards (we might even be shelling out Moshi stickers, membership cards and jelly beans).

Michael Acton Smith (CEO)
Gamehorizon Conference (Newcastle)
29th June 2010
http://www.gamehorizon.net/events/viewevent.php?id=debaf6c1-809f-f5e7-4ebf-4aa4d09f1cf9

Ed Relf (CMO)
Marketing Week Live (London)
10am 29th June 2010
http://www.marketingweeklive.co.uk/

Michael Acton Smith (CEO)
The Children’s Media Conference (Sheffield)
11am July 1st 2010
http://www.thechildrensmediaconference.com/

Cat Burton and Martyn Jones
London Flash Platform User Group
29th July 2010
http://www.lfpug.com/29th-july-2010-29072010/

Michael Acton Smith (CEO)
Edinburgh Interactive Festival
25th-26th August 2010
http://www.edinburghinteractivefestival.co.uk/

Ed Relf (CMO)
Ad Tech (London)
21st-22nd September
http://www.ad-techlondon.co.uk/adtech2010

Rebecca Newton (Chief Safety and Community Officer)
Community and Marketing Summit 2.0 (Hamburg)
29th-30th September
http://www.community-summit.de/

Rebecca Newton (Chief Safety and Community Officer)
GDC Online, Austin
6-8 October 2010
https://www.cmpevents.com/GDAU10/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=11423

Rebecca Newton (Chief Safety and Community Officer)
Family Online Safety Institute – FOSI 2010. (Washington DC)
November 2010

Toby Moore (CTO)
IGDA Leadership Forum
4th-5th November 2010
http://www.igda.org/leadership

A couple of weeks ago we had our first ever Mind Candy Summer Conference and where better to hold it than the home of Stealth, Nemesis and Colossus? A big thank you to the guys at Thorpe Park for having us!

The day kicked off with our CEO, Michael Acton Smith, talking about his ambitions and future plans for Moshi Monsters. Each team, ranging from game design to technology, did a presentation on their current status and future plans under the Big Top.

After a morning of company-wide learning and discussion, we then moved on to the equally important subject of lunch, which was accompanied by a healthy side of light-hearted competition with our team-based Moshi Monsters Quiz. And then…in true Mind Candy style, we spent the afternoon having fun and hit the rides!

Everyone loved learning more about where the company is headed and how our teams all link together and gave some great feedback. The day was a huge success and definitely something we will be repeating.

Here’s to the next Mind Candy Conference!

Monstro City’s population is 20 million strong; roughly Australia’s population. There are various government agencies to manage the country, including 14 federal and state law enforcement agencies. I’m guessing these agencies employ several hundred people, at a minimum  (I couldn’t find a number anywhere but I’m sure someone will email me with the information). We can’t consider Monstro City and Australia equal in terms of demographics, and the advantage we have on the web is that it takes quite a bit more effort to physically threaten or harm someone than the offline world. As several authors have noted over the years, “comparisons are odious.”  The point of the comparison, odious or otherwise, is that at the end of the day -  we are responsible for managing public safety for a population nearly the size of a country and continent. And the burning question is “How does Mind Candy manage 20 million people?”

Mind Candy employs about 30 full-time and 15 part-time people who run the entire Moshi Monsters operation. The team responsible for managing user behavior (or, online public safety) is the Community Team. We employ 22 staff members who are responsible for  community content, Social Media & events, Customer Service, Membership, Parent & Teacher contact, site moderation, behavior management, and online safety & education.  We couldn’t possibly manage 20 million Monster Owners with a team of 22 so we turn to 3rd party software providers for assistance. Thanks to technology (and the blood, sweat and tears of some forward thinking tech pioneers), we use 3rd party and proprietary software that allows us to manage the site efficiently and effectively with large concurrent populations.

In the early days, the Web 1.0 solution to online public safety involved staff responding to user-generated help requests or conduct reports. A staff member would be alerted to the report and then respond accordingly. It was all we had to work with at the time and involved hiring and training large numbers of people to respond reactively to problem behavior report, manually. Fast forward to 2009/2010 where we have available technology that allows the online public safety process more accurate, efficient and cost effective. The Web 1.0 method is not only ineffective and inefficient, it’s quite expensive. For example, World of Warcraft claims 1 million concurrent users on their English servers, alone. Using the Web 1.0 Moderation system would require WoW to hire at least 500 concurrent real-time, moderators just to keep up with user-generated reported issues. Why even consider this method when we have technology that not only catches problem behavior in real-time, but it analyses and prioritizes it, which allows your Community team to spend time on the potentially serious issues instead of issues such as “I need a boyfriend” and “What happens when I push this button” (95+% of user-generated reports I’ve witnessed at 3 major corporations over the past 16 years are frivolous or false, which wastes staff time.  This online false reporting issue is equal to “my cat is up a tree” calls to Public Safety offline).

Sites like ours, with a large populations, can no longer afford to use the Web 1.0 Moderation system. It’s not only expensive but it’s not as safe as content analysis via good technology. We couldn’t hire enough humans to follow every user around and watch them while they type. Thankfully, technology does this for us and allows our Community professionals to focus on the serious issues and to pay attention to and interact with the 98% of our population who are creative, well-behaved, good netizens and who contribute positively to our community. We’ll always need our lovely, professional humans – but we welcome advanced behavior management technology with open arms.

I feel certain parents, guardians and teachers want us to spend the majority of our staff time with kids online (kids of all ages, in fact)  by engaging, building, creating, and learning together. Moshi Monster’s Blog has more community interaction than any of our competitors – by a factor of 200 in fact. Monstro City is a vibrant, growing, excellent community – and we have technology (and our fabulous Monstro City citizens and roarkers) to thank.

The entire Mind Candy team gets excited and is quite proud of Moshi Monsters and for good reason. We know that “like attracts like” and “birds of a feather flock together” and therefore we know that each of the aforementioned qualities attracts fun, creative, outstanding Moshi players.

It’s not that we’re lucky. 18 million Monster Owners didn’t fall in our laps. We work hard, work smart, work creatively, and we have FUN. We also realise the collaboration between Moshi Monster Owners (our lovely community) and the far-reaching Mind Candy staff is one of the keys to Moshi’s success. The Mind Candy way of working has generated nearly 19 Million Monster Owners. That’s a LOT of Monsters.

While we’re dedicated to the concept of fun, we are also dedicated to expanding brain power through education – both cultural and academic education. This week and next, we’re addressing a very important issue in Great Britain; the election of a Prime Monster…I mean, Minister! And we’re addressing it using our best qualities because we know we’ll attract the brightest, most creative, most fun minds.

We hope you’ll take a moment to follow and participate in our very own ‘Prime Monster Candidates Visit Monstro City‘ blog series. Children learn by seeing, hearing, and doing. We’re asking that each of us see, hear and do our best to help young people learn about the election process and the importance of voting in a free society where every vote counts and where we can have our say by participating as responsible, informed, citizens. And let’s have FUN while we’re at it. :)

It really does take a village,
The Moshi Staff

Below is a special collage photo and a great video of the night… because a picture is worth 1000 words. Or in this case, 862 words :)

Football’s a funny old game, especially when Team Moshi Monsters took to the pitch last night for their first game in two years.

Blustery conditions didn’t dent optimism as the squad of 9 lined up for their National Anthem of ‘Hey Moshi‘.

Conway, in his trademark headband, patrolled the defense like an angry fox, swiping wildly at anyone that verged too near

Playmakers Geliher, Raithatha and Garnham gave the team its spine and battled hard in a brutal midfield. Jones’ long hours in the Underground Disco paid dividends as he danced and pirouetted past flailing limbs, confusing himself as much as the other side.

The opposition probed for weakness and early on whipped in a dangerous cross from the left. Hardman Matjaszek soared like an eagle to head the ball to safety, only to have a penalty awarded against him.

Rob the Cat kept out the spot kick with a full stretch dive, but the follow-up smashed passed his grasp.

A goalmouth scrabble early in the second half looked to put the game beyond the Monstery paws of Team Moshi when the ball bobbled home for 2-0.

In the dying moments fleet footed Smith stole up the left wing and laid on a cross for Mitchelson who, with the eagle eye of an expert animator, slotted the ball home with pixel perfect precision.

Sadly it was too little too late and the final whistle blew as Moshi surged forward searching for an equalizer that never came.

Moshi Monsters FC 1 v 2 Ledley’s Kings
(attendance 0)

Last month the Mind Candy team took a ‘Field Trip’ to the Victoria & Albert Museum to view a digital art show.  20 something Mind Candies took the Bus and Underground to South Kensington. It was a spectacle for Londoners and a great exercise in camaraderie for the Mind Candies. The exhibit was interesting but the journey and purpose of our group activity made an impression on me. I spent time talking to one of our newer employees and had time to get to know him outside the office environment. It was a great exercise, all in all.

Recently, two of the Mind Candy Community Team members took the term “work ethic” to the next level by visiting a tattoo parlour to show their dedication to moshlings, the cute little pets that belong to Monstro City monsters (because we all know that pets need and love pets of their own). Here’s how Amanda, one of our Assistant Community Managers, describes their adventure in ink:

“Because our love of Moshlings has grown to astronomic proportions, Tiffany (Community Assistant) and I were carried off by a giant Furi and Katsuma and taken to a tattoo parlour in our home state in the US. We visited a toy-tattoo collecting artist, Jesse, and had the Moshlings Shi Shi and Lady Meowford permanently added to our body art collections.”

I don’t think we’ll see a trend among the Mind Candies such as the LOTR  (Lord of the Rings) cast who (not so) secretly “branded” themselves to show solidarity.  But one never knows. When you work together AND play together, you become a family of sorts. The monsters and moshlings are an extension of our collective efforts at Mind Candy. We think of the monsters and moshlings as more than 2 dimensional characters. We think of their personalities and how they interact with Monster Owners in the game. Every team member is encouraged to provide input when we create new characters, need character names, and every team member is welcome to provide input in pretty much all of the creative  processes.  The atmosphere is quite democratic and open. Michael (our CEO) is a great communicator, open with information and inclusive. His approach makes all the difference in what you do 8 hours (or more) a day. Some of us spend more time at our jobs these days than we do with our families. So, we need to be sure we’re in an open, creative, accepting and healthy environment. Trust and respect start at the top of Mind Candy, with Michael and the Senior Management team. Creativity is always rampant. I had a conversation with our Community Manager just yesterday where she said “I just gotta give out those thousands of Mississippi Mud pies first… (I love that I get to say that -  my job rules).”  I have to agree.

At Mind Candy, creativity rules, as well. We’re thrilled to see two of our team members’ affection for their favorite moshlings (mine is Lady Cleo but I’m too chicken to get a tattoo). The Community Management team is coming to London this week for the 15 Million Monster Party at the London Aquarium. So, if you’re in London and you see an American with fun little moshlings tattooed on her arm, feel free to stop her and ask her for the moshling code ;)

The event will be action-packed with face painting, candy floss, goodie bags, Toad soda, games, Moshi staff celebrities, and the world premiere of our “Hey Moshi!” Dance with a choreographer and group dance instructions. Who knows? Maybe Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s sons will enter. The Mirror quotes Sarah Brown on February 13^th stating that the boys play Moshi Monsters. Everybody wants a Golden Ticket, even Prime Minister’s sons. We’d love to see The Brown family learning the “Hey Moshi!” dance, that’s for sure.

Speaking of news articles and celebs, our own Mr Moshi, Michael Acton Smith, the CEO of Mind Candy and creator of Moshi Monsters, was featured in Wired Magazine recently.
The Monster Mash-Up article, talks to Wired about our plans to bring Moshi offline. We can’t reveal everything but we can encourage you to read the article.

And since we’re on a news roll, we may as well talk about our very own community news written by Monsto City Editor-at-large Roary Scrawl. Roary is our resident content genius who translates all the happenings into English for us each day. He also comes up with brilliant contests. We had a record-breaking number of entries for Valentines Day this year, with well over 17,000 Secret Admirer Shout Outs. We knew even our most dedicated Monster Owners wouldn’t be able to read 17,000 shout outs so we chose the top 1,000 and posted them over a week or so.

On a different note, Moshi Monsters participated in Safer Internet Day this year, February 9^th. Monster Owners around the world learned about online safety by taking the Safer Internet Day Quiz. We take online safety seriously at Mind Candy. In fact, we’ve recently purchased Crispthinking.com’s NetModerator ™ software, which we plan to integrate in the next month or so. And we recently upgraded to Inversoft’s filtering system in our Forums. Rebecca Newton (@RebeccaNewton) is a featured speaker this month at the San Francisco GDC 2010 (Game Developer’s Conference). Michael Acton Smith (@acton) is also speaking at the GDC 2010 Summit. Many of the Mind Candy team are attending the event. We’ll report back next week on how it all went.

This year the Mind Candies jetted off to London Bridge for a party with an 80s retro theme to indulge in plenty of responsible drinking, tasteful dancing and subdued singing.

Here are a few snaps from the evening for your enjoyment.

Gift Island is a huge new feature on the site which has taken lots of development so the great response from the players in the first week is something that everyone at Mind Candy is really proud of!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fitURdFlGgU

To help celebrate the launch we wanted to bring Gift Island to life for all of the folks at Moshi HQ, so last week the office was filled with purple gift boxes. The boxes were filled with Moshi goodies including our new products from Zazzle and some amazing poppet cupcakes (sadly not made by any of us, but by the lovely Catherine at buycake.co.uk).

After this, and a few glasses of bubbly, a fun evening was had by all at Gilgamesh in Camden where the whole team had a chance to celebrate our latest Moshi achievement. Now it’s time for us to get working on the next one!