What could be cuter than Webkinz? Two Plymouth sisters who do a weekly webcast about the cuddly toy critters with their father.

Dave Swerdlick records the Webkinz Webcast with daughters Hannah, left, and Zoe. (Star Tribune photo by Jeff Wheeler)

Hannah and Zoe Swerdlick, 9 and 6, and their dad, Dave, 42, are the folks behind the Webkinz Webcast, which I wrote about today. Started just a few months ago, the free show is among the top 10 podcasts in iTunes’ Kids & Family section. In the past month, the show has had about 50,000 downloads from iTunes and its own site. When I visited the family last week to watch them record their 11th show, Dave used real-time tracking software to show me that fans had downloaded the previous week’s show 25 times in just a few minutes. Of course, it helps to have a popular topic — Google’s No. 2 search term for 2007 was “Webkinz” — but the 20- to 25-minute show is a hoot, too. One reason why is that it’s unrehearsed. Although the girls have a knack for being on-air personalities — no doubt through Dave’s background in broadcasting — there are also fantastic spontaneous moments, such as when the girls bickered over whose lips might or might not have actually touched a Webkinz lip-gloss applicator during Show 10.

Hannah and Zoe say sharing their love of Webkinz and hearing from listeners is what they enjoy most about doing the show. The sisters also agree on one other thing: “It’s fun!”

Asked how long the girls planned to keep doing “Webkinz Webcast,” Hannah ­matter-of-factly said five years. She acknowledged that she and Zoe are bound to lose interest in Webkinz eventually, even though they each have two dozen of the cute critters.

“I’m doing this show for them,” Dave said. “If they wanted to do it on another subject, that’s what we’d be doing it on. They picked Webkinz, and as long as they’re interested in it, we’ll keep going.”

Hannah, left, and Zoe check out the new Webkinz catalog while recording their 11th show. (Star Tribune photo by Jeff Wheeler)

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 8:45 am and is filed under Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.