Monster High (website)

The Monster High websitelink went live on May 05, 2010. It contains biographies of all the characters, along with games, downloads, videos, and quizzes.

History
As one of the first components of the franchise made public, the Monster High website went live on May 05, 2010. With it came content like the first three webisodes and the first seven profiles. All of these were accessible through the crooked navigation bar, from which four character animation files at a time of the seven primary characters popped up. These files could be clicked to get to the respective characters' profiles. For a short while, there was a coming soon message up announcing the website's future content. Specific mentions were made to three of the video games to be released Create your own Class Photo and Student ID card!, Registration, and Decorate Your Monster High Locker. These games exemplify the interactive nature the website attempted at first before it became unmanageable. For instance, Decorate Your Monster High Locker requires the player to input codes that have to be taken from merchandise purchases. The other two are themed to insert the player into the Monster High universe by creating respectively a student ID and a class schedule. Of the first six games on the website, only one is actually a game, while the rest are activities of various natures.

Other early content fitting this immersion focus are the Explore Monster High section and the The Arts section. Towards the end of 2010, this system was let go of to create a website that was more about providing passive entertainment, with engagement being moved to specific events such as the doll elections and the promotions. The website was developed along this line of thinking until Late 2013, receiving a lot more sections and content, among which a four-banner slider to contain multiple announcements at once on the main page on February 14, 2012, but changing little in the meantime. There'll have been little prompting to do so, because in 2011 the website was declared the winner of the Best Toy & Hobby Rich Media Online Ad portion of the Internet Advertising Competition.

On October 23, 2013, the website received a radical update that rebalanced the available passive and engaged content as well as changed systems that were no longer functioning. Primarily, prior to October 23, the various versions of the Monster High website available to different countries were not aligned. This mostly came to expression with new webisodes uploaded, as each continent used its own schedule. Starting October 23, the various websites were redone to contain the same content at the same time. During this change, a lot of older content on the USAmerican website was removed, mostly because it was not relevant anymore. The games Make a Monster High Album & Activity Book, Bookmark Maker, and Decorate Your Monster High Locker were removed as were the sections Explore Monster High and Athletics. A third section, Students, was removed because the content was redistributed over the entire website in the form of an ever-present cast scrollable cast list. Related to this was the replacement of the crooked navigation bar with the animation files with a simpler, spiky navigation bar. Meanwhile, the content of the Freaky Fab 13 website was integrated in the Monster High website and engaged content was boosted with the introduction of the Gore-ientation section, which was added in the spirit of the 2013-launched We Are Monster High promotion. The Gore-ientation section is an introduction area for new users, which incorporates the older Create your own Class Photo and Student ID card! and Registration and instructs people how to set up their own profile using the Maul and bones - the in-website activity-earned currency. Much of the Gore-ientation section's design either comes from the same source as or was inspired by the design of the then-half year older.

This design lasted until December 18, 2014. Where before the website had been playful and busy, the new look aimed for less content at once, more space for the content, and less background noise. The spiky navigation bar was replaced with a plain rectangular one, the main page slider enlarged to 50% of the content screen, and most links were made more simplistic and to the point. The main change with this update was the removal of the cast slider and the return of the Students section. The new Student section, however, came with a few categories to make going through the cast easier. Another notable change was the addition of links to all of the Monster High social media accounts, which were previously largely unmentioned on the Monster High website.

One consistent downside throughout the series of big and small updates is that most adjustments of the navigation bar led to some pages becoming unmentioned. These pages could then either only be found through other pages, through the slider if the announcement related to the page, or were left only accessible if one new the address. Explore Monster High and Books are examples of sections which have become left out as a result.

School spirit meter
Present since the website's launch, the school spirit meter is a multi-page Florence flask filled with a liquid that turns from purple to green and contains floating eyeballs. The flask is filled up by watching videos, playing games, and completing other activities, with the reward being a four-symbol code. This code is to be used in Bookmark Maker, a game that has been removed on October 23, 2013. At the same time, the website introduced the bones currency system, which are acquired by the same means as the meter is filled. Ever since, the school spirit meter has been obsolete and remains only present on pages that escaped a conscious update.

iCoffin
A timeframe colleague of the school spirit meter, the iCoffin is one of the website's starter features that was removed on December 18, 2014. It was largely a slider of text messages from the various characters, but a few spoken messages were included as well. The text messages activated on their own, but the spoken messages required the user to accept the message first. The lineup of potential messages was updated around various special events, such as Draculaura's Sweet 1600 and the final characters to have messages included were Twyla and Gigi Grant in Mid 2013.

Bones
Bones were added on October 23, 2013 as part of the Gore-ientation-tied profile feature. Bones are the currency of the website, earned, as with the school spirit meter's content, by watching webisodes, playing games, and performing other activities. Bones can be spent in the Maul to acquire themes for the user's profile and apparel and haircuts for the user's avatar, a digital paperdoll.

Games
The Games sectionlink of the website contains a periodically increasing amount of flash-based web games of various natures. Most games are released to coincide with a contextually related piece of fiction, such as Dawn of the Dance being added at the time Dawn of the Dance was active or Bewitched by the Beat coming out during the Casta Fierce event. Many of the early games aren't so much games as activities, often ones with relevance to the merchandise available at the time. For instance, Decorate Your Monster High Locker requires codes only found in the Basic diaries and through the iCoffin. As such, it, along with Make a Monster High Album & Activity Book and Bookmark Maker, was removed when the website went through a big update on October 23, 2013. This big update also marks the restart of new web games, which had been absent for the entirety of 2013.

There exist four more complex platform games that were released that in 2012. These four coincided in theme and date with the TV specials of that year. They have their own section on the website, known as the Catacombs.

Videos
The Videos sectionlink of the Monster High website is a mirror of the Monster High YouTube channel. While the YouTube channel is updated with a new webisode each Thursday, the website is updated each Friday. In theory, both places have all webisodes uploaded, but in practice it has happened that the update on the website was forgotten about or was a different one from the YouTube update. Also, prior to the aligning update of October 23, 2013, different continents occasionally had different webisodes uploaded on their respective versions of the website.

In contrast to the YouTube channel, the Monster High website used to upload the TV specials too. However, shortly after the release of "Why Do Ghouls Fall in Love?" on the website on February 19, 2012, both that TV special and "Fright On!" were removed. No new TV specials have been uploaded since, although trailers are still added to both channels. The one TV special remaining on the website is thus "New Ghoul @ School", which is also available on the YouTube channel.

Books
The Books section,link also known as the Library, contains a list of all books released in the Monster High franchise along with short descripions of their content. It has, however, not been updated since the release of Who's That Ghoulfriend?.

Characters
The Characters section,link previously known as the Students section, was a distinct area of the website from May 05, 2010 to October 23, 2013 and returned on December 18, 2014. It contains the primary official profiles, which are also published on the back of the characters' first deluxe doll releases and in the magazine. It has gone through five distinct stages since its inception

All of these were accessible through the crooked navigation bar, from which four character animation files at a time of the seven primary characters popped up.

Originally, the section's hub was displayed as a groupshot of all the characters. The characters could be clicked to reach their respective profiles, with the original seven characters having an access point extra in the form of clickable. On January 10, 2012, however, the two new profiles uploaded brought the whole to 17~18 characters. The groupshot display became no longer efficient, and was replaced with a Class Roster scroll. It showed only icons in rows of two against a parchment background, saving a lot of space. But at 30~31 characters, even the new layout lost its appeal due to the scroll length. On top of that, with the addition of Headless Headmistress Bloodgood and the future addition of the Frights, Camera, Action! - Hauntlywood characters, the terms "student" and "class roster" no longer sufficed. As such, October 23, 2013 saw another update—this one much bigger. The Students section was removed in favor of a horizontal bar capable of displaying six characters at a time that is directly accessible from anywhere on the website. The visual presentation of the profiles was also changed, adding quotes and pins. The update also got rid of two things: C.A. Cupid's profile, as she had switched franchises to Ever After High, and the alternative profile versions that previously were accessible if the page didn't load properly.

Explore Monster High
The Explore Monster High section has a selection of images (taken from the webisodes) and 10 "Fast Facts" about Monster High. The section is no longer mentioned on the website itself, but still accessible through the page address. Sometimes, updates to the website make the section inaccessible, though that has thus far always been reverted with the next update.


 * 1) Monster High has special evening classes for monsters who only come out at night.
 * 2) MH has exchange monsters from 40 different countries and 5 dimensions.
 * 3) Make sure you study for your S.A.T. (Scary Aptitude Test).
 * 4) Watch out for piranhas in the school swimming pool.
 * 5) Headmistress Bloodgood has her own parking stable for her (night)mare.
 * 6) Making coffins in shop class are not only a requirement for vampire students, but extremely practical.
 * 7) If you are blood-intolerant or have garlic allergies, please get a witch doctor's note for the creepateria.
 * 8) Avoid the horrors of homework: write in your decomposition books every day and keep the moaning to a minimum.
 * 9) Village Mob fire drills are done regularly. Please be prepared.
 * 10) Being turned to stone by Deuce Gorgon is not a legitimate excuse for missing class.

Registration
The Registration section lets users complete activities as if they're students at the school, such as filling out a student ID card, taking a quiz to find out which character they're most like and acquire a suitable schedule), and decorate their locker with stickers. Also promoted in the section is the cartoon series and the card game Monster Freakout, and there is a map of the campus available.

Academics
The Academics section contains staff credentials for four of the staff members of Monster High, who each have their own printable activities sheets. Three of the staff credentials are the same ones as published in the Fearbook, while Where's is unique to the website.

Athletics
The Athletics section features a random daily game along with a leaderboard for the top scorers. However, its been stuck on Scary Sun since October 2011 if not earlier.

The Arts
The Arts section of the Monster High site has a series of wallpapers and buddy icons for download, along with a Monster High ringtone, the lyrics to the Monster High theme song and a file of the theme song.

Student Lounge
The Student Lounge, added on September 11, 2011 is a typical teen hangout with a TV that features some of Monster Highs weekly webisodes. Next to the TV is a Arcade Machine which also features different Monster High games to play. Different characters can be seen at the lounge which includes: Clawdeen, Slow-moe, Ghoulia, Draculaura, Clawd, Purresephone or Meowlody, Toralei, Frankie, Heath, Abbey, and Cleo.

From the lounge you can click on the Teen Scream magazine, The Fearbook, and the Student Store.

Student Store
The Student Store opened on November 21, 2012. It allows users to put together a wishlist of current Monster High merchandise and either print it or send it per e-mail.

Maul
The Maul is a feature available only to those who enroll on the site, and it's a program that allows members to shop and browse for clothing and other attire for their virtual character as well as profile decoration for the character. The available outfits and decorations are mostly inspired by the franchise's characters.

Fearbook
The Fearbook section of the Monster High site, added on the 05th of May in 2011, lets users act as a fearbook editor, completing tasks like arranging a "My Memories" page and checking out students voted "Most Likely".

Sweet 1600
The Sweet 1600 section went live on November 28, 2011 in support of the Sweet 1600 line. The section's main page features a Monster High Party Kit - a selection of prints one could turn to for throwing a Monster High-themed party. It also features four gates corresponding to the main four characters of the Sweet 1600 line, Draculaura, Frankie Stein, Clawdeen Wolf, and Clawd Wolf, which can be opened with codes that came with each of their dolls. Beyond each gate are four items of digital doll logs, namely a script, a diary, a Q &amp; A, and a iCoffin with several messages.

The codes are:
 * Draculaura - W9189
 * Frankie Stein - W9190
 * Clawdeen Wolf - W9191
 * Clawd Wolf - W9192

Catacombs
The catacombs section went live on February 12, 2012, the day the TV special "Why Do Ghouls Fall in Love?" aired. The section is in support of the four TV specials that aired in 2012, featuring a game corresponding to each special. These games were not playable until the day the special aired. The section was the first to reveal the names of the four 2012 specials.

The games are:
 * Scary-Sweet Memories ("Why Do Ghouls Fall in Love?")
 * Fintastic Rescue ("Escape From Skull Shores")
 * Phantom Roller ("Friday Night Frights")
 * Trick or Trance ("Ghouls Rule")

On the Air with C.A. Cupid
On the Air with C.A. Cupid is a section added on the 14th of February in 2013 and taken down on October 23, 2013. It features Q&A transcripts of C.A. Cupid's radio show.

Don't Fear The Year
The Don't Fear The Year section went live on December 13, 2012 and was updated daily until January 1, 2013. The section consists of three components. The first is the Boo Year's Eve Countdown Calendar, which displayed a new sheet every day containing the 2013 resolutions of one of the Monster High students. The second was an announcement of the webisode "Boo Year's Eve", which was to be released after midnight on December 31. The final component was a PDF file that visitors could print to write down their own resolutions for 2013. This file also contained the nineteen questions contained in the calendar.

We Are Monster High
The We Are Monster High section, also known as Gore-ientation, is where new users are directed to once they've made an account. It was added during the big update of October 23, 2013 and is part of the "We Are Monster High" promotion. The section contains a letter of introduction, instructions to website usage, the webisode "We are Monster High", and a few papers.

A Night in Scare-adise: Prom 2014
The Monster High Prom section went live on May 05, 2014 and received an update about once per two days until June 13, 2014. The section ties in with the Zombie Shake doll line and narrates the staff's and students' preparation of the year's prom. Content includes weekly polls, chats, and announcements.