Ty Beanie Babies 2.0

You may have thought the Beanie Babies craze ended years ago, but they're back again as of 2008. This time around the release of the Ty Beanie Babies 2.0 is upon us! These special new toys were launched as a response to the current Webkinz craze that's going on. In case you didn't know, a Webkinz is a small plush stuffed animal. What makes it special is the face it comes with a special code for the internet. You can then take your pet online to the virtual Webkinz World, play games, get recipes and do all sorts of fun educational things!

The collection of Ty Beanie Babies 2.0 are very similar to Webkinz. Each of the 2.0 Beanie Babies includes a special 11 digit code inside its tag with it, so the owner can access an interactive website. Your plush toy animal will then have an online version of it as well that you can control and take care of.

There's many fun new animal characters in this new collection by Ty.  These include stuffed toys such as Vines Monkey, Saddle Horse, Topper Giraffe, Charlie the Cow, Fletch Cover Dog, Fluffball Guinea Pig, Purry Striped Cat, Chill Black Penguin, and Bubblegum the Zebra. 

One of the specially released 2.0 Beanie Babies is of "Bo the Dog". This is a version of the Portuguese water dog that belongs to President Barack Obama and the first family.

McDonald's is also once again part of the huge Beanie Baby craze. They have included special Ty Teenie Beanie Babies 2.0 inside of all Happy Meals. The Teenie Beanies 2.0 are in conjunction with the 30th birthday celebration for McDonald's Happy Meals. These small packaged toys will be a promotion run by the fast food restaurant McDonald's from July 17th through August 13th, 2009. There will be 30 of these commemorative toys in the set given away. Each of these toys has a special red heart tag which contains the beanie's name, poem and special code. The code will get you onto Beanieland, as well as a special 30th Birthday experience at the virtual McDonald's world!

Just one of the many collectible Ty Beanie Babies is Nuts the squirrel, a bushy eyed, gray squirrel. He was born on January 21, 1996, and has the following poem inside his tag:

With his bushy tail, he'll scamper up a tree
The most cheerful critter you'll ever see,
He's nuts about nuts, and he loves to chat
Have you ever seen a squirrel like that?

Nuts the Squirrel is sitting on his hind legs. He's got black button eyes and a triangular black button nose with brown thread whiskers as well as a big bushy tail. Makes a great addition to your Beanies collection!

Other similar Beanies from the older collection are Nutty the Squirrel and Chipper the Chipmunk.

The Online Beanie Babies 2.0 World provides a lot of cool things for owners of these new plush animals. It's a virtual world full of excitement and exploration including games, virtual gifts and much more!

Features of the online Beanie world include a customizable room for your animal, furniture and clothes in 3-D. You can also give presents, play virtual games, call friends, work on a garden, visit the salon, pig out at the food court, and visit a store for virtual items.

There's plenty of fun to be had once you get your new Beanie Babies 2.0 with virtual codes to go online!

The Webkinz toys have a special place in the hearts of many collectors. Webkinz developed themselves as an extension of what Beanie Babies were back in the day, taking things a step further by integrating the internet. With special codes, owners of the Webkinz toys could bring their animals to life on the world wide web at the webkinz.com ganz website (www.webkinz.com/us_en/)! This made Webkinz sort of a copycat of Beanie Babies, but not exactly. Now it seems as if Ty has decided to piggyback off the success of the Webkinz craze online. Beanie Babies were highly sought after, hot items years ago and some are still considered rare collectibles today. But will they be able to surge in popularity again? Will the Ty.com Beanie Babies 2.0 be able to defeat the World Wide Webkinz? Stay tuned as the world and the world wide web are waiting to see...