Welcome to the wonderful
world of Disney

A recent release reports Disney has just purchased Club Penguin, a popular social network/virtual world for tweens.

According to Next Gen, Disney bought all outstanding shares of site operator New Horizons Interactive for $350 million, and plans on doubling that amount over the next couple of years once Horizon hits "predefined earnings targets."

British Columbia-based Club Penguin has experienced explosive growth. Over the past year traffic rose 329 percent, making the destination the 131st most-visited site in the US, according to Hitwise.

In total, Club Penguin serves 12 million users, 700,000 of which pay a subscription fee for more features.

Hitwise also ranks Club Penguin as the third most popular virtual world behind Runescape and Webkinz. Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom came in eighth, while World of Warcraft ranked seventh.

Second Life, meanwhile, ranked twelfth.