SanrioTown

SanrioTown was a English and East Asian based Sanrio web portal and formerly forum website affiliated with Sanrio Wave. The site promoted and offered email addresses on the following domains: hellokitty.com, hellokitty.com.sg, hellokitty.com.my, mymelody.com, mymelody.com.sg, mymelody.com.my, and kuririnmail.com. The site was also used for the free-to-play MMORPG, Hello Kitty Online as it also featured a log in form for said game. Older versions of the website allowed users to post and watch videos, read and write blogs, download wallpapers and printables, as well as play games. The service was supposed to be shut down on November 1st, 2023, but remained online until December 19th of that year.

History[]

The SanrioTown website has changed URLS multiple times throughout the years and created multiple different versions. The Japanese and English Version seemingly released on February 7th, 2001, while a Chinese Version was released on the same day. A broadband version of the Chinese website was released on June 19th, 2001, adopting a newer design later than the other languages. The SanrioTown interface was united in Late 2001, where all languages had the same interface.

SanrioTown Versions[]

SanrioTown had multiple versions over the years. Here is a comprehensive list of all of the English ones besides European SanrioTown.

SanrioTown 2001 Version 1:

SanrioTown in its original form had 2 pages, a redirect page, and the actual website. on the redirect page, there were broadband and non-broadband versions for English and Chinese. The page also introduced a Japanese version that was announced on the Sanrio Wave website. The original homepage was replaced with another version on August 7th, 2001, and the original pages remained online, although broken and unusable until late 2023.

SanrioTown 2001 Version 2:

On August 7th, 2001, a new version was released. This version had an orange and blue color scheme instead of the mostly pink interface. There was a flash portion up top showing an updated version of the image in the first interface, featuring the characters sliding down from a rainbow to the river shown in the first interface. The page remained accessible, though inactive until February 6th, 2004.

SanrioTown - Late 2001 to 2005:

On November 2, 2001, the SanrioTown Homepage reverted to a pink themed interface. This version is also the first and only version to offer Korean as a language. This version did not last long, as on November 4th, 2002, a new version was put out, following a similar style to the Sanrio Wave website at the time. It lasted until 2006.

SanrioTown - 2006:

On April 28th, 2006, SanrioTown got a new interface, as new features were in beta to tie-in with Hello Kitty Online. This design had a town theme with Hello Kitty in an airplane. This town design was soon replaced on November 28th, 2006, with more brown tones. The original page remained online, although unusable until late 2023.

SanrioTown - 2007 to 2010:

On October 4th, 2007, SanrioTown went back to a pinker interface, and this version added British English and German as languages.

SanrioTown - 2011 to 2020:

On January 30th, 2011, a new version of the website was released. The website was pinker and was more saturated. The British English and German Languages were removed, only to be replaced by Spanish, Dutch, French, and Italian as languages. This was the last website update for 10 years. The interface lasted from January 30th, 2011, to February 28, 2021. A live wallpaper for Android was also released around the same time to go with it.

SanrioTown - 2021 to 2023:

On April 30th, 2021, the last version was released. The site was given a more minimal design and users could no longer register, there were fewer options on the top, and users could no longer select a language.

Security Breach[]

On December 19, 2015, the SanrioTown website was leaked online, exposing the private information from 3.3 million accounts, including first and last names, birthdays, gender, country of origin, passwords, and email addresses. This may have contributed to the fall of SanrioTown. Browsers say that the site is insecure, and people were not able to log into their emails without Possibly risky workarounds. This issue was not resolved as there was no indication that any user data was exposed or utilized by malicious parties. All users were told to change their passwords, and Sanrio allegedly added more security.

Shutdown[]

On September 1st, 2023, SanrioTown announced a shut down and discontinuation of service said to take place November 1st, however the site remained usable until December 19th. Users are no longer able to access their email and any relevant services since, and the website fully shut down.

Version Links[]

SanrioTown Redirect (archive.org) - 2001 (Actively hosted in 2001 until August and stayed up in 2002 and 2003 before becoming a half-broken link.)
SanrioTown Feb 2001 (archive.org) (Actively hosted in 2001 until August and stayed up in 2002 and 2003 before becoming a half-broken link.)
SanrioTown Aug, 2001 (Actively hosted through 2001 until late 2001 - and had a lingering link that lasted until 2004) (archive.org)
SanrioTown Login Index Late 2001 - 2005 (English) (Sanrio Wave Influence) (archive.org)
SanrioTown Login Index Late 2001 - 2005 (Chinese) (Sanrio Wave Influence) (archive.org)
SanrioTown - 2006 (archive.org)
SanrioTown 2007 - 2023 (archive.org)

Additional Links[]

2010 SanrioTown Sign In (archive.org)
SANRIO WAVE (archive.org) April 14th, 2001 (Promoting Japanese SanrioTown)