Sulake.com

Sulake Reports Best Half Year Result

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 05:08:00 +0200

Sulake, the parent company of Habbo Hotel (that's us!) today announced it's best-ever half year performance in the company's history. Our H1/2010 revenue reached €29.8 million (IFRS), a 20% increase versus 2009 first half. During the same period, the company EBITDA result improved by 63% to €3.5 million, with solidly positive operating cash flow.

Naturally, we are very excited to be able to tell great news like this. This performance is thanks to systematic work in developing our operating model, cost savings and most importantly, continuous focus on developing the Habbo Hotel product and community. We expect to continue on the same track, and have yet to fully utilize the potential of social networks as a source of growth.

Habbo Hotel serves over 15 million unique visitors from more than 150 countries in 11 different languages. Our players spend a total of 45 million hours playing Habbo Hotel each month.

We're challenging you to help the disaster victims in Pakistan

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:54:00 +0200

As most of you may have heard, Pakistan has been hit by a terrible natural disaster. The Indus and 5 other rivers have flooded, destroying villages and cities and rendering 20 million people homeless, and 10,000 dead (and counting). The United Nations has called this the worst natural disaster of the decade. More people are affected by this than the 2005 Asian Tsunami, 2006 Kashmir earthquake and 2009 Haiti earthquake COMBINED.

Sulake has taken part in the aid by donating to Unicef. We challenge all companies (and individuals as well) in our industry to donate to the aid! There are of course many channels to do this, Unicef is one of them - to support Unicef, simply navigate to http://www.supportunicef.org/.

10th Anniversary of Habbo Hotel

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:58:00 +0200

As you probably know, this year we are celebrating the 10 ^th anniversary of Habbo Hotel. In the past decade Habbo has come a very long way and grown from a hobby project to the global community it is today. To show exactly how we’ve grown over the years, we’ve put together this short SlideShare presentation:

Habbo Hotel: 10 Years Old

(The texts shows better in Slide Share)

We were also really excited to see how Habbo fits into the 2010 Social Networking Map created by Flowtown.

The map is an updated tribute to a map of online communities created in 2007 by XKCD and shows how much our online world has changed and how big a player Habbo Hotel now is within the context of the world’s online communities and social networks.

We’re proud of how far Habbo Hotel has come and look forward to the next ten years.

Young people identify with an online community almost as strongly as with their own family

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:37:00 +0200

Here's an interesting press release, which was released yesterday by HIIT (Helsinki Institute for Information Technology). It was already covered by some international media, so if you prefer to read it from an "independent source", check out e.g. CNET.

Young people identify with an online community almost as strongly as with their own family

Teenage online community users feel part of their online community almost as much as they feel part of their own family. An international study of the users of teenage online community Habbo reveals that users identify more strongly with the online community than with their neighbourhood or offline hobby group. The study is based on a survey with 4299 respondents from United Kingdom, Spain and Japan. All three nationalities yielded similar results.

The study was authored by Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta, a researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT (currently a visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo), and Professor Pekka Räsänen from the University of Turku, Finland.

The authors point out that peer groups are important for the development of adolescents' identity and values. The study addresses the question of whether online groups are standing in for traditional peer groups that are thought to be weakening in some developed countries. The results confirm that online groups can act as strong psychological anchoring points for their members. The authors conclude that games, social networking sites and other online hangouts should be seen as crucial contexts for today's youths' identification and socialisation experiences.

The results also suggest that in relatively young information societies such as Spain, online groups are more often "virtual communities" consisting of relative strangers. In mature information societies such as Japan, online groups are more likely to be a way of keeping in touch with family and friends. This may influence the experiences that youth receive from online groups in different countries.

The study, titled "How do young people identify with online and offline peer groups? A comparison between United Kingdom, Spain and Japan", is published by the Journal of Youth Studies, the leading international scholarly journal focusing on youth research.

Habbo is a popular teenage virtual world developed by Sulake Corporation. It has 15 million monthly unique visitors from over 150 countries, according to Sulake. The site is available in 11 local language versions and recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. 90 percent of Habbo users are between 13 and 18 years old.

For more information:
Dr Vili Lehdonvirta
tel. +81 90 7818 4470
e-mail: vili.lehdonvirta(at)hiit.fi

Professor Pekka Räsänen
tel. +358 50 567 2230
e-mail: pekka.rasanen(at)utu.fi

Habbo Hotel Partners with Capri-Sun

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:26:00 +0200

Last week we announced a new advertising partnership with Coca Cola in the UK. The partnership sees a cross promotion of Habbo with the Capri-Sun brand on-pack and in-game including a heavy weight advertising campaign.

70 million packs of Capri Sun will be Habbo branded and 1 in 10 packs include a special virtual badge that can collected on Habbo.com. The on-pack advertising drives customers to a landing page on Habbo, where they will be able to access ‘The Capri-Sun Summer Theme Park’ branded room.

Habbos will also be able to join a Capri-Sun fan group where they can interact and see previews of prizes and exclusive content. The community will have the chance of winning monthly limited edition bespoke Capri Sun goods as well as prizes like Nintendo Wiis and iPhones. Through this partnership with Coca Cola, we are delighted to be able to offer our community access to new and exciting content whilst reaching Capri-Sun’s target audience.

This is a great example of a campaign where a brand enters the social-space of consumers and genuinely adds value to their experience and enjoyment by becoming part of the conversation on Habbo.

Habbo Hotel & NSPCC charity campaign collaboration chosen as the ‘Best Use of Social Media’ at the NMA Awards

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:36:00 +0200

The NSPCC provides a manned phone line called Childline for youngsters to call when they want to speak to someone. The charity’s biggest challenge is getting its message across to teenagers, and this campaign looked to address that. Habbo worked with the charity to develop a series of programmes that connected with and involved the young audience.

Working together, Habbo & the NSPCC developed the world’s first virtual design agency – The Idea Agency. Through this agency, the teenagers themselves developed the promotional materials to connect with their peers; rather than have adults try to develop something that may or may not connect. Each month a member of the Habbo community was recruited to run the virtual business and answer various design briefs to great success.

The campaign resulted in record numbers of group membership and hundreds of thousands of visitors to the virtual agency. The group’s guest book received over 2,000 comments and there were over 1,000 discussion threads on the design topics. Most importantly, as a result of the activity, a five year decline in the call rate to Childline was reversed.

You can check all the NMA Awards winners here.

Habbo partners with MTV

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +0200

We’re happy to tell you all, that last week we announced a media partnership with MTV in the UK! The deal covers a new content and advertising partnership with MTV Networks International (MTVNI) owned by Viacom Inc. The partnership follows a successful collaboration last autumn, focused around last year’s MTV Europe Music Awards and builds on similar strategic partnerships with MTV in Belgium.

Habbo and MTV Networks International will cross promote content and exchange advertising space in an agreement which represents a strategic partnership for both companies. The tie up will see Habbo run its first ever TV advertising campaign in the UK whilst it will also be the first time that MTV Networks International has partnered with a virtual world.

Two specially commissioned Habbo ads will run on MTV’s UK channels from 4 ^th of June and will be complimented by advertising on MTV.co.uk. Within Habbo Hotel, MTV has its own fan group and virtual studio where Habbos can get an exclusive virtual MTV web poster.

The group will provide fans with the latest news and gossip about the MTV celebs that will be coming into the MTV studio in Habbo to chat and launch exclusive competitions. The Habbo community will also be able to host their own MTV parties to share the fun with their friends!

Virtual thieves caught in Habbo Hotel Finland

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 11:24:00 +0200

As we all know, phishing and scamming is a common problem for most internet services around the world. Even though we do our best to keep Habbo Hotel as safe as possible for its users, it is unfortunately also a target for many scammers and hackers. But Habbo users should not worry too much, because by remembering just a few simple safety rules, you should be safe! More about that below.

Yesterday, the Finnish police announced that it is investigating a series of internet crimes that are related to Habbo Hotel and its users in Finland. The police has found out that several suspects have put up e.g. fake Habbo sites to steal other users' user names and passwords, and have used these to steal virtual items. The police also made several house searches yesterday and confiscated many suspects' computers.

Sulake assisted the police in the investigation, and our aim with this is of course to catch the wrongdoers, but also to spread the word that it really is illegal and against our rules to put up scam sites or Habbo retro sites, or in general to even think about doing stuff like this!

Bear in mind these few simple safety tips:

1. Keep your user name and password to yourself: whether it is in Habbo or any other service. Habbo staff never ask for this information, so if you are asked to give this information, you are being scammed!

2. Be sure where you sign in: There are many unofficial, retro, scam etc. sites that might look like Habbo, but they are not. Never try to sign up to these, unless you want to get robbed!

3. Keep good care of your information security: keep your anti-virus software up-to-date all the time and be careful when downloading files from the internet, they might contain malicious code with keyloggers etc.

4. If you have any issues or questions: Please check Habbo Safety Group pages for more safety information and if necessary contact Habbo Staff via Habbo Help tool of your local site.

Habbo Hotel Spain recognized by users and specialists with two Chavales Awards

Thu, 27 May 2010 06:17:00 +0200

It is my great pleasure to announce that Habbo Hotel has been recognized with some awards in Spain – and not just one, but two awards!

Habbo was awarded in the category of “best ICT private initiative” in the first ever Chavales Awards , which the Industry, Tourism and Commerce Department delivered. These awards grant eight prizes, two per each category, given by Chaval.es’ users and a professional board. It has been really exciting because Habbo was awarded in its category by both users and experts.

Furthermore, Chavales Awards aim to reward the best projects meant to boost the right use of ICT among the younger users, and this is one of Habbo’s main premises. For this reason, Habbo celebrates this award with enthusiasm. The award recognizes that Habbo Hotel is a secure environment for teens where they are able to meet friends. Innovation is also one of our daily priorities in order to deliver the best platform and virtual goods to have fun with a rich user experience. We work to deliver our users with a suitable environment capable to teach how to manage themselves in the real world through a virtual world.

User Awards:

Best child site:
JUEGASPEQUE by IRONIKA KEYWORD MARKETING S.L.

Best education site:
RECURSOS PARA NUESTRA CLASE by RECURSOS PARA NUESTRA CLASE

Best ICT private initiative:
HABBO HOTEL by SULAKE

Best ICT state initiative:
LAS TIC Y LA SEGURIDAD EN LA COMUNIDAD EDUCATIVA by FUNDACIÓN CTIC, GOBIERNO DEL PRINCIPADO DE ASTURIAS

Professional Board Awards

Best child site:
PORTAL INFANTIL CLAN EN RTVE.ES by TELEVISIÓN ESPAÑOLA

Best education site:
RECURSOS PARA NUESTRA CLASE by RECURSOS PARA NUESTRA CLASE

Best ICT private initiative:
HABBO HOTEL by SULAKE

Best ICT state initiative:
ABRED, A UN CLIC DE LA ESCUELA by ABRED

Miley Cyrus Announced Global Habbo Runway Winner

Mon, 17 May 2010 04:24:00 +0200

Habbo Hotel’s global fashion designer competition Habbo Runway has now its winner: chosen from thousands of designs globally, and making its way through the local community voting, and the main judge Miley Cyrus’s critical review, the winner is Habbo name “ Rykz” from Singapore.

As the winner of the global competition, Rykz will get his design included in the international Habbo Hotel cloth catalogue. In addition to the huge fame this will bring, he will also win lots of virtual prizes, including a whole year Habbo Club VIP membership and a full set of Habbo Runway furniture.

The winner Rykz commented:
“My design was inspired by the main character of Final Fantasy VIII. The fur (artificial, of course) caught my attention and besides we don't have clothes with fur in Habbo, so I decided to design one with some added style from my real-life fashion.”

Main judge Miley Cyrus commented Rykz’s winning design:
“It’s such a hip street-style outfit, with just the right kind of jacked and jeans combo, the chain key ring, and matching sneakers. It’s just really cool!”

Check you the winning design here.

Download a press image:
Habbo Runway winner on catwalk
Habbo Runway winner clothing

About Habbo Runway
Habbo Runway is a global fashion event, during which millions of Habbo Hotel users take part in various beauty and fashion related activities and events. The campaign’s highlight is a global fashion design competition where teens around the world get to design their own clothing lines, with the winning designs included in the Habbo clothes catalogue. The global competition is judged by teen fashion icon Miley Cyrus.

Measuring a game economy

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:06:00 +0200

We've always believed that the true source of excitement in Habbo Hotel comes from its users. The stuff we build into the product is fun yes, but what our players invent as they explore the opportunities is truly something else! It never ceases to amaze us how imaginative experiences people come up with using the different tools and help from their buddies. The way they combine different things and come up with activities and behavioral patterns we did not anticipate, or even dream of, is just astonishing!

Accordingly, one of our most important tools for identifying ways to improve Habbo Hotel is to focus on what exactly our players are doing with features already there. Boy, there’s a lot to look at…

Recently, we've developed several features related to a smoother working player-to-player market for furni. As most Habbos know, furni trading is a popular activity, and while we've always had features to enable trading, players have to try hard to participate in it. As all free markets, also the Habbo secondary market has been difficult to succeed on, and only a few players have fully mastered trading. Some of the most active players in fact collect market data in order to publish it on their own sites to help the market work better - a big job, and we thank them for that!

As trading is so popular in Habbo, we wanted to make it more approachable and easier to understand. Thus we developed the Marketplace where players can bid for different items. We also started publishing information about the value of items exchanged there. However, as the original trading activity has a lot of fans as well, we didn't want to ignore that either. Now, these two markets together are several times larger than the sales of new virtual items from the Habbo furni catalog. On some days, furni changes hands over two million times.

How could we then value this trading activity? Or as we've asked in one of our introductory demo videos already a long time ago: is an empty pizza box really worth as much as a fireplace?

Since most trading doesn't happen against one common currency, this is not an easy question. We decided to tackle it anyway, by analyzing each day two million trades and evaluating the value of each of them based on the historic value of each item. We take those trades where buyer uses only Habbo coins as a currency, which helps us determine the market value for a subset of all of the traded items. This also helps us iterate over the rest of the trades to identify value for more items, and we repeat the process until everything has a value. And of course, we then repeat this process every day, in order to set a value for all items.

Some of this data is now being used inside Habbo to display price development on the Marketplace. We're continuing to develop this information, in order to make it more accessible to players, old and new, and help them develop their in-game activities further.

Oh and by the way, a fireplace is more than twice as valuable as an empty pizza box.

We are currently looking to hire a new research analyst into our User Insight team based in Helsinki, Finland. The specific focus in the position is the statistical analysis of the user base, both from collected metrics data as well as our continuous user surveys. If you are qualified and interested, I recommend to take a look at our job posting and send in an application!

Sugababes Touring Habbo Hotel

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:44:00 +0200

- Sugababes tours seven countries in three hours!

The world famous girl trio Sugababes are doing a world tour in the world’s largest virtual world for teens, Habbo Hotel on February 23rd. To celebrate the release of their new single “Wear My Kiss”, the band will do an exclusive visit in the Habbo communities in seven countries, including Spain, Germany, Italy, France, UK, Netherlands and US.

To meet up and chat live with Heidi, Amelia and Jade, check in to your local hotel on Tuesday February 23rd at these times:

4.00 pm CET    Habbo Spain
4.20 pm CET    Habbo Germany
4.40 pm CET    Habbo Italy
5.00 pm CET    Habbo France
5.20 pm CET    MIZZ magazine fan meet and greet in UK
5.40 pm CET    Signings / In4Merz visit
6.00 pm CET    Habbo UK
6.20 pm CET    Habbo Netherlands
6.40 pm CET    Habbo US (9.40 am PST)

Download a press image:
Hires
Lowres

EU Commission Report on Social Networking Services out today

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:50:00 +0200

Today, on Safer Internet Day 2010, the EU Commission has published an extensive report about the safety approaches taken on by the EU Safer Internet Principles signatory companies. Sulake, with its products Habbo Hotel and IRC-Galleria, is proud to be part of this group.

The individual evaluations of the services can be found on the EU Commission’s site. As you can read from the Sulake report, we can honestly say that our safety approaches are currently (and have always been) on a rather good level – of course there are always places to improve and we work constantly to do more on this front.

Furthermore, even though we feel that Habbo Hotel belongs to the safest services on the internet, our players are using many other services that may not be equally safe. Thus, we feel that especially the user education is of utmost importance and we strive to work with different organizations and governmental bodies to cover this area in a proper manner.

The Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU shows an excellent example of cooperation and goodwill of all the signatory companies – not to forget the contributing organizations and researchers. We hope that many new services and companies join this initiative.

Let’s keep up this good work!

Some background of the principles:
The Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU were signed on 10 February 2009 by 18 major social networking service providers active in Europe, and joined by 2 further signatories in June 2009. All signatories, except Giovani.it, provided their self-declarations to the European Commission by June 2009. The evaluation report of implementation of the Safer Social Networking Principles presented today is based on an analysis of the companies' self-declarations and actual testing of the respective sites from end of October to beginning of November 2009.

Connecting Habbo Hotel to your social circle

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:44:00 +0200

This is my first post to the sulake.com blog, and what an exciting topic it is! Just before Christmas we made it possible to play Habbo Hotel inside Facebook, and share the fun with your real-life friends in addition to people you've met inside Habbo. Today, I'm happy to tell that we've extended this idea further, and now you can share Habbo with your friends and connections over Twitter, Yahoo, Windows Live, Hyves and other networks, too.

I want to use this opportunity to explain what you can do with this, and why we think it makes Habbo more fun. I'm also going to address one concern I've heard repeated since we launched this feature.

As our loyal players can tell you, Habbo can be a great, fun way of meeting people outside of the constraints of the real world, and many have made lasting friendships with other people they might have never otherwise met. Habbo Hotel is also a place where all kinds of activities, mostly invented by other players, happen every minute. Where else?

The flip side of this freedom created by anonymity is that it's not always easy to find your real life friends inside Habbo Hotel, and many players may not even realize they're mingling in a place where people they know are also active. Yet feedback from the Habbo community tells us that it's best enjoyed with friends and people you know you have common interests with.

Linking the real life and Habbo Hotel together is a way to bridge these things together. By logging into Habbo Hotel using your social network identity, you make it easier for you and your friends to come together.
As an added bonus, it's one less password to keep safe.

But what about anonymity? Habbo has always been anonymous, and we've advised our users to never reveal their real life identity to strangers.

This remains true even today. Your name will not be shown to other players unless you're already friends with them outside Habbo Hotel, and both of you want to share Habbo Hotel to your social circles. If you do not want to connect your social network and your Habbo friends together, you're welcome to continue using Habbo Hotel the way you've done before - and nothing changes for you.

We are constantly seeking for new ways for our users to maximize their Habbo experiences. More updates coming soon!

Finland’s leading business media names Habbo Hotel “top of the decade”

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:45:00 +0200

Now that we’ve reached the end of the first decade of this millennium (this is controversial I know!), many news outlets have started to evaluate the tops and flops of the past ten years. As Habbo Hotel and our company Sulake were founded almost exactly ten years ago and we’ve worked our way to the top during this time, we are of course expecting to be on many of these lists!

One recent media that did a tops & flops list was Kauppalehti, the leading business daily in our home country Finland. Among their Finnish tops for the decade were: the coming of the Euro currency, Linux OS, the internet, Google, China, Marimekko, and of course Habbo Hotel! The justification for our spot was the internationalization of the product and huge growth in users, i.e. success in general.

On the flip side, among the Finnish flops were (just mentioning a few not so local ones): the IT bubble, Y2K, George W. Bush, and the decline in alcohol taxation.

Unfortunately the story seems not to be posted online, so can’t link to it here ☹

Habbo.es wins award in Spain

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:40:00 +0200

The Spanish State Secretary of Communications and Information Society is celebrating the 20 years of the .es domain. Therefore, 20 websites have been selected as the “Best Websites of the last 20 years”. Habbo.es was one of the awarded domains and I was privileged to be the one to pick it up at FICOD 09, the international fair of digital content that takes place every year in Madrid.

The more than 4 million unique users that visit Habbo.es each month guaranteed this award. Security and creativity are essential in our work in order to offer a suitable environment to our teen audience. But what users in Habbo.es love the most are the different activities and agreements we reach to turn the Hotel into a dynamic and enjoyable place in which Habbos can chat with their favorite artists, meet brands or receive prizes.

There are currently 1.1 million registered .es domains. The “Best Websites of the last 20 years” awards take into account the work of private and public companies that promote the Information Society in Spain. Accessibility, innovation, the number of users and the support for the Internet development are also some of the points that the judge has valued to select the following websites from the 100 that were submitted for the nomination:

•    www.habbo.es
•    www.20minutos.es
•    www.aeccjunior.es
•    www.aena.es
•    www.castillalamancha.es
•    www.arsys.es
•    www.cocacola.es
•    www.elmundo.es
•    www.gallinablanca.es
•    www.guggenheim-bilbao.es
•    www.meaztegigolf.es
•    www.serviweb.es
•    www.simyo.es
•    www.vodafone.es
•    www.nestle-tv.es
•    www.nickelodeon.es
•    www.oscarvelazquez.es
•    www.pulevasalud.es
•    www.rtve.es
•    www.seg-social.es

Children’s Rights Day 20th anniversary celebrations in Habbo.fi

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:23:00 +0200

This autumn we ran a very exciting campaign in Habbo Finland, related to the UN Children’s Rights Day 20th anniversary, held on November 20th.

The campaign was done in cooperation with a bunch of goodwill organizations, including Unicef, Save the Children, Mannerheim League for Child Welfare and EOPH (Life tastes better without drugs) to mention a few.

The main theme of the campaign was naturally children’s rights and how well young people are aware of them. We e.g. looked into the teen knowledge of children’s rights by organizing a survey in Habbo, and found out the Finnish youth are well aware of their rights as under 18 year olds. We also arranged a competition concerning the same topic and the chosen 13 participants who answered correctly to the competition questions were able to take part in a chat in Habbo with the Finnish Speaker of the Parliament, Mr. Sauli Niinistö.

The goodwill partners organized chats related to the topic in Habbo during the one month campaign, so that users could discuss the subject in more detail with the organization representatives . All the campaign activities were promoted on the campaign group page.

The main celebration day, November 20th, started with a chat with Mr. Niinistö in Habbo, where the users could ask him about different issues related to children’s rights. In the afternoon we welcomed three Finnish artists, Jyrki 69, Signmark and Paleface for a visit in Habbo, and Ice Café, the room where the visits were held, was completely packed throughout the evening. We’ve also just created a compilation video of the Children’s Rights Day activities; you can check it out on YouTube. In Finnish only I'm afraid!

Latin American Idol celebrations in Habbo

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0200

As a continuance to the Idol campaigns we’ve had so far in Habbo US & FR, we’ve this autumn agreed on a partnership with FremantleMedia Latin America and Sony Entertainment Television, to bring the Latin American Idol to the huge LatAm Habbo audience of over 10 million users! The Idol campaign started in habbo.es in September, and will continue throughout the autumn, until the fourth season TV finale of the show on December 10th.

Latin American Idol is the first version of ‘Idols’, which unites more than 20 countries in one big talent competition with participants from the whole region and in which habitants within the whole region can vote their favorite candidate by phone.

As part of the Idol celebrations, there has been created a branded Idol stage within the virtual world, and two new Idol furnis will be launched each week throughout the competition. There is also a campaign group page created for the show, which only a couple of hours after opening gained over 5,000 members. Currently there are over 46,000 members, more joining each day. It seems the Habbos are as excited as we are of the show ☺

The last 7 finalists are coming for a visit in Habbo every Friday, after they’ve been eliminated from the competition, so Habbos will have an exclusive chance to meet the stars! So far we’ve had one of the competitors, Rolando, for a visit, and on Friday November 11th we’re getting the next one – looking forward to see whom that’l l be!

Tokio Hotel touring Habbo!

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:09:00 +0200

Fans in a frenzy: Tokio Hotel the four-man rock band from Magdeburg, Germany, will fire up their fans in Habbo starting on September 26th. The band members, already familiar with Habbo from their previous visits, will do an exclusive five-country tour in Habbo. The tour starts from Germany on Saturday, then moves on to Italy, and to US on Sunday, and finishes in Spain & France on Tuesday Sept 29th. You can check out the exact schedule below.

Tokio Hotel members Bill, Tom, Gustav, and Georg will not only chat about their latest Single “Automatic” in the world's largest youth community, they will also answer questions about their lives as famous rock stars, their worldwide success, and their private lives.

Some basic info about Tokio Hotel if you happen to be a rare person not knowing the band: just a year and a half after their discovery, the four-man band landed at the top of the German charts with their debut album “Schrei”. Their climb up the ladder of success continues with powerful rock sounds worldwide: the world-famous band’s new album is called “Humanoid” (Release October 2nd), and the first single, “Automatisch”, was released on September 18th.

Along with a Bambi in the category National Pop in 2005 and the Echo for best newcomer in 2006 and 2006, the band has also already been internationally recognized with the MTV Europe Music Award 2008 as Best Headliner as well as the Best Newcomer Award in the US at the MTV Video Music Awards 2008.

Schedule for the visits:

Saturday September 26th
3pm - 3.45 (CET) Habbo Chat Germany
4.15pm - 5pm (CET) Habbo Chat Italy

Sunday September 27th
11am - 11.45am (PST) Habbo Chat US

Tuesday September 29th
5pm - 5.45pm (CET) Habbo Chat Spain
6pm - 6.34pm (CET) Habbo Chat France

For further info on the visits, check out the local Habbo group page in Italy, Germany, US, Spain & France.

Real-life rock festival online in IRC-Galleria

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:21:00 +0200

To be honest, a live video and audio stream from a concert is really not that special anymore, we've done that before a couple of times. BUT this time we are streaming almost a complete rock festival in IRC-Galleria, which is - just to remind you - Finland's largest social networking servicefor young adults. That is special! Here's how it goes:

IRC-Galleria gives its every user (even un-registered) the unique possibility to attend the Jurassic Rock festival (held in Mikkeli, Finland) using their own computer. Almost all artists performing on the main stage can be seen on the festival community page in IRC-Galleria. The "festival vibe" comes not only from the performing artists but from the interaction among the audience. Based on our previous experience, this interaction can be achieved also in a real-time chat. It is really possible to sing along together by just using text - at least this is true when talking about the "digital natives"!

Even if you are not a member of IRC-Galleria, you too can be on the front row of Jurassic Rock main stage - wherever you physically are. The preliminary schedule can be found below. The times are Eastern European Summer Time - i.e. GMT +3.

Friday, August 7

17:15-18:15 Viikate
19:00-20:00 Sonic Syndicate (SWE)
21:00-22:00 Stam1na
23:00-24:00 Apulanta

Saturday, August 8

17:00-18:00 Kotiteollisuus
18:45-19:45 Popeda
22:30-23:30 Pain (SWE)
00:15-01:30 Danko Jones (CAN)

Check out the festival yourself:
IRC-Galleria festival community:

Just dance, with Lady GaGa in Habbo!

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:07:00 +0200

We’ve had some pretty big names visiting Habbo communities all over the world, but this week it’s the first time we welcome a star that’s in the global top three of most liked artists!

Next Saturday, July 25th we’ve got the pleasure of hosting a Lady GaGa visit in Habbo Netherlands, together with Universal Music. She is definitely one of the favorite artists of all Habbo’s. In the Global Habbo Youth Surveys brand update 2009 Lady GaGa was the #1 favorite of Dutch teens and #3 in global rankings. With this in mind, it’s definitely going to be a treat for the Dutch Habbo’s!

As a teaser campaign for the highly awaited visit, Lady GaGa’s identity was kept a secret for a week, during which Habbos were asked to guess the identity of the ‘Mystery Guest’. Every day, a cryptic clue was released on the site and on Habbo Radio. At the end of the week, Lady GaGa’s identy was revealed and five Habbo’s who guessed it right won the contest. They all won a one-month subscription to Habbo Club and a VIP Badge for the Lady GaGa event on Saturday 25th of July.

Check out the Lady Gaga group page on Habbo.nl.

Habbo reveals the teen tribes of today

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:12:00 +0200

We recently conducted a global research in Habbo to find out how the tribes of today vary from the ones from before, and how the modern day youth find them. The survey also looked into how social networks and virtual worlds impact on how today’s tribes are formed. The survey was answered by nearly 60,000 Habbo users from 31 countries around the world.

Subcultures, be it punk, rockers or hippies, have always played a role in teenage life. Our research shows, that as in the past, teens still join tribes due to a love of their fashion and music – a key part of identity and self-expression at a young age.

Social networks and virtual worlds have, however, allowed them to widen the search for groups to belong to. Increased levels of information sharing and the ease with which teenagers can speak to others means that they can join groups that they may not have the confidence to in the real world.

When assessing whether to join a tribe, 57% of respondents said it was very or quite important for them to be part of a group of people that had similar interests to them; with a liking of the associated fashion and style (52%), and the music that is linked to them (50%), followed by a respect of the associated philosophy in third place (19%).

The research shows that teens do not believe that new tribes are born over the years but they are tribes from previous generations that have taken on different names, such as hippies and today’s eco-warriors.

In teens’ minds, tribes of today are really close to current trends – especially given the strong links to fashion and music. The tribes that teens are most familiar with today are hip-hoppers, skaters and emos, with teddy boys, ragamuffins and nu-ravers fading into history. Most of the teens also said, that they would feel lost in life if they couldn’t find a social group that presented them, though a minority of the respondents also stated that they don’t identify with any tribe.

Whilst teens may feel lost if they cannot identify a tribe that fits them in real life, social networks and virtual worlds have vastly expanded the ways in which they can connect with likeminded people.

71 per cent of the respondents confirmed that the Internet has made it easier for them to find people with the same interests and tastes. Virtual worlds in particular allow a level of anonymity with which teens can explore different interests that may not be reflected by their social groups in the real world. As a result, 58 per cent of teens don’t feel bound to belong to the same tribes online as they do in real-life.

Compared to time prior to computers, the online culture of today provides the youth more freedom of choice by allowing teens to pursue interests and passions that they may not be able to confidently share with real world friends. The fact that half of teens would feel lost without a tribe shows their online lives can help them explore their identity on their journey into adulthood.

Teenagers name Sony the number one consumer tech brand

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:57:00 +0200

Last week we announced some interesting results from the Global Habbo Youth Survey (GHYS) Brand Update 2009. Here's some additional information, specifically about consumer technology brands:
•    PlayStation brand image remains strong, but PS3 loses ground
•    Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 are the international game consoles of choice for both girls and boys

112,000 teens from over 30 countries took part in the survey that indicates how teen brand perceptions are changing towards companies that have already been hit by the recession. The Global Youth Survey Brand Update 2009 is a follow-up to the GHYS 2008, published in April last year.

Consumer Electronic Brand Leaders
This year, across product categories, Sony is named the overall leader but the appearance of Apple and Nintendo confirms the increasing teen appeal of the iPod, iPhone and Nintendo Wii. Top global technology brands:

1.    Sony
2.    Apple
3.    Nintendo
4.    Samsung
5.    Hewlett-Packard

The top five consumer electronic brands include a mix of hardware manufacturers, representing the many areas of teenage lives that are touched by technology. In the 2008 study young people were shown to own a mobile phone (82%), mp3 player (73%), TV (71%), as well as a desktop computer (62%), DVD player (60%), and digital camera (50%).

Video Games Brand Wars
This year’s findings suggest that PlayStation’s dominance is slipping for the first time, as the affection of the teen audience fragments across gender lines. The 2008 GHYS revealed that the majority of teenagers preferred the PlayStation3 (69 per cent said it was “great” or “good”) . This year Sony’s gaming brands still resonate with teenagers; “PlayStation” is named the number one games console brand followed by “Nintendo” then “Microsoft”. Nintendo Wii was the preferred console of choice for girls in 18 of the 30 countries ¹. Xbox was named the boys’ favorite in 10 countries ² .

About the research
The research was conducted within the virtual world, Habbo, and the total amount of respondents (after data cleaning) was 112,000. The research was conducted during April 2009 and results on favorite brands are based on answers written in open text fields. Over 30 countries were surveyed and statistical weighting was employed to give all participating countries an equal weight in the global results.

Research is available from the Sulake Web Store.

¹Nintendo Wii number 1 gaming platform for girls in: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, US, Venezuela
²Microsoft Xbox number 1 gaming platform for boys in: Australia, Canada, Columbia, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, UK, US

Spring full of Nouvelle Star in Habbo FR

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:00:00 +0200

While we’ve lately been blogging about the American Idol currently ongoing in the US, we’re pleased to say that we recently also entered into an agreement with Nouvelle Star, the French edition of the Fremantle Idol show.

Throughout the agreement, Habbo France will introduce several different activities in the community to promote the show. These include a Nouvelle Star room in Habbo, where the users can participate in a weekly quiz related to the show, and also meet up with the eliminated singer candidates who will do visits in Habbo each week after the show. Habbo will also conduct several games around music, and talent contests in specifically created Nouvelle Star private rooms.

So far we’ve had the pleasure of welcoming Yoann in Habbo couple of weeks ago, and last week Melissa came for a visit to chat with the users. Today, we're having a chat with Mahdi at 5pm CET, who was dropped from the competition yesterday. Currently there are six candidates remaining in the competition, excited to see who’s coming next week ☺ We also have the privilege to host a chat with the Nouvelle Star winner once the show ends on June 10th!

You can keep up with the forthcoming activities at the Habbo Nouvelle Star Group, which has over 20,000 members already - everyone keenly following how the show will draw to a close!

Sulake Named AlwaysOn OnHollywood 100 Winner

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:51:00 +0200

Again some good news on the competition front: Sulake was just recently selected to the 2009 OnHollywood 100 List. The OnHollywood 100 Award is given to “private, emerging technology companies in the media and entertainment industries.” Sulake was selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team based on demonstration of growth, market opportunity, quality of innovation and customer traction.

Sulake and the other OnHollywood 100 winners will be recognized at the OnHollywood, April 27th-29th at The Sofitel Hotel in West Hollywood. According to the organizers OnHollywood is “ where cutting-edge technology CEOs from the back streets of Silicon Valley meet the Hollywood digital entertainment and media elite.”

The OnHollywood 100 winners were selected from among hundreds of other technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists and industry insiders. The AlwaysOn editorial team conducted a rigorous three-month selection process to finalize the 2009 list.

Congrats also to other companies nominated! A full list of all the OnHollywood 100 winners can be found on the AlwaysOn website.

American Idol stirring up Habbo

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:51:00 +0200

During the past couple of weeks we at habbo.com have had the pleasure of welcoming several American Idol 8th season contestants for a visit in Habbo. So far the artist visits have included Jorge Nunes, Jasmine Murray, Alexis Grace and Michael Sarver, and we’re all excited to see who’s coming next! Not that we hope for anyone to go home, but that’s just the name of the game.

The Habbo visits will continue until the very end of the show, as all of the contestants voted off the show will come to meet Habbo users right after the show. You can check out the visits on the American Idol group page, where we have pics and info on the past and upcoming artists posted as the show goes forward.

Last week we also had one of the 7th season finalists, David Archuleta for a visit. You can check out an exclusive video interview and pictures of David’s visit in Habbo.

In addition to the celeb visits, there are also lots of other activities in Habbo around American Idol. Check out the list of user generated events and the current Habbo American Idol competition. New American Idol themed furni are also introduced each week.

We have also introduced a competition where you can win tickets to the Idol Finale! Just note that you need to be a US citizen to take part.

Stay tuned to see how the show hypes up towards the end, and the selection of the next American Idol ☺

HPV’s Habbo campaign wins at MEGA awards

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:00:00 +0200

We are extremely proud to tell you that the advertising campaign “ HPV Vaccine – Virtual Surgery in Habbo Hotel” has won the most Innovative Launch Campaign category at the prestigious MediaGuardian Innovation Awards 2009.

The awards are organised by the MediaGuardian, the UK’s leading media title. They recognise innovative work across all media, so winning one is definitely a major achievement.

The winning HPV campaign was for the launch of a nation wide vaccination program to fight cervical cancer. It was centered on running a series of virtual surgeries in Habbo where young girls could come and speak to a real nurse about the vaccination program. The challenge was to engage young girls so we could answer their questions and prepare them for the vaccine procedure.

What added to the uniqueness of this campaign was that we secured special clearance from the Advertising Standards Authority to run the promotion, in doing so we feel this set the precedent for such campaigns aimed at young people.

All said and done, we hope Habbo played a small part in the fight against this dreadful disease.

Romance isn’t dead; it’s online say teens

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:32:00 +0200

To celebrate Valentine’s Day last week we did an extensive global poll in Habbo already a few weeks back. The subject was very popular among our users, as over 128,000 teenagers across the globe answered the survey. Here are some interesting results from this “flirting survey”:

Basically what we found out was that technology is helping teenagers hone their flirting habits. In fact, 64% of the respondents feel that technology has made it easier for young people to flirt with each other.

According to 76% of teens surveyed romance is still alive and well in today’s digital age, however the advent of the internet means exchanging glances at the school dance is not the only way to get the object of your desire’s attention.

Teens haven’t dismissed ‘old fashioned’ forms of communication, with 44% preferring to flirt face-to-face. However, instant messaging, social networks and virtual worlds (16% in total) are other ways teens are using to reach out to those they have a crush on. Teens are sticking with traditional gender roles, as 50% of all respondents believed that boys should make the first move – however 37% don’t think it matters which gender takes the plunge.

Dating and relationships are a hot topic amongst today’s teens with 60% rating them as important conversation topics amongst their circle of friends. This is not surprising considering 75% of teens say they have had at least one real-life romance, whilst 11% claim to have been in over ten relationships. Over 50% of teens say they started dating before they were twelve, and true to their digital native ways, 70% have had at least one online boyfriend or girlfriend.

The 128,826 teens participating in the January 2009 Habbo survey came from 33 countries spread across 6 continents.

Habbo fansite wins award in The Netherlands

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:02:00 +0200

As we always say, it is the users who make Habbo what it is. One excellent example of this user-generatedness is the amount and quality of fan pages our Habbos have produced all over the world. There must be thousands of these pages from Australia to Canada, and some of them get nominated as “official fan sites” – currently there are some 130 of these sites.

As a proof of the quality of our great fan sites, one of them just recently won a prestigious award in the Netherlands. Habboveggies, a Belgian site, which is an official fan site for Habbo NL, won the De Gouden @penstaart competition!

De Gouden @penstaart (or in english: Golden @-symbol) is an annual award, given to the best sites for children, and made by teens. There is both an award for professional sites and for sites made by teens of 17 years and younger. The award was first given out in 1999 and is now hosted by Stichting Mijn Kind Online (Foundation of My Child Online), a knowledge and advisory centre, focusing on youths and (new) media. The foundation has as a goal to gain more insight in the possibilities of new media and also to contribute to a responsible use of new media towards children and teens.

Teens and children in the Netherlands could apply for their own site to be considered for the award. A jury judged all applications on three factors: attractiveness, reliability and user-friendliness. A total of six sites were nominated after which the voting would start. Visitors of the site could cast out a vote for their favorite site. Habbo NL sent out an email to all official Habbo fansites to invite them to participate in the competition. This really paid off, because V-Bloemkool (the owner of www.habboveggies.be) was nominated for an award.

What followed was a small campaign in Habbo and in the various fansites to ask the Habbos to vote for V-Bloemkool. This showed the power and enthusiasm of Habbo because Habboveggies won the award, earning the right to call itself the 'Best Childrenswebsite of the year, made by teens'. A total of 15.000 votes were cast. The jury was impressed with the consistent quality and original sense of humor of the site.

About Habboveggies:
Habboveggies is an official Habbo Fansite, made almost in it's entirety by one Habbo: V-Bloemkool. It's a humoristic site, which focuses on the so-called 'Habbo Vedgetables', who live in Veggietown (right next to Habbo). Every Friday the site is updated with movies, articles about Habbo, the main vedgetable-cast and much, much more. The main-characters also live in Habbo NL, and have their own rooms in the client. Habboveggies has a quirky sense of humor. V-Bloemkool uses a lot of puns, word jokes and old classics in a new 'Habboveggies' coating.

Talking about some serious bobba in Habbo

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:23:00 +0200

For us in Habbo, user safety has always been a top priority and our teams work hard every day to keep the virtual world as safe and fun as possible. Among the serious issues that can be seen in different online services are different sex related activities, whether that is sharing nude images or even webcam sex.

According to a "Sex and Tech" survey done in November 2008, 21% of teen girls and 18% of teen boys have sent/posted nude or semi-nude images of themselves on the internet. This statistic alone shows the serious nature of the topic.

The global "Let's talk about Bobba" safety campaign implemented in all Habbo communities during January and February 2009 is raising awareness about the dangers of sharing personal information and pictures, and webcam sex in the Internet. The word "Bobba" in the campaign name refers to Habbo’s language-filtering tool, which filters out offensive words including racist and sexist language as well as personal information.

As a result of the campaign, our aim is that our users should understand why sending personal information and pictures may be very risky and why they should not accept webcam requests from strangers. We sincerely hope that all online services aimed at the younger audience will actively discuss and educate about this topic.

Check out the Habbo.com campaign page for further information.

Habbo Xmas is here!

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:42:00 +0200

The traditional Habbo Xmas festivities have begun. This year, the users are pampered with tons of snowy activities; daily events and competitions, quests, new arctic style virtual furniture, and - last but not least - special guests from South Pole: the penguins. There is a new unique penguin for every day for every user that logs in - for free! So far already over 1 million penguins have been given out globally.

Check out the activities in the daily calendar.

Mini Friday reaches 1M accounts

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:30:00 +0200

Mini Friday, our mobile virtual world experiment, has reached 1 million registered accounts. That's quite a number for a small research project. Mini Friday is not that mini anymore!

Unlike some blogs have interpreted, Mini Friday is not a mobile version of Habbo. It is a public feasibility test of virtual worlds on mobile phones. And a million registered accounts seems very promising. There most certainly is market demand for mobile virtual worlds, and therefore we're developing a new "commercial" version of Mini Friday with a larger feature set.

We will announce more details about this new project in the first half of 2009.

Habbo founders awarded by the Nokia Foundation

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:58:00 +0200

Yesterday Nokia released a press announcement, which for us at Sulake is of course brilliant news: Nokia Foundation granted its 2008 award to Aapo Kyrölä and Sampo Karjalainen, the founders of our company and the creators of Habbo.

Henry Tirri, Head of Nokia Research Center comments in the press release:
"Aapo Kyrölä and Sampo Karjalainen have been chosen for this award because of their contributions to collaborative media and social networking. The Habbo virtual world is loved by teenagers all over the world as an easy way to meet new people and keep in touch with friends. The design of the virtual characters is unique, and the constantly evolving features of the collaborative game have driven innovation in an area where competition is tough.”

Research and Development is one of the areas that we feel we are strong at and thus it is very pleasing to hear this also in Jorma Ollila’s (Chairman of Nokia's Board of Directors) press release quote:

"Research is what allows a company to not only survive economic turmoil, but actually thrive once the market has stabilized again. R&D can be considered an insurance policy, whose premiums are paid during good economic times, hedging against uncertainties in the marketplace. Those companies that are able to focus their efforts and continue to create new, innovative products will be best positioned as the situation improves."

Previous recipients of the Nokia Foundation's annual award were Lauri Kuokkanen (1995), Pekka Tarjanne (1996), Linus Torvalds (1997), Arto Salomaa (1998), Kullervo Nieminen (1999), Osmo A. Wiio (2000), Ilkka Haikala (2001), Veikko Rintamäki (2002), George Metakides (2003), Heikki Lyytinen (2004), Moncef Gabbouj (2005), Mårten Mickos (2006), and Pekka Abrahamsson (2007).

Sulake selected as one of the hottest mediatech companies in Europe

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:48:00 +0200

Good news is always nice to blog about! Just a few days ago Library House 2008 Mediatech 100 supported by Kemp Little and NMA announced their list of hottest mediatech companies around, and Sulake is nicely placed in the top 10!

A panel including a vast array of known mediatech investors and experts in Europe did the evaluation. Sulake took the 6th position on the list, consisting of 100 companies said most likely to change the mediatech world. The list was selected by carefully assessing companies using Library House proprietary data filters and an expert advisory panel. The growth potential and the market impact potential of the companies were also significant criteria in selecting the companies on the list. To find out more about the Mediatech 100 companies, you can check out an extensive report here.

The distinguished expert panel included senior representatives from e.g. Microsoft UK, Amadeus Capital, Kodak External Alliances, and Advent Venture Partners among others.

Some of the top 100 companies, including Sulake, will be showcased in the Essential Mediatech 2008 event held in London on November 11th.

Other companies in the top ten included i.e. Flirtomatic, MOO Print, Where Are You Now, Dailymotion and King.com. Congratulations to all!

Taking serious action to fight against internet crime

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:42:00 +0200

"Internet crime rates are higher than ever"; "Thousands of stolen identities"; "Year 2008 is the year of internet fraud". These are just a couple of examples about the headlines you may see in the news almost daily. Unfortunately this time these headlines are correct.

One of our main goals for us as a social media / online entertainment company is to keep the user environments in Habbo and IRC-Galleria as safe as possible, and yes also to fight against internet crime. In this sector we have tightened our procedures and now we are taking some serious action to prevent these illegalities from happening.

We are of course not alone with this issue - we work closely with law enforcement to solve cases and also to educate people. As an example of recent activities, we did an extensive search with the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to find a person in the USA who had been harassing our Habbo service and its customers for a long time.

After several failed attempts to stop this person ourselves, we decided to involve the authorities. The FBI’s official investigations started in February 2008. During the summer this year the FBI had done a search in the suspect’s residence and they had found possible references to other illegal activities as well. These may result in more serious charges against this person.

The safety of our users is a top priority for us and we pay serious attention to all attempts to perform malicious activity regarding our products and the communities around them. Our skilled security staff investigates all cases and some of them are also reported to authorities when applicable. We are also working actively in cooperation with other industry players and different organizations when it comes to the security and safety of the internet.

200,000 Habbo users celebrated peace in Habbo communities all over the world

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:13:00 +0200

What a great peace event we had ☺ Check out the video!

If you did not know this already, on Friday the 19th of September Habbo and War Child staged the Global Habbo Global Peace Gathering, a virtual peace event organized in Habbo communities all over the world. 18 countries were united by the campaign to raise awareness of the impact of conflict on young people. The events were arranged to celebrate the UN International Day of Peace, held on Sunday 21st of September.

In addition to participating the gathering, the Habbo users could download virtual badges and stickers to support the cause - a total of over 133,00 stickers and badges were handed out during the event. Users could also show their support on the campaign group pages, through which they accessed information on how conflicts affect young people.

Peace!

Campaign for Peace starting in Habbo next week

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:32:00 +0200

On Sunday the 21st of September people around the world celebrate the International Day of Peace.

To support the Day of Peace, Habbo will arrange a series of activities in the global communities.

The activity around the Habbo Global Peace Gathering campaign will start on Monday 15th of September, including virtual rooms, a group page where users can leave their message for peace, and badges created for their virtual avatar to wear.

The peace activities will build towards the Global Peace Gathering on Friday 19th September; teens around the world will unite to make their voices heard on an issue that is very important to them.

The importance this issue has for young people around the world was shown by the responses to a survey that ran in the communities this week. Over 30,000 teens took part in the poll, sharing their thoughts on peace and issues of war. The results will be shared as activity builds around the Global Peace Gathering.

War Child International have worked closely with Habbo on the campaign, sharing their experiences of working with young people living in war zones. War Child has also arranged for seven young people from Uganda to join the local peace march in Habbo Netherlands. Together teens around the world will unite to create a unique visual representation of the strength of the teen voice.

The Habbo Global Peace Gathering will allow teens to gather and show their support, and take part in the largest global online gathering ever seen!

Check out Habbo for the Global Peace Gathering events, starting on Monday 15th!

Some blogging about blogging

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:02:00 +0200

Lately there has been quite a lot of talk about blogs being "so last year" in several different places around the Internet. However, this is not the case in Finland. In IRC-Galleria, the most active social networking site in the Nordic countries, blogging has grown significantly during the last six months. Currently the users of the site post on their blogs over a million times in total every month!

In the beginning of summer 2008 a new feature was introduced in IRC-Galleria: now the users can tag their blog entries to be a part of one of the over half a million communities on the site. While this may sound like a rather simple thing, it is in fact quite revolutionary. In the long run, the blog tagging feature will make every community on the site an information resource created by the users. And since there's a community regarding practically every subject you can imagine, this is something that really doesn't exist in any other social networking site.

Top 5 subjects during the first month of blog tagging:

1. Midsummer
2. Love
3. Festivals
4. The European Soccer Championship
5. Humour

Habbo Teen Survey Reveals Television is still a Hit With Teens

Fri, 30 May 2008 04:00:00 +0200

The Global Habbo Youth Survey has delivered us an extensive amount of intriguing insights into the lives of teenagers today – as you may have learned from our earlier blog posts dealing with the various topics of the survey. This is the fourth peek we provide to the findings, in the previous ones we have covered teenager’s mobile usage habits, shared views on youth’s number one interest area music, and explained their game console preferences across different countries. This last one is about teenagers’ media consumption habits.

Our global survey revealed that TV consumption maintains its relevance amongst teens. However, Internet is still the number one media to nearly all of the respondents.

For the study, Habbo surveyed 58,486 teens between the ages 11 and 18 from 31 countries. The results show that 75 percent of all respondents say TV is an important medium for them – six percentage points up on from the 2006 study. Interestingly, the importance of magazines and radio drops two and six percentage points to 49 percent and 41 percent respectively. Newspapers stay static with 37 percent of teens claiming their importance. The relevance of TV is especially high in the Latin American, Southern European and Asian countries where over 80 percent of respondents say it’s important to them.

When looking at the most popular TV content, teen tastes are very similar all over the world. Amongst both boys and girls the overall favourite TV show is The Simpsons, which was also the clear favourite in 2006. Globally, cartoons and animes such as Family Guy, South Park and Naruto are more popular among boys, whereas girls enjoy watching sitcoms and drama series like Hannah Montana, Friends and Desperate Housewives.

When looking at the gender differences the survey reveals that girls read more magazines whereas boys are slightly more interested in reading newspapers. The findings also imply that newspaper publishers may be heading for difficulties in the future, unless they find more ways to connect with the young Internet generation. Overall, respondents viewed newspapers as the least important medium with 25 percent stating them to be not important at all.

Considering that teen media usage is dominated by having access to desirable content when and where they want it, it was surprising to see that TV is still considered so important for teens, and in many countries it’s on the rise. This is expected because a lot of quality content is still generated for television and digital video recorders such as TiVo and Sky+ allow teens to fit the programmes they want to watch into their busy schedules.

It’s clear from the survey that the way teens consume media shouldn’t be taken for granted and there are no hard and fast rules aside from perhaps that teens appear to value on demand services. Although Internet still remains the most important medium, it is also used as a channel to access content from TV and other more traditional media. However, the survey results reveal teens still greatly appreciate their TV screen and it should not be ignored when trying to connect with them.

A report of the Global Habbo Youth Survey 2008 is available to buy as a hard copy book of 250 pages. For inquiries and orders, please visit the Sulake Webstore.

Check also the announcement press release.

About the research
The research was conducted within the virtual world, Habbo, and the total amount of respondents (after data cleaning) was 58, 486. The research was conducted between October and November 2007. 31 countries were surveyed and statistical weighting was employed to give all participating countries an equal weight in the global results. Research is available on request.

Teen audience won over by PlayStation according to Habbo’s Global Youth Survey

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:46:00 +0200

To us at Sulake the recent news about Sony’s PS3 console overtaking Microsoft’s Xbox in European sales did not come as a surprise. According to our recent Habbo Global Youth Survey, PS3 was clearly more popular that Xbox in most of the countries studied.

58,486 teens between the ages of 11 and 18 took part in the global survey across 31 markets. From the respondents, 69 percent refer to the PS3 console as “great” or “good”. This was followed closely by the Nintendo Wii at 64 percent and Xbox 360 with 58 percent.

The PS3 beats Wii in every age group except the 11 to 12 year olds. However, the Wii is more popular amongst girls up to 16 year olds, and is the favoured female choice overall. The results also show that whilst the Xbox 360 is less popular in Europe and Asia, its popularity in the Americas fares much better: it is the most popular console in Mexico and Colombia and takes second place in the US, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

The results of this survey are interesting as it gives us an insight into which brands these teens aspire to as the level of ownership does not correspond to the consoles’ popularity. By order of ownership, the Wii leads, followed by the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Of the teens surveyed, 24 percent own a Wii, with 21 percent and 23 percent owning a PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively. The results do suggest significant growth potential, with each of these consoles there is another 20% planning on buying one of these consoles in the next 12 months. The Wii and PS3 have the most sales potential: the amount of respondents that are interested in buying them is 4 to 5 percentage points higher than for the Xbox 360.

As Sony and Xbox strive to broaden their console’s appeal, from hardcore to casual gamer, the results of the survey seem to indicate that gender, not previous gaming experience, determines console choice. Regardless of their level of interest towards gaming boys prefer the PS3 and girls prefer the Wii.

A report of the Global Habbo Youth Survey 2008 is available to buy as a hard copy book of 250 pages. For more information and orders, please go to the Sulake webstore.

Music is the Most Influential Form of Entertainment Amongst Teens

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:33:00 +0200

The second Global Youth Survey conducted by Habbo revealed that music is the number one interest for today’s teens, forming a key element of their social identity. Pop music is shown to still have a strong presence amongst teenagers, with 67 per cent expressing a like for the genre. Rock, electronic music and hip hop also fare well on a global basis with 64 percent, 56 percent and 49 percent respectively, showing the styles that have the most influence amongst today’s young music consumers.

For the study, Habbo surveyed 58,486 teens between the ages 11 and 18 from 31 countries. The results offer great insight into how music taste is linked to identity and interests. Music, along with clothing and appearance, is one of the main ways of expressing identity to others, both connecting and dividing today’s younger generations through the sub-cultures associated with different genres. This is reflected by the three highly distinctive bands that emerge as most popular on a global scale: Fall Out Boy, Linkin Park and Tokio Hotel.

Statistical analysis from the results reflects traditional stereotypes to a certain degree but there are also some surprising findings. For example hip hop listeners are more likely to have an interest in more traditional sports such as football and basketball, whereas extreme sports are associated with an interest in rock. Cooking is rated highly by those with an interest in girl and boy bands; however it is shunned by the rockers who are at the complete opposite end of the scale. Those that love pop music also love the glitz and glamour of showbiz and celebrities but the small percentage that like jazz take an interest in more highbrow pastimes. The worldwide figures also show a high level of variation in musical tastes, with no specific genre dominating the results.

The survey shows that music continues to be one of the most influential forms of entertainment. This is the main reason why teenagers are such active music consumers and are very opinionated about the artists they follow. Music helps them to identify with one another, and form groups of like-minded people that shape and support their identity creation process.

Further information and to place an order for the 250 page research report, please visit the Sulake webstore.

Check out also a press release about the survey.

Sulake is taking serious action against retro and scam site owners

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:23:00 +0200

Habbo Hotel is known among youngsters worldwide. But who has heard of Gabbo Hotel? Or Hobba Hotel? How about Habbi Hotel? These are not names of upcoming Sulake products but names of so called Habbo retros or retro hotels. Retro hotels are fake, illegal Habbo Hotel copies running on emulated servers. They violate trademarks as well as copyright protected images and software of Sulake and might be harmful to play.

Sulake takes such illegal activity very seriously. There are several aspects that also make the situation potentially dangerous for Habbo players: some retro hotels operate as scam or phishing sites as well, recording Habbo names and passwords and then stealing the virtual items, such as furniture from the users on the legit hotel. Not to mention viruses and Trojans, which are found on many of these fake sites.

Most of the retro sites function very poorly and a typical retro hotel has only a couple of simultaneous users. To protect its IP-rights and the users of Habbo, Sulake has now decided to take action.

During January and February Sulake has approached retro hotel site owners with cease and desist letters with the objective of informing the site owners about the illegality of the activity and after that stopping these services. In these letters Sulake offered amicable solutions to solve the situations. Also ISPs and hosting service providers of retro hotel site owners were contacted. Some of the people contacted were cooperative, some not.

At the moment Sulake Legal Department is preparing court proceedings against a number of retro hotel site owners. Further legal actions were already taken against certain scammers in Holland at the end of last year, see e.g. this article.

Short facts:
Retro site: A site that illegally runs a non-authorized, emulated Habbo server which is able to communicate with the Habbo client. The name “retro hotel” comes from the fact that the servers normally run older versions of Habbo.

Retro distributor: A website that distributes server software that can be used to set up a retro hotel.

Scam site: A site that asks for the visitors’ Habbo name and password, or tries to trick the visitor to disclose them in another way. The site owner will then collect the usernames and passwords and steal the furni of the tricked person in the official Habbo Hotel.

Habbo’s Second Global Youth Survey reveals shake up in teens’ favourite mobile brands

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:51:00 +0200

The importance of mobile phones in teenagers' lives is increasing rapidly according to the new Global Habbo Youth Survey. 58,480 teens that took part in the survey say also that Nokia is the number one mobile brand globally.

However, Nokia's dominance at the top of the global chart has been weakened over the last 18 months. In the survey, conducted across 31 countries by Habbo, it is clear that Nokia has lost some favour with teens to Sony Ericsson and Samsung since autumn 2006, when the previous Global Habbo Youth Survey was conducted.

Despite still being the favoured handset in 15 of the 31 countries polled, Nokia loses out to Sony Ericsson in markets such as the UK, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland. In all of these markets Nokia ranked first in 2006. In the UK both Sony Ericsson and Samsung are rated higher than Nokia. This suggests that brand loyalty to Nokia, amongst teens globally, hasn't increased alongside Nokia's market share, which reached 40% in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Compared to the previous 2006 survey, mobile phone usage was the one single area that showed the most significant growth compared to other topics surveyed. The results show for example that teens are now regularly using their mobile handsets as entertainment devices. In the 2006 survey only 38 per cent of teens used their handset to listen to music; now 71 per cent of teenagers are using their mobiles as a portable mp3 player. 80 percent of teens in Singapore, Italy and Austria listened to music in this way, though teens in Japan and Finland listen to music on their mobiles the least.

In addition to talking, text messages are still the most used phone function, with 88 per cent of teens regularly communicating via SMS. But the survey shows that teens are also using entertainment applications much more than they were in 2006. 70 per cent of teens are now using their mobile to take photos and videos, an 11 percentage points increase compared to 2006. 64 per cent now play games on their mobile compared to 51 per cent in 2006. Over a quarter of teens also use their mobile to surf the net, email and send instant messages.

Teens are now using their mobiles to simultaneously access information, communicate and have fun. The teen mobile phone market is competitive and lucrative; but it is clear that by developing phones that deliver an engaging user experience across applications, such as texting, listening to mp3s and playing games, mobile brands can attract a new teen audience to their devices.

A report of the Global Habbo Youth Survey 2008 is available to buy as a hard copy book of 250 pages. To place an order, please visit the Sulake webstore.

Check out also a press release about the survey.

Global Habbo Youth Survey to launch in April

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:23:00 +0200

In addition to being a virtual world and social network developer, Sulake is also very much active in the research field. We are constantly carrying out research projects to gain insight on the views of teenagers around the world on various topics. Habbo, reaching as wide an audience as 8.6 million unique users on a monthly basis, gives us a rather substantial and unique base for studying today’s youth. The Global Habbo Youth Survey coming out in April is the follower to the first edition, which was published in December 2006.

Following the footsteps of the previous research, the new Youth Survey book dives into thrilling insights of the typical teen of today. 58,000 teenagers aged from 12 to 18 years old from 31 countries took part in the research that provides valuable data for anyone interested in the youth segment and online communities/virtual worlds.

The broad report covers areas such as teen interests, values, attitudes, online habits, social media usage, consumption behavior and brand preferences. The analysis is presented on a global and country level, and five psycho-graphical youth segments are explained and used in the analysis.

Compared to the previous version done in 2006, this new publication includes data from 9 new countries and the analysis is taken further throughout the book, including more comparison between different countries. The survey helps to understand the reality where today’s teenagers live, and see what are the commonalities versus differences among global youth.

For more information on the research and to place orders, please contact Sulake’s Research Director Emmi Kuusikko, emmi.kuusikko@sulake.com.

The book will be out in the beginning of April 2008!

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:13:00 +0200

Miten kuluttajat valjastetaan brändilähettiläiksi?

AIKA: huhtikuun 24. päivä, klo 18.00 alkaen
PAIKKA: Sulake, pääkonttori, Korkeavuorenkatu 35.

Suomen merkittävin internet-yhteisöpalveluiden tarjoaja Sulake järjestää huhtikuussa tapahtuman, josta uuden ajan markkinoijan ei kannata jäädä pois! Tule näkemään ja kuulemaan Sulakkeen ja sen asiakkaiden suulla miten kuluttajat aktivoidaan brändiviestin lähettiläiksi.

Ohjelma:

Keynote: Marketing in a Virtual Environment
- Brand experiences in games, virtual worlds and social networks
Jonathan Epstein, President & CEO, DoubleFusion

Sulakkeen kv-nuorisotutkimuksen Suomen tulosten julkistus
- Teinien ja nuorten aikuisten mediakäyttö ja brändimieltymykset
Emmi Kuusikko, Director, User and Market Insight, Sulake

Case: Samsungin kokemukset Habbon virtuaalimaailmassa
Reidar Wasenius, Markkinointipäällikkö, Samsung Electronics

Case: Stabilo kasvatti myyntiään IRC-Gallerian kampanjalla
Heli Vainio, Brand Manager , Oy Lindell Ab

Luvassa myös muita case-esityksiä, runsaasti luovaa keskustelua, verkottumista (IRL), Stig Dogg -keikka, juomaa/ruokaa ja hyvää tunnelmaa Sulakkeen linnassa!

Ilmoittautumiset: events@sulake.com

Kuva: Anna Hämäläinen

Love is in the air - happy Valentine’s from Sulake!

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:54:00 +0200

It’s again time for love, friendship, roses, heart-shaped chocolate boxes and other cutezie stuff ;) We at Sulake take Valentine’s seriously – or romantically in other words…

As a preparation for the day of love we wanted to find out what teens and tweens globally think about relationships, dating etc. Activity certainly was not a problem, as we got over 64,000 replies for our Habbo Valentines poll! Despite climbing divorce rates amongst parents, we found out that teens today are really big romantics at heart: 66% believe in love at first sight and 75% per cent would like to get married one day. About 53% of all the people surveyed want to be married before the ripe old age of 25 – if this will happen the future will certainly be different ☺

It also seems that the old saying “it’s the inside that counts” still counts – when asking about important qualities of the special someone, personality and sense of humor was placed above everything else!

Habborella and lots of hugs

A couple of weeks before the actual Valentine’s day Habbo was transformed into a Habborella cruise ship, during which the “ship crew” (i.e. Habbo staff) concentrated solely on arranging love, passion and dating related activities to entertain the cruise guests ☺ Today on Valentines day, the cruise will culminate to a Valentines Ball, which will surely be the party of the year!

As part of the Valentines activities, Habbo also arranged a virtual version of the Free Hugs campaign on Monday the 11th. The virtual hugging campaign was carried out in several Habbo communities around the world, and Habbos were thrilled of the event, showing up in enthusiastic masses to participate in the hugging ☺ In Australia the real-life Free Hugs predecessor Juan Mann also participated in the hugging event in Habbo with his own, pixilated character.

If you don’t know this: the Free hugs campaign was originally started by an Australian guy called Juan Mann whose life mission once became reaching out and hugging strangers to brighten up their lives. Since the start of the ‘movement’, people have been following Juan’s footsteps, and e.g. in Youtube you can find several videos of the hugging movement from all over the world ☺

Our other community, Finland’s largest social networking service IRC-Galleria also arranged some exciting Valentine’s stuff – one of their missions has been to find out what role the service has had in matching people. So far they have found 600 married people and over 1800 people who found a dating partner in IRC-Galleria.

Funky Valentines Day to you all!

World’s no 1 DJ to concert in Habbo!

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:54:00 +0200

DJ Armin van Buuren, who was recently voted as the number one DJ in the world by DJ Mag, plays a live DJ set in Habbo NL’s Postbank Bizznizz Lounge, Wednesday Feb 6th, 4pm-6pm CET.

The DJ’s first virtual performance is simultaneously broadcasted on Habbo Radio, where the set will be available for listening for two weeks after the performance. The DJ set on Habbo Radio is accessible from other countries, and can be listened to by 100,000 people at the same time.

Habbo users can chat with Armin in the Postbank Bizznizz Lounge on Wednesday from 4pm to 5pm before the gig. The DJ’s virtual visit can also be followed through a video stream in Armin’s Habbo group page created for the concert. The DJ performance will be from 5pm to 6pm CET where he will give his first virtual live concert ever. The concert can be viewed live on the streaming video in the group page.

In cooperation with Armin Van Buuren and Postbank, Habbo has also organized a knowledge quiz and a pixel art competition in which Habbo’s are asked to design a CD cover for Armin.

The DJ set Armin plays in Habbo is his only show he plays in the Netherlands before kicking off to his Armin Only world tour starting of on April 19th.

300th Celebrity Guest to visit Habbo early 2008

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:26:00 +0200

From the very beginning, Habbo has hosted VIP events with artists from the music and film industry, sport athletes, authors and other famous celebrities from around the globe. In total, close to 300 guests have visited different Habbo communities and some of them have returned multiple times and spent time on different language sites.

Amongst the most popular guests have been Akon, Ashlee Simpson, Avril Lavigne, Beastie Boys, Bullet for my Valentine, Chris Brown, Cradle of Filth, Faithless, Fergie, Gorillaz, H.I.M., Hilary Duff, Jamelia, Jesse McCartney, Lily Allen, Lordi, Ozzy Osbourne, Pink, Pussycat Dolls, Rihanna, Sean Kingston, Sugar Babes, The Dudesons, The Rasmus, Tokio Hotel and Westlife.

The Celebrity Guest appearances are a great win-win-win-win situation, practically for everybody. Record companies, management agencies, movie studios etc. get to promote the latest album/single or movie. The artist/celebrity engages in direct conversation with thousands of fans regardless of geographical location, and most of them extend the original length of their visit and many of them come back – simply because visiting Habbo is so much fun! The celebrities are hugely popular amongst the teen audience and hence the traffic in Habbo often increases substantially during the visits. And for the Habbo user, well... I think that speaks for itself!

So who's next? Armin van Buuren, one of the world's leading Dance & Trance DJ, is going to visit Habbo in February of 2008. The way it looks now, he will be the 300th celebrity to entertain the Habbo audience. However, February is yet a month away and all of the 18 Habbo communities are attracting their own VIP visitors to come to Habbo, so the title may just go to someone else.

Celebrity exclusives, streaming concert footage and full-length motion pictures in IRC-Galleria

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:32:00 +0200

The super-popular Finnish social networking service IRC-Galleria – a part of Sulake’s product portfolio – has done recently such cool new stuff, that it is almost compulsory to blog about it! So here goes.

To begin with it is important to note that IRC-Galleria reaches on a weekly basis almost 50% of the Finnish population between 15-24 year olds - the reach is just astonishing. Thus you can imagine how interesting the service is for e.g. bands, artists, movie promoters etc.

In November the Finnish metal band Mokoma and IRC-Galleria arranged together probably the world’s first online community gig. The band had decided to release their new album in a live concert (before it came to the stores) and this concert was also broadcasted live to their fan community in IRC-Galleria. Fans got also live backstage footage as well a change to chat with the band during the event. The live concert was attended by only 500 people, but close to 5,000 fans got to see the concert online in IRC-Galleria! The response from the fans was super positive and boosted record sales as well ☺

As Finland’s definitive # 1 social networking service, IRC-Galleria is filled with artist fan communities and Christmas presented a perfect time for the artists to thank their fans with exclusive material. This was done through a very special “hard-core Christmas calendar” campaign, which offers the community members somewhat unusual surprises.

Here are just some of the extra-special treats: unplugged live performances by many known Finnish artists e.g. Hanoi Rocks and The Rasmus, previews from the upcoming Dudesons episodes and full-length motion pictures – the Finnish/Chinese martial arts epic Jade Warrior and Finnish short film Heavy Metal. The movies can be viewed through the calendar until the end of the year.

The calendar page, named HC Christmas, rose instantly to the #1 position in popularity in IRC-Galleria, and 324 000 of the monthly overall 460 000 registered members saw the Xmas campaign spreading across the community ☺ Absolutely a cool Christmas gift for the users!

As mentioned previously in our press release, the IRC-Galleria concept is soon going international, as it will be re-branded and introduced in pilot countries during spring 2008. More news about that soon!

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Mini Friday and Mobile Virtual Worlds

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:38:00 +0200

Tens of millions of people use virtual worlds on PCs. World of Warcraft, Habbo, Second Life, Club Penguin and other virtual worlds have made them mainstream online entertainment. And it doesn't stop there. Some analysts and experts believe virtual worlds to be the next major phase in the development of the Web. Gartner predicted in April: “By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a ‘second life’, but not necessarily in Second Life.”

On the other hand, another future prediction is the rise of mobile Internet. Internet use is currently being detached from the PC environment and expanded to various mobile devices.

In the crossroads of these trends is a vast uncharted territory: virtual worlds on mobile devices. And I have a tickling feeling that we'll see something interesting development in this field soon :)

We at Sulake started thinking, designing and prototyping mobile Habbo Hotel already some years ago. In 2004 we developed two mobile Habbo prototypes, but the time wasn't right for a commercial product. It worked only on high-end phones that teens didn't have and data traffic costs for users were just too high.

Later in 2006 we decided to setup a small research project around mobile virtual worlds. In order to understand their desirability and nature in real-world use, we launched a project called Mini Friday. It's a simple mobile virtual world – at this stage meant for adults – and it can be downloaded and used by anyone for free at minifriday.com. It works on most Nokia Series 60 phones.

Mini Friday was launched on December 21, 2006. We haven't promoted it actively at all; users have found it based on word of mouth mostly. And now we have over 155,000 registered users who come mostly from surprising places: the top three countries are Indonesia, Brunei and Russia!

Mini Friday is a straight port of core Habbo functionality to mobile phones in order to see the differences in usage between PC-based and mobile virtual worlds. For now, we have just worked around the weaknesses of mobile phones: small screen, text typing limitations and limited processing power. However, the prototype is not yet using any of the strengths of mobile devices, such as constant connectivity, real and virtual world connections, media creation and sharing, local networking, messaging, contacts integration, standby and screensaver screen integration, etc.

By experimenting with the above possibilities we'll see new types of virtual worlds in the future. One existing example is MoiPal made by Ironstar Helsinki, which is a combination of a virtual world and a tamagotchi. I also believe virtual worlds and social networking can blend quite naturally on mobile phones. People are already using voice for real-time and SMS text messaging for asynchronous communication. Both could be augmented by virtual worlds and profile-based communication respectively.

In practice, the huge selection of different handset models with different technologies makes it difficult to launch a service that could be reached by everyone. And the strengths of mobile phones can't really be used on older Java phones. But on selected platforms it is possible to innovate fresh concepts and user experiences, and build completely new worlds :)