Habbo is a social networking website owned and operated by Sulake Corporation. Habbo is aimed at teenagers, and it combines the two concepts of a chat room, which is presented in the form a virtual Hotel and user profiles which are displayed on the website. The original conception of Habbo, namely Mobiles Disco, was created as a small project by two Finnish men, Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä.
The chatrooms that make up each Hotel are large, computer-generated graphics that use isometric projection. The game is centered around Habbos, virtual representations of its members. Each character has a different name, and is identified solely by this name. The service's other focus point is virtual furniture, which is often called "furni" by users. This virtual furniture can be bought by users using credits, which are bought using real-life currency. This furniture and the credits used to buy them can also be traded between users.
The game is also centered around The Habbo Way, which are the standards and rules which all Habbo users are expected to follow, or face a ban from accessing the website for a certain amount of time. Users are urged to report any breach of it using a system which notifies the website's moderators.
The service began in 2000 and has expanded to 31 local communities,[1] with new communities opening in Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela. As of July 2007, over 82 million avatars have been created worldwide and there are 6 million unique visitors to the Habbo websites around the world every month,[1] and 75,000 avatars being created every day.[2]
History
Habbo's original concept came from a 1999 project by Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä, namely, Mobiles Disco, created for the band Mobiles. The idea was successful, and so Karjalainen and Kyrölä created "Hotel Goldfish".[3] The name was scrapped, and replaced with a new name, "Habbo Hotel", and in August 2000, the two launched the service to Finland.[4] In May 2006 the service, along with it's domain names, were renamed from Habbo Hotel to Habbo.
The service was then launched in the United Kingdom in January 2001, and has since been expanded to over 30 countries over five continents in total.[1]
In August 2007, Habbo's Chinese community closed down temporarily, the first time a website has closed, the reasoning behind this still remains undisclosed. [5]
The Website
Many activities and features that do not appear on the Hotel itself, are available on Habbo's website. These include some of the following features:
User Profiles
This is a feature allowing users to customise their own web-page displayed on the website, colloquially named Habbo Home. The web-page can be accessed from inside the hotel,[6] and allow for user interaction with the home page of the user, as well as interaction within the Hotel. The web-pages are displayed with the player's character appearance and motto. Users can customise their web-page with a selection of widgets, stickers and backgrounds. Various widgets, stickers and backgrounds can be purchased with credits to add to the small default range of features. Users who subscribe to Habbo Club receive more benefits for their personal web-page, including advertisements on the side of the page removed.[7]
Groups
This feature was released to all servers running release 13.[8] Users can create groups and design a badge to display on their Habbo Home next to their avatar while in the Hotel. Each group also has a homepage which acts similarly to a Habbo Home, but the group owner and group administrators can only edit it. The majority of the website's content and promotions organised by the site's management is now displayed in groups.
The Hotel
The Hotel is the chat room of Habbo, this is why Habbo is often referred to as Habbo Hotel. The Hotel consists of a client made using Adobe Shockwave technologies. Once a user logs in successfully, they are given directed to a page with their account information, in which they can then proceed to enter the hotel or browse around the user profiles on the site. Once a user logs into the Hotel they are brought to a screen colloquially known as Hotel View. From this screen, contact another user via the Habbo Console and use the Navigator to navigate their way to either a Public Room or a Guest Room (see below).
An example of a Habbo
Users can contact another user in the Hotel via the Habbo Console. Apart from communicating with other users in the same room, the Console acts as the main form of communication throughout all areas of the Hotel.
Navigation
The center for all navigation within the Hotel is the Navigator. The Navigator shows basic information about the room (i.e. name, description, owner) but also shows the total capacity and the current amount of users that the room can hold. Using the Navigator, users have two types of rooms they can choose to enter:
The Hotel interface; pictured is a public room.
Public Rooms, which are rooms common to a normal hotel, including lobbies, a kitchen, pools, lounges and a theatre. The selection of public rooms differs from hotel to hotel. Several public rooms contain an automated avatar, known as a bot, that proclaims comments that usually have something to do with the room itself. Public Rooms cannot be modified at all by users.
Guest Rooms, which are the section of Hotel which users can customize to endless lengths, filling with virtual furniture and other items. Along with wallpaper and floor patterns users can buy with credits, users can also choose from a range of room templates that determine what shape the room is. Members of Habbo Club have access to more advanced and larger room templates.
Virtual furniture
In the Hotel, furniture (referred to as furni by users) are virtual items which can be placed in guest rooms, traded amongst the community, purchased from the Catalogue and won from competitions held by different hotels.
Many users strive to collect more rare and exclusive furniture. Rare furniture is often sold in the Catalogue, but some items are never released, and thus increasing their value. Some items are kept for larger competitions and for managers to display in their own rooms. Many "trading rooms" are created in which the room is specifically for trading and discussing rare furniture with other users.
Furniture items can be purchased with credits in the Catalogue, and then traded amongst users. The Catalogue is a menu of all of the purchasable furniture at any one given time which can be purchased for credits. Every so often, rare items are offered for sale in the catalogue for a short period of time. There are also themed items of furniture available at respective times throughout the year; for example, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Olympics and Christmas.
The release 12 safe-trading dialog box, demonstrating the ability to trade Hotel currency between users.
Users can trade their virtual items for other user's items, using the safe-trading box (pictured right). Users usually discuss what is being traded beforehand and then request to trade via the box afterward.
In February 2007, servers running release 12 included a feature which enabled Users to trade in-game credits in the trading box, namely, the Habbo Exchange.[9] The credit system transfers user's in-game credits into actual pieces of furniture which can be placed into private rooms and seen by the community. The credits can then be traded through the safety trade box for other pieces of furniture, making the Hotel sustainable in the effects of virtually "buying" furniture from other users. Prior to the release of this feature, trading credits was impossible to do safely.
Currency and other incentives
Credits are currency used in Habbo (also known as coins in other websites). Credits are used to buy virtual furniture from the Catalogue, and to purchase Habbo Club subscription. Credits are also used to purchase game tickets. A new feature allows users to purchase special pieces of furniture from the Catalogue that can be redeemed for credits (see above for more information). Credits are stored in the user's purse accessible in any public or private room as well as on the Hotel view and while logged in on the website.
Credits can be purchased using a variety of different services, such as credit cards, a telephone service and via SMS. Credits are often given out as prizes in management-run competitions as well as users submitted competitions where users submit a competition entry and choose a prize.
Shown are two types of badges worn by subscribed users.
Habbo Club (often abbreviated to just HC) is a subscription club purchased using credits, that offers many additional benefits, unavailable to non-subscribers. All subscribers to Habbo Club receive a badge, that is placed next to their avatar, and can be seen by all other users. Users who are subscribers for under 12 months receive a bronze badge (shown on the left of the image), whereas users who are subscribers for more than 12 months receive a gold badge (shown on the right of the image). Badges are kept only for the duration of the subscription.
Subscribers have a separate queue from non-subscribers in public rooms, and is often used to the subscribers' advantage during events such as celebrity visits.[10] Subscribers also gain two new commands available to use inside rooms: the :chooser command;[11] a user types ":chooser" and a list of every user inside the room at the time is brought up; and the :furni command; a user can type ":furni" in a guest room and it brings up a list of all pieces of furniture inside the room.
March 2007 saw the release 15 which included new pieces of furniture available to members. Some older pieces of furniture were removed, and replaced with newer furniture.[12] On several occasions, competitions are held exclusively for club subscribers, in which extremely rare pieces of furniture are given as prizes.
There are also many games available to users that require credits to be played. These games are often more popular than the free games available in other areas of the hotel.
Wobble Squabble — a game played on inflatables in a swimming pool in the Hotel. Players must nudge, slap and push their opponents off the inflatables and into the water using various keys on the keyboard.
Snow Storm — Players must throw snowballs at the opposing team. More snowballs thrown by a player that hit, the more points that player gains for their team. There are also many different scenarios and maps that players can choose to play in.
Battle Ball — a game played on "space hoppers". Teams of a minimum of 2 must try and "claim" as many squares as possible, by bouncing on them with their individual space hopper within the time limit set. When a square is bounced on by a player, it changes the colour to the team's colour. A recent update to the game was released to some hotels, including many new features.[13]
Diving — Located in the Hotel's main swimming area, users use the diving board to complete their own unique diving sequences. Moves include: stars, flips, and air punches. Points (up to 10) are awarded by other users and the divers ultimate score is displayed on the video screen.
Moderation and management
There are 18 office branches globally operated by Sulake employees; these office branches are the workplace of the respective Habbo's senior staff.[14] These staff generally include a "Hotel Manager", or Content Manager, who oversees the community as a whole by communicating with users through newsletters, creating competitions, and managing the content of the website; a Community Manager, who is responsible for moderation and guidance throughout the virtual community by managing in-game Moderators, Habbo eXperts; and a Country Manager, who manages the business side of the community such as sales, finance and administration.
Office staff may also consist of customer support staff, who respond to queries sent via contact forms by users; and graphic designers who create the vast amounts of pixel imagery used both in-game and on the community's website.
Automatic moderation exists in Habbo's language filter, the "Bobba Filter", which replaces offensive text with the simple word "bobba". Replacement applies anywhere from mild to highly offensive words, phrases, and even websites. In this way, the filter assists in moderation of Habbo. As of release 16 of Habbo users now have the option disable the filter in their personal settings, in which they would view all unfiltered chat.
Habbo's moderation is covered by paid moderator staff; police vetted Sulake employees.[15] Tools utilised by moderator staff allow them to send messages to individual Habbos in the hotel, which appear as in-game popups. As well as this ability, moderator staff can also kick Habbos from any room, mute them (prevent them from speaking) and ban them from the hotel entirely.[15]
Habbo eXperts
An example of a public room; branded by Habbo sponsor Axe.
Habbo eXperts (often shortened to just Habbo Xs – although names differ throughout many websites) are experienced users who volunteer to welcome newer users to Habbo and explain its features.[16] They are not employees of Sulake and have no powers or abilities except for being able to enter rooms which have reached their occupant limit.[17]
Sponsorship
As a website geared towards teenagers, Habbo often attracts sponsorship from outside entities. This sponsorship includes visits by musicians and bands[18] (such as The Veronicas, Gorillaz,[19] Skye Sweetnam,[20] Little Birdy, Stephanie McIntosh, Operator Please and Evermore), as well as various corporation giants.
As Habbo is targeted at teenagers, and 90% of its users are between the age of 13 and 18,[1] it receives much attention from youth organisations, who educate players about many topics such as Internet safety, and drug education.[21]
Reviews, awards and criticism
This short section requires expansion.
In November 2001, The Daily Telegraph ranked Habbo in seventh place in "Top 10 sites: chat and instant messaging", along with other chatroom giant Yahoo! Chat. They described it as "great-looking" and "proving popular with teenagers".[22]
In March 2005, Habbo was reviewed by virtualwordlets.net.[23] They gave it a rating of 46.5 / 100.[23]
On October 21, 2006, an in-depth article about Habbo written by British travel writer Tim Moore was published in the Daily Telegraph's Telegraph Magazine.
In 2005 and again in 2006, Habbo Australia received the NetGuide Online Web Award for "Best kids’/youth website [sic]".[24][25] Then in September 2006, Sulake won the Deloitte's Fast50 competition.[26][27]
Habbo is often victims to various Internet troll groups, "raiding" certain public rooms and making rude and vulgar gestures and comments.
[28] An alleged online child predator lured a 9-year-old Habbo user on an instant messaging program where the conversation quickly turned sexual.[29] This has resulted in criticism from law enforcement officials.[30]
On 14 November 2007, a 17-year-old was arrested by police for allegedly stealing furniture bought with real money worth up to €4000. Five 15-year-olds were also brought in for questioning.[31]
Current services
Australia http://www.habbo.com.au/ November 2004 Malaysia (links to Habbo Singapore) http://www.habbo.com.my/ July 2006 Austria (links to Habbo Switzerland) http://www.habbo.at/ May 2006 Mexico (links to Habbo Spain) http://www.habbo.com.mx/ July 2006 Belgium (links to Habbo NL) http://www.habbo.be/ May 2006 Netherlands http://www.habbo.nl/ February 2004 Brazil http://www.habbo.com.br/ February 2006 New Zealand (links to Habbo Australia) http://www.habbo.co.nz/ August 2006 Canada http://www.habbo.ca/ June 2004 Norway http://www.habbo.no/ June 2004 Chile (links to Habbo Spain) http://www.habbo.cl/ July 2006 Poland http://www.habbo.pl/ Unknown China (temporarily closed[5]) http://www.habbo.cn/ January 2006 Portugal http://www.habbo.pt/ March 2006 Colombia (links to Habbo Spain) http://www.habbo.com.co/ July 2006 Russia http://www.habbo.ru/ October 2006 Denmark http://www.habbo.dk/ November 2004 Singapore http://www.habbo.com.sg/ December 2004 Finland http://www.habbo.fi/ August 2000 Spain http://www.habbo.es/ September 2003 France http://www.habbo.fr/ November 2004 Sweden http://www.habbo.se/ December 2003 Germany http://www.habbo.de/ March 2004 Switzerland http://www.habbo.ch/ August 2002 Ireland (links to Habbo UK) http://www.habbo.ie/ July 2006 United Kingdom http://www.habbo.co.uk/ January 2001 Italy http://www.habbo.it/ September 2003 United States http://www.habbo.com/ September 2004 Japan http://www.habbo.jp/ February 2003 Venezuela (links to Habbo Spain) http://www.habbo.com.ve/ July 2006
If You Click On The Links For Example If You Click On http://www.habbo.pt You Will enter the Portuguese Habbo Where Everyone Speaks Portuguses.
This Is An Example Of A Habbo But There Are More Hairstyles And Proper Clothing For Habbo's
This Is A Hand In Witch You Keep All Of Your Belongings In There For Example Your Furni Your Dog.
The Picture below is a Picture of a dog you can buy there are also other animals such as crocidile,cat and dog they cost 20 coins.