Habbo
 |
|
|
Type of site
|
Social networking service |
|---|---|
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Owner | Sulake Corporation |
| Created by |
Sampo Karjalainen Aapo Kyrölä |
| Slogan(s) | Hangout for teens |
| Website | See list of websites |
| Alexa rank | Habbo.com  28,441 (September 2015[update])United Kingdom: 2,860United States: 25,347
|
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Yes |
| Users | 278 million (as of August 2012) |
| Launched | See full list |
| Current status | Active |
Habbo (previously known as Habbo Hotel) is a social networking service and online community aimed at teenagers. The website is owned and operated by Sulake, a Finnish corporation. The service began in 2000 and has expanded to include nine online communities (or "hotels"), with users in over 150 countries. As of August 2012, over 273 million avatars have been registered with an average 5 million unique visitors monthly. 90% of Habbo's users are between the age of 13 and 18.
The service allows users to create their own Habbo character and design hotel rooms, meet new friends, chat with other players, organize parties, look after virtual pets, create and play games and complete quests.
Habbo stemmed from a 1999 hobby project by creative designer Sampo Karjalainen and technologist Aapo Kyrölä entitled Mobiles Disco, for a Finnish band. It was a virtual chat room running on Aapo's Fuse technology. After having been contracted to design a virtual game and chat called Lumisota (Snow Wars) for a Finnish internet service provider, they were contracted for another project. They developed Hotelli Kultakala (eng. Hotel Goldfish) with a small team of developers. It launched in August 2000 on the ISP's web portal.
Aapo, Sampo and Dee Edwards, an entrepreneur from the UK, wanted to create an international business based on the virtual hotel concept, drafting a plan in Autumn 2000, and raised finance. By the end of January 2001, Habbo Hotel had been launched in beta mode. The new hotel exited beta a few weeks afterwards, aimed at the teenage market, with marketing and payment partners in place, run from a HQ in London. It featured a new credits system with community and safety features. The next hotel was launched in Switzerland a few months later, in four languages. It has since been expanded to over 31 countries in five continents, including Hotelli Kultakala in Finland which was made into a Habbo Hotel and has been invested in by venture capitalists.
In May 2006, the service, along with its domain names, were changed from www.habbohotel.com (.co.uk, .com.au, etc.) to www.habbo.com (.co.uk, .com.au, etc.). In August 2007, Habbo's Chinese community closed down temporarily, the first time a Habbo website has closed. The challenging Chinese market and high operational costs led to the decision of closing the service. Customers in China were redirected to other Habbo communities. In December 2008, Habbo's Russian community announced it was closing in February 2009 as a result of low numbers. Those on the site with "furni" (virtual furniture that can be used to furnish rooms in the hotel that are bought with the use of Habbo Credits or Coins, that can be purchased with actual money) have been told they will receive credit codes for use on the USA Habbo community.
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Wikipedia