Habbo Gets Social

Habbo, the brilliantly styled teen entertainment brand, has decided to expand into social networking. This is a logical progression with 64m people in 29 countries being registered to their online assets. Habbo’s creators, Sulake of Helsinki, have been running since 2000 and things have been looking up ever since. Back then they created a revolutionary form of Shockwave interactive chat which allowed its members to customise their appearance and walk around in the virtual Habbo Hotel.
They have kept these features and its lovely pixel art graphics in their new tie-in social networking project, Habbo Home. Habbo Home will feature friend lists and links to other Habbo’s profiles. Users can decorate their profile pages using backgrounds, customisable stickers, sticky notes and widgets. To interact with other Habbo’s users can click directly on to other Habbo Home users’ profile page or use the console instant messenger service within Habbo Hotel.
Whilst the majority of Habbo users are in the 11 to 18 year old bracket, a considerable proportion of its users are 25+ designers, tech and media types who are members simply because they admire the concept and styling so much. This surely stands as proof that Sulake are on to something very cool.