Habbo Hotel (www.habbo.com), the world's largest virtual community and social game for teenagers, today introduced the Habbometer, a new regular source of information on teens worldwide.
Press Release from Habbo
Los Angeles, CA – October 21, 2010 - Habbo Hotel (www.habbo.com), the world's largest virtual community and social game for teenagers, today introduced the Habbometer, a new regular source of information on teens worldwide. Every month the site will run a short poll of Habbos to find out what teenagers around the globe think is hot, and what they think is not. Details from the first survey asked users about how they discover and enjoy music.
“Habbo Hotel has always been about a high quality and engaging user experience,” said Teemu Huuhtanen, executive vice president, Business Development and Communications, Sulake Corporation, the parent company of Habbo Hotel. “We have created the Habbometer in order to gain a better understanding of our users and therefore create the best experience for them.”
Habbometer results will post regularly to Sulake.com, as well as be available upon request. They will provide a fascinating snapshot of different teen opinions from around the world.
The first Habbometer poll, which was conducted in September and included 47,000 teens from 33 countries, examined Habbos’ relationship to music. The findings reveal the dominance of the Internet on teen listening habits, the continued challenge for media owners to monetize digital listening, and the rise of social recommendations. Results include the following:
* Paying for music
o 33% of teens prefer to download music without paying for it- Young people in Chile are the least likely to pay – 51% favor this approach- 21% of US and 20% of UK teenagers download music without paying o 21% of teens prefer to purchase downloaded music- Record labels in Australia will be pleased to learn that teens favor the paid-for approach; 37% of Australian teenagers would pay-to-playo A fifth of teens (20%) still buy CDS- Teens in Sweden (40%), Germany (37%) and Denmark (35%) are the most likely to buy a CD. Only 14% of U.S. Habbos polled still buy CDso 26% of teens favor streaming services- These are most popular in the Netherlands (53%), Finland (45%) and Belgium (46%)
* So what influences the type of music teenagers listen to? o Radio and TV are still the dominant music taste makers. 38% of teens worldwide take music recommendations from these traditional channels. Of the U.S. Habbos polled, 52% get their music recommendations from radio and TV. o 28% are influenced by what their friends are listening to and recommending (27% of the U.S. Habbos polled are influenced by what their friends are listening to and recommending) o 18% are influenced by what is on the music charts o Only 9% are influenced by magazines and what they read online * Today’s teenager is connected with friends online and the Habbometer shows the power of social recommendation: o 78% of teens use social networks to share recommendations o Only 23% never use social networks to recommend music to friends o Finnish teens are the most likely to share recommendations (88%) o German (51%), Swiss (46%) and Austrian (45%) teens are the least likely to use social networks to recommend
Recommendation is clearly playing a bigger role in how entertainment content is shared – and streaming services, and group playlists – such as Spotify and Pandora – make this even easier. Clearly, the Habbometer demonstrates that teens love music and new technology allows them to find, enjoy and share more than ever before.
Habbometer polls will run and results will be available once a month.
About Habbo Hotel:Habbo Hotel is the world’s largest virtual community and social game for teens. Users join by creating a fully customized online character called a Habbo. From there, they can explore a wide variety of spaces and millions of rooms created by other users in the virtual community, play a variety of games, connect with friends, decorate their own rooms, and have fun through creativity and self-expression. Currently Habbo Hotel has users from over 150 countries and the service is available in 11 language versions. To date, more than 185 million characters have been created and over 15 million unique browsers worldwide visit Habbo Hotel each month, spending a total of 45 million hours in the service.www.habbo.com
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
