Mining Habbo Data

Posted on August 21, 2007
Filed Under Metaverse |

Could you conduct market research in a week and come back with the buying and spending habits, and brand preferences, of 42,000 teenagers around the world? Sulake Corporation, developer of the Habbo virtual world for teenagers, did this very thing. And they’re going back in September for another data mining run. You can read the full story in CRM Daily, Mining Virtual Worlds for Market Data.

Sulake’s data-gathering experience - quite apart from being a marketer’s dream - exemplifies the power of trust within communities.

Sulake realized it could tap its millions of avatars for information on real-life teen trends around the world. ‘We wanted to focus on how users are behaving and how they are buying. At first, we thought we would simply use [the information] for internal purposes, for product development,’ says Kuusikko. ‘Then we saw that we could do global research about teens’ lives.’ - ibid

Habbo is a mature venture, launched in 2000, and with the following metrics returned from their website, as of July 2007:

I think marketers are shying away from virtual worlds like Second Life because they don’t see enough density of population to sell to in conventional ways, and they don’t have the knowledge or imagination to adjust their marketing.

A study of the success of Habbo, and the really quite conventional ways that companies are marketing there, might restore some faith in the eventual margins of Second Life and the other adult communities. The element of trust that is so remarkable about Habbo in 3D is no different from the trust building in all the Web 2.0 communities we’re currently immersed in, except stronger. Whether this strength comes from the immersiveness of the medium itself, or the age of the demographic, or simply the longevity of success, is the topic for another time.

Comments

8 Responses to “Mining Habbo Data”

  1. thetracksuitceo on August 22nd, 2007 9:11 am

    I’ve always been taught to look to Japan for the future of the web. But where should us americans do our prospecting?
    Is Second Life the only game in town that has an adult demographic?

  2. Hunter on August 22nd, 2007 9:54 am

    well it’s a global village after all, and I think the Web even plays in Peoria now ;)

    Second Life is the biggest of what will become an entire Web layer I think - eventually someone will market to you, and then you’ll know where to join ;)

  3. Larrik Jaerico on August 22nd, 2007 2:16 pm

    Second Life is a tiny fraction of the size they make themselves out to be. A game like World of Warcraft would be a better bet right now.

  4. Hunter on August 22nd, 2007 2:52 pm

    Hi Larrik - but is Warcraft going to be anything other than a game? I think the real promise is the niche simulations possible, being experimented with in places like SL - these are the places that ordinary people will come to. True that SL is not as large as it might seem.

    Nice work on that homepage btw - drop me a portfolio if you want, I always like to know designers and flash developers - Ross

  5. thetracksuitceo on August 22nd, 2007 3:13 pm

    Interesting Habbo article, don’t take the survey at the wrong time: http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/The_Great_Habbo_Raid_of_July_2006

  6. Larrik Jaerico on August 24th, 2007 4:05 pm

    Hunter,

    I would say Warcraft is already more than a game, as back when I played (a while ago, I’ll admit), the futher you got into the game, the more social it became. At the end of the game, you often wind up primarily interacting socially, with the rest of the game merely a backdrop (not very many players would admit this… $15 a month to buy friendships is hardly ego-boosting).

    Second Life is essentially a pyramid scheme. Have you ever seen the results of one of these corporate events in SL? I haven’t looked through every one, but the reliable data I HAVE found averages 15-20 spectators, and I do mean less than 2 dozen. These are the successful ones.

    Ironically, I know next to nothing about Habbo. Likely because I’m not a teenager, and haven’t been since they opened.

    By the way, thanks for the website compliments! You didn’t actually offer me a way for me to contact you, though.

  7. Hunter on August 24th, 2007 5:02 pm

    Contact - I know it’s really Web 1.0, there’s a Contact page in the rest of this site - lol - we never notice the rest of a website anymore do we? Feel free to drop a line at ross@hunterhost.com or call 512-930-0542 during weekdays if you want.

  8. Larrik Jaerico on August 29th, 2007 7:26 am

    Ha! I Didn’t even realize this was your website!

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