Virtual Economy Research Network

The online chat and game environment Habbo Hotel has become a hit among Finnish high school teenagers, as about 25% of them visit Habbo at least once a month. Like in the case of other popular computer games such as The Sims, fandom websites have emerged around Habbo since its launch in August 2000. The fansites are important because they shape the community by providing the arena for public Habbo discussions, which mediates user opinions to a large audience. In this paper we investigate the fansite content to find out what one can learn about the social world of Finnish Habbo users. We identified 173 Finnish fansites, of which we selected 23 fansites aimed at a large audience. These fansites publish news, hints, reviews, lists, graphics, and other articles about essential Habbo topics. Based on this fansite content, it was possible to distinguish 8 different user groups and 11 popular activities. Therefore we draw the conclusion that fansites are useful sources for user research as they complement other sources informing information systems design.