RICHe
03-11-2007, 03:06 PM
Mini Friday and Mobile Virtual Worlds
Friday, Nov 2, 2007 / Writer: Sampo Karjalainen, Chief Creative Officer
http://www.sulake.com/opencms/gallery/img/Minifriday_logo.gif
Tens of millions of people use virtual worlds on PCs. World of Warcraft, Habbo, Second Life, Club Penguin and other virtual worlds have made them mainstream online entertainment. And it doesn't stop there. Some analysts and experts believe virtual worlds to be the next major phase in the development of the Web. Gartner predicted in April (http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/04/25/gartner-sees-80-virtual-world-penetration-by-2011/): “By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a ‘second life’, but not necessarily in Second Life.”
On the other hand, another future prediction is the rise of mobile Internet. Internet use is currently being detached from the PC environment and expanded to various mobile devices.
In the crossroads of these trends is a vast uncharted territory: virtual worlds on mobile devices. And I have a tickling feeling that we'll see something interesting development in this field soon :)
We at Sulake started thinking, designing and prototyping mobile Habbo Hotel (http://www.habbo.com/) already some years ago. In 2004 we developed two mobile Habbo prototypes, but the time wasn't right for a commercial product. It worked only on high-end phones that teens didn't have and data traffic costs for users were just too high.
Later in 2006 we decided to setup a small research project around mobile virtual worlds. In order to understand their desirability and nature in real-world use, we launched a project called Mini Friday. It's a simple mobile virtual world – at this stage meant for adults – and it can be downloaded and used by anyone for free at minifriday.com (http://www.minifriday.com/). It works on most Nokia Series 60 phones.
Mini Friday was launched on December 21, 2006. We haven't promoted it actively at all; users have found it based on word of mouth mostly. And now we have over 155,000 registered users who come mostly from surprising places: the top three countries are Indonesia, Brunei and Russia!
http://www.sulake.com/opencms/gallery/img/minifriday_phone.jpgMini Friday is a straight port of core Habbo functionality to mobile phones in order to see the differences in usage between PC-based and mobile virtual worlds. For now, we have just worked around the weaknesses of mobile phones: small screen, text typing limitations and limited processing power. However, the prototype is not yet using any of the strengths of mobile devices, such as constant connectivity, real and virtual world connections, media creation and sharing, local networking, messaging, contacts integration, standby and screensaver screen integration, etc.
By experimenting with the above possibilities we'll see new types of virtual worlds in the future. One existing example is MoiPal (http://www.moipal.fi/) made by Ironstar Helsinki (http://www.ironstarhelsinki.com/), which is a combination of a virtual world and a tamagotchi. I also believe virtual worlds and social networking can blend quite naturally on mobile phones. People are already using voice for real-time and SMS text messaging for asynchronous communication. Both could be augmented by virtual worlds and profile-based communication respectively.
In practice, the huge selection of different handset models with different technologies makes it difficult to launch a service that could be reached by everyone. And the strengths of mobile phones can't really be used on older Java phones. But on selected platforms it is possible to innovate fresh concepts and user experiences, and build completely new worlds :)
http://www.sulake.com/opencms/gallery/img/uggelit.gif
Nice little read really.
http://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/2007-11-02-Mini_Friday
They have also got a blog up about Halloween stuff...
It is pretty obvious that the thing teenagers today (and yesterday and tomorrow) are crazy about is music. Of all the musical genres the one with probably the most enthusiastic fans has to be heavy metal and all the hundreds of sub-categories, whether it is classic hard rock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_rock) or grindcore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grindcore). Realizing this we decided to give it a go in Habbo (http://www.habbo.com/)!
This year’s Habboween (Habbo-Halloween) is based on a monstrous heavy metal & hard rock festival Monsters of Habbo (http://www.habbo.nl/home/8434612/id), which kicked off in most of the Habbo communities all over the world on Monday the 22nd of October. To celebrate the horror festival, Habbo is this year providing the users a chance to show their musical talent in a number of hard rock and heavy metal competitions. Solo artists and bands can put together killer guitar riffs, head banging bass lines and thundering drum sound sets using the unique Habbo Trax Machine (http://www.habbo.com/hotel/trax/index.html) mixing tool. The winning Habbo artist will be crowned as the heavy metal master and win spectacular Habbo prizes.
We received some early indications from some countries and it seems that the Habbos are going ballistic with the metal theme campaign! E.g. the Dutch Habbos (http://www.habbo.nl/entertainment/monstershab/concertagenda) have created over 1,800 bands in just three days and are throwing gigs to each other.
At the Monster's Ball event, held on Halloween's eve, Habbo communities all over the world will be visited by famous metal artists, who will then decide on the local winners of the competition. The Welsh metalcore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalcore) band Bullet for my Valentine (http://www.bulletformyvalentine1.com/) will make an appearance at the UK and German Habbo, whereas the Spanish community is getting a special visit from the local heavy stars, the Hamlet (http://www.hamlet-irracional.com/).
The US Habbo will be receiving several special visits from widely known heavy metal gurus, including the Swedish trash metal band The Haunted (http://www.the-haunted.com/) and legendary Cradle of Filth (http://www.cradleoffilth.com/). The Finnish monster band Lordi (http://www.lordi.fi/) will also make a visit to the Habbo virtual world in the US.
Monsterous Habboween to all!
PS. Check out the cool Monsters of Habbo images in the press image bank. (http://www.sulake.com/press/image_bank?navi=4.2)
http://www.sulake.com/opencms/gallery/image_bank/moh_stage_RGB_72dpi.gifhttp://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/2007-10-25-Monsters_of_Habbo
Friday, Nov 2, 2007 / Writer: Sampo Karjalainen, Chief Creative Officer
http://www.sulake.com/opencms/gallery/img/Minifriday_logo.gif
Tens of millions of people use virtual worlds on PCs. World of Warcraft, Habbo, Second Life, Club Penguin and other virtual worlds have made them mainstream online entertainment. And it doesn't stop there. Some analysts and experts believe virtual worlds to be the next major phase in the development of the Web. Gartner predicted in April (http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/04/25/gartner-sees-80-virtual-world-penetration-by-2011/): “By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a ‘second life’, but not necessarily in Second Life.”
On the other hand, another future prediction is the rise of mobile Internet. Internet use is currently being detached from the PC environment and expanded to various mobile devices.
In the crossroads of these trends is a vast uncharted territory: virtual worlds on mobile devices. And I have a tickling feeling that we'll see something interesting development in this field soon :)
We at Sulake started thinking, designing and prototyping mobile Habbo Hotel (http://www.habbo.com/) already some years ago. In 2004 we developed two mobile Habbo prototypes, but the time wasn't right for a commercial product. It worked only on high-end phones that teens didn't have and data traffic costs for users were just too high.
Later in 2006 we decided to setup a small research project around mobile virtual worlds. In order to understand their desirability and nature in real-world use, we launched a project called Mini Friday. It's a simple mobile virtual world – at this stage meant for adults – and it can be downloaded and used by anyone for free at minifriday.com (http://www.minifriday.com/). It works on most Nokia Series 60 phones.
Mini Friday was launched on December 21, 2006. We haven't promoted it actively at all; users have found it based on word of mouth mostly. And now we have over 155,000 registered users who come mostly from surprising places: the top three countries are Indonesia, Brunei and Russia!
http://www.sulake.com/opencms/gallery/img/minifriday_phone.jpgMini Friday is a straight port of core Habbo functionality to mobile phones in order to see the differences in usage between PC-based and mobile virtual worlds. For now, we have just worked around the weaknesses of mobile phones: small screen, text typing limitations and limited processing power. However, the prototype is not yet using any of the strengths of mobile devices, such as constant connectivity, real and virtual world connections, media creation and sharing, local networking, messaging, contacts integration, standby and screensaver screen integration, etc.
By experimenting with the above possibilities we'll see new types of virtual worlds in the future. One existing example is MoiPal (http://www.moipal.fi/) made by Ironstar Helsinki (http://www.ironstarhelsinki.com/), which is a combination of a virtual world and a tamagotchi. I also believe virtual worlds and social networking can blend quite naturally on mobile phones. People are already using voice for real-time and SMS text messaging for asynchronous communication. Both could be augmented by virtual worlds and profile-based communication respectively.
In practice, the huge selection of different handset models with different technologies makes it difficult to launch a service that could be reached by everyone. And the strengths of mobile phones can't really be used on older Java phones. But on selected platforms it is possible to innovate fresh concepts and user experiences, and build completely new worlds :)
http://www.sulake.com/opencms/gallery/img/uggelit.gif
Nice little read really.
http://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/2007-11-02-Mini_Friday
They have also got a blog up about Halloween stuff...
It is pretty obvious that the thing teenagers today (and yesterday and tomorrow) are crazy about is music. Of all the musical genres the one with probably the most enthusiastic fans has to be heavy metal and all the hundreds of sub-categories, whether it is classic hard rock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_rock) or grindcore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grindcore). Realizing this we decided to give it a go in Habbo (http://www.habbo.com/)!
This year’s Habboween (Habbo-Halloween) is based on a monstrous heavy metal & hard rock festival Monsters of Habbo (http://www.habbo.nl/home/8434612/id), which kicked off in most of the Habbo communities all over the world on Monday the 22nd of October. To celebrate the horror festival, Habbo is this year providing the users a chance to show their musical talent in a number of hard rock and heavy metal competitions. Solo artists and bands can put together killer guitar riffs, head banging bass lines and thundering drum sound sets using the unique Habbo Trax Machine (http://www.habbo.com/hotel/trax/index.html) mixing tool. The winning Habbo artist will be crowned as the heavy metal master and win spectacular Habbo prizes.
We received some early indications from some countries and it seems that the Habbos are going ballistic with the metal theme campaign! E.g. the Dutch Habbos (http://www.habbo.nl/entertainment/monstershab/concertagenda) have created over 1,800 bands in just three days and are throwing gigs to each other.
At the Monster's Ball event, held on Halloween's eve, Habbo communities all over the world will be visited by famous metal artists, who will then decide on the local winners of the competition. The Welsh metalcore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalcore) band Bullet for my Valentine (http://www.bulletformyvalentine1.com/) will make an appearance at the UK and German Habbo, whereas the Spanish community is getting a special visit from the local heavy stars, the Hamlet (http://www.hamlet-irracional.com/).
The US Habbo will be receiving several special visits from widely known heavy metal gurus, including the Swedish trash metal band The Haunted (http://www.the-haunted.com/) and legendary Cradle of Filth (http://www.cradleoffilth.com/). The Finnish monster band Lordi (http://www.lordi.fi/) will also make a visit to the Habbo virtual world in the US.
Monsterous Habboween to all!
PS. Check out the cool Monsters of Habbo images in the press image bank. (http://www.sulake.com/press/image_bank?navi=4.2)
http://www.sulake.com/opencms/gallery/image_bank/moh_stage_RGB_72dpi.gifhttp://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/2007-10-25-Monsters_of_Habbo