The future of Habbox

[Richie]

Even if this is a troll thread, I'm going to explain my views. I don't like being negative but I'll voice my opinion anyway. I can't see habbox improving greatly in the near future, I do hope I'm wrong and someone quotes me a year or two down the line saying 'i told you so'. I don't want to see habbox fall apart but I just don't see many new people signing up to the forum / coming to the site and sticking around. Sure, there's the odd few but not enough for the 'next generation of habbox'. I don't think many of the addicts around here will be leaving too soon so we'll get a while out of it yet but if we haven't got a plan to get new users to come to the website other than through habbo, we're screwed. Habbo haven't been showing fansites support for some time now and I'm not saying lets put the ceos head on a stick and chant DOWN WITH HABBO, we should have other ways to gain users, don't count on those who have let us down time and time again, left us in the dirt after indirectly doing them a massive favour, for me without fansites the site would have been dead a long time ago. That's why I don't think it's habbox's fault, we've had our ups and downs but that has nothing to do with lack of new members. The decline in new members has dropped over the years but that's down to habbo, which really frustrates me as we don't seem to have a backup plan other than habbo. I understand we're a habbo fansite but would it really hurt to go through other routes other than habbo to catch new users? It's annoying how a lot of people think this fansite is solely based around habbo, yes, the fansite generated from habbo and caters to the habbo community but I know a hell of a lot of users that come on here for other things like gaming, advice, technology news, news in general and then you just have a few that don't play habbo and just come on here to socialize with some of the other users. Fair enough a lot of them have started off on habbo then left over the years, if anything that just proves that there's no other ways being attempted to get new users. If those users can stick around and enjoy other things around the forum other than habbo, others who haven't even heard about habbo could too.

[GoldenMerc]

Even if this is a troll thread, I'm going to explain my views. I don't like being negative but I'll voice my opinion anyway. I can't see habbox improving greatly in the near future, I do hope I'm wrong and someone quotes me a year or two down the line saying 'i told you so'. I don't want to see habbox fall apart but I just don't see many new people signing up to the forum / coming to the site and sticking around. Sure, there's the odd few but not enough for the 'next generation of habbox'. I don't think many of the addicts around here will be leaving too soon so we'll get a while out of it yet but if we haven't got a plan to get new users to come to the website other than through habbo, we're screwed. Habbo haven't been showing fansites support for some time now and I'm not saying lets put the ceos head on a stick and chant DOWN WITH HABBO, we should have other ways to gain users, don't count on those who have let us down time and time again, left us in the dirt after indirectly doing them a massive favour, for me without fansites the site would have been dead a long time ago. That's why I don't think it's habbox's fault, we've had our ups and downs but that has nothing to do with lack of new members. The decline in new members has dropped over the years but that's down to habbo, which really frustrates me as we don't seem to have a backup plan other than habbo. I understand we're a habbo fansite but would it really hurt to go through other routes other than habbo to catch new users? It's annoying how a lot of people think this fansite is solely based around habbo, yes, the fansite generated from habbo and caters to the habbo community but I know a hell of a lot of users that come on here for other things like gaming, advice, technology news, news in general and then you just have a few that don't play habbo and just come on here to socialize with some of the other users. Fair enough a lot of them have started off on habbo then left over the years, if anything that just proves that there's no other ways being attempted to get new users. If those users can stick around and enjoy other things around the forum other than habbo, others who haven't even heard about habbo could too.

What you posted made sense considering a lot of people dont post in Habbo sections anymore, At one point they may have but time has past and they have moved on to other parts of the forum, +rep x

[FlyingJesus]

What other routes would you suggest? There are far too many *+*TeeN SiiTeS*+* for that to ever be a viable option these days, and the same goes for tech and health etc. - the only avenue left open for new sources of users is gaming, for which most games will already have their own forums and communities too. I don't know what the Hx Runescape crew is like atm if there even is one still but something like that where there's already a community of people here would be good advocates for bringing in new folk, but that's rather dependant on the members and not something that staff can force.

Also it's important to note that as I've been saying for years now the problem is not so much in sourcing new members (of which there is generally a fairly steady flow) but in keeping them here once they do sign up. It's all very well having 100 new people a day but if none stay for more than 5 posts then it does nothing to help Habbox grow.

[Chippiewill]

What you posted made sense considering a lot of people dont post in Habbo sections anymore, At one point they may have but time has past and they have moved on to other parts of the forum, +rep x

Habbo is still pretty damn popular.

[GoldenMerc]

Habbo is still pretty damn popular.

I would have thought graphics and entertainment at bottom tbh

[Rachel]

Well there is certainly something we can surely do. We all have to put our minds into it. If one day Habbo shuts down all fansites are going down unless like it was mentioned earlier if we turned this into another kind of forum maybe for teens. It's always nice to join a teen forum with various of topics to talk about but yes there are plenty of them but it's the same for every topic. No one can be picky you know. I highly doubt though Habbox will die yet not even in 10 years from now.

[Inseriousity.]

It is fundamentally a Habbo fansite and it'd be pointless trying to attract other areas of people here when they'll have their own forums that are more catered to their needs (trying to attract runescape fans, for example, when we have 1 runescape forum and runescape fansites can have hundreds is ridiculous). I firmly believe that there is a lot of untapped potential in Habbo, corners of Habbo that fansites do not traditionally venture and I see it as part of my job to find these areas and think of practical services that fansites could provide to build bridges between those users and Habbox. Sadly this rhethoric is useless unless you actually have an idea of practical services and most of these threads are built on hot air with no foundation that anyone can build on. Habbox used to be known throughout the trading world as the place to go for rare values back when the marketplace didn't do it for them. It is about that principle but for a new generation of Habbos who would nowadays go 'what's Habbox?' If we can do that, I see no reason to start the funeral just yet.

[FlyingJesus]

Definitely agree that a bigger push on the client is needed, events I know are looking to hire more staff (AND A CAPABLE ASSISTANT MANAGER WOULD BE GOOD HINT HINT) but one thing I'd revolutionise if I were in a role to do so (MORE HINTS) is to make sure that people in events are actually telling contestants to sign up or at least take a look around the site. I think the minor annoyance of a single copy&paste advertisement a few times per event - for example at the start and end of each round for longer games or just every 10 mins or so for continuous ones - would be well worth coping with if it means that more people get interested or at least hear about us. Suggestions on what we then do to KEEP them here is something I can't think of right now, but still believe that if we're getting people from Habbo then Habbo is the platform we need to utilise in order to carry Hx forwards

[Kardan]

Habbo is still pretty damn popular.

This graph doesn't show much, I mean, it's showing that Habbo is popular on a Habbo Forum, which is to be as expected

[Chippiewill]

Definitely agree that a bigger push on the client is needed, events I know are looking to hire more staff (AND A CAPABLE ASSISTANT MANAGER WOULD BE GOOD HINT HINT) but one thing I'd revolutionise if I were in a role to do so (MORE HINTS) is to make sure that people in events are actually telling contestants to sign up or at least take a look around the site. I think the minor annoyance of a single copy&paste advertisement a few times per event - for example at the start and end of each round for longer games or just every 10 mins or so for continuous ones - would be well worth coping with if it means that more people get interested or at least hear about us. Suggestions on what we then do to KEEP them here is something I can't think of right now, but still believe that if we're getting people from Habbo then Habbo is the platform we need to utilise in order to carry Hx forwards

Agreed 100%, the only time Habbox is mentioned in Martin's events is when he asks people if they want rep or furni.