Habbox Live concerns

[HotelUser]

Hello Habbox Feedback!

I'm creating this thread with regards to the Habbox Live's current standards with regards to DJ professionalism and the roles of DJs on HxL compared to that of how they fair with other fansites.

I remember starting at Habbox, Habbox Radio and the change to Habbox Live. We used to get 300 listeners. This is a fact, there are various reasons suggested as to why we no longer obtain this listener peak. There's more radios, there's less users in general, there's not as big of an interest in radio streaming anymore.

Previously I would have assumed that the fanbase dwindled because of the latter two. However after merging in which many new faces were introduced to Habbox, and after listening more to HxL recently I do not believe this is the case any more.

I really do believe that listeners have been lost because standards of DJs have been reduced gradually over the years. I wouldn't necessarily put blame on the department's managers for this, because as another manager I'm aware that we do have to recruit the best that's offered to us.

As much as this might be disagreed with, or the ethics surrounding it might be considered rash, age does play a pivotal role in the professionalism and maintaining of high standards with DJs. That is not to say that all young DJs are incapable of DJing on the radio. I just think (after listening) that it's mostly the younger DJs (and of course it's not up to me nor anyone else not involved in HxL to name names) who tend to lose listeners. I've mostly noticed a loss in listeners when these younger DJs:
- Play the same songs over and over again. A new DJ comes on after a shift and starts playing the exact same songs we already heard, this loses a lot of users (despite rules about this. For instance just recently I listened to California girls four times in two hours; I genuinely counted. Not sure what's up here)

- Behaviour of these DJs in Habbox rooms and around the forum. DJs in the past such as Finkelstien or Leah built up a huge fanbase in the past for being incredibly active, professional and involved in most every Habbox department

- Experience. Although this cannot be acquired as easily with the younger folks didn't Habbox Radio used to have a separate SHOUTcast for training new DJs? More detailed criticism could be given to these DJs providing that we're not experiencing a recruitment crisis.

- This one is more harsh: It's less appealing to listeners to listen to younger (males especially) on air. As harsh as this sounds it's still in my opinion a roadblock. In general with the younger DJs--I'm not entirely sure how to explain it, they just don't seem confident when they talk, or they're not sure what to say exactly.

- That advertisement played. I know it's only played once every 30 minutes or something like that but it's a major turn off. I am perfectly aware of how sound the park makes Habbox in terms of financial security but surly they too understand that maintaining a fanbase is a requirement in order to provide sufficient advertising. I'm sure this could be resolved with some good old negotiation.

- There's been many times where there's been no DJ DJing. Mostly in North American times I think. Perhaps an international could confirm this one!

[ihatehash]

I totally agree with what David has said, just to add-on to this, I think the large number of DJ's also cause the professionalism in the department. A lot of the DJ's are not moderated and are not active as well as often screwing up when on air or just going offline at peak times. I also feel standards have dropped and the management is no longer pursuing the high standards.

[Dean]

I do agree to be honest. I remember when I used to DJ last summer, there was plenty of listeners and the majority of the DJ's were like, what? 16? Some young ones but there were so many brilliant DJ's who were 16, 17 etc. For example, Richie, Nicola etc.

I liked it back when the DJ's were more mature and it was great fun to work there! Unfortunately, as I returned to HxL after I resigned at the end of the summer, I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the first time, mainly because most DJ's left.

I've also heard from HxL DJ's that they struggle to get at least 100 listeners now! It's quite bizarre

I think HxL is a great department so this is a great thread you made David Hopefully some people comment about the concerns!

[HotelUser]

That's the plan Dean!

Bingo with Nicki and Richard. Two quality DJs inwhich compared to those todays seems to be standards fallen through cracks in a sense.

[Lindsey]

My opinion, ;

Senior DJs is a big issue for me, being a Ex Senior DJ. But I think there should be a rule on this. When on the Senior Account you should be able to DJ and not just be on the Senior account for ''hours'', cause i've asked some Senior DJs on the senior account to DJ to DJ or stream cause i had to go and i always seem to get a no, then i look on my msn, and look through the DJs and there is no one who can cover? Or the Senior DJs don't even take an effort to help and find cover, when I was a Senior I and I was on the account and someone asked to cover i said yes. Cause your suppose to be there to help?

Another issue is ;

Lack in DJing, I do see some DJs that aren't even posted away, and haven't DJed in ever and still staff. Most of them are international, and could help out with the late night streaming? Staying up till 8AM in the morning is ridiculous. Last night, I stayed up till 8AM, I had to speak on air at 6AM so it would be actually DJing cause thats when people woke up. but I find it ridiculous. I do understand everyone has lives, but I think the DJ requirement weekly should be raised since its summer and everyone is off and/or off soon.

[Dean]

My opinion, ;

Senior DJs is a big issue for me, being a Ex Senior DJ. But I think there should be a rule on this. When on the Senior Account you should be able to DJ and not just be on the Senior account for ''hours'', cause i've asked some Senior DJs on the senior account to DJ to DJ or stream cause i had to go and i always seem to get a no, then i look on my msn, and look through the DJs and there is no one who can cover? Or the Senior DJs don't even take an effort to help and find cover, when I was a Senior I and I was on the account and someone asked to cover i said yes. Cause your suppose to be there to help?

Another issue is ;

Lack in DJing, I do see some DJs that aren't even posted away, and haven't DJed in ever and still staff. Most of them are international, and could help out with the late night streaming? Staying up till 8AM in the morning is ridiculous. Last night, I stayed up till 8AM, I had to speak on air at 6AM so it would be actually DJing cause thats when people woke up. but I find it ridiculous. I do understand everyone has lives, but I think the DJ requirement weekly should be raised since its summer and everyone is off and/or off soon.

Don't they normally raise the DJ requirement during the summer?

I do see what you're saying though...

[Richie]

I agree with everything above. I can almost guarantee you will get flamed or the habboxlive djs will take it the wrong way. Some will say it was the merge that effected habboxlive however I disagree, I'm not sure if nicola remembers but almost a year ago the standards of djs were starting to get worse and began to lose listeners. I said to Nicola as I can remember clearly 'I bet you one day habboxlive will drop below the 100 mark' and it has, staff could see it happening from a mile away and my point is no-one tried to prevent it from happening.


Kazopark
That stupid advertising thing with kazopark definitely is effecting the radio, yeah habbox are getting money out of it but your losing the traffic. Below I'm going to list a few things that I think may help habboxlive.



Furni
When I tuned into habboxlive in 06 & 07 I'm not going to lie I mainly tuned in for the competitions and for a bit of fun. Prizes used to be stuff like petals, ambers and the odd week, thrones. Now its stupid pointless furniture like mochas or hcs. Habbox might not have the furniture to be giving away and I'm aware djs can't ask for donations. What I think jess should do and yes it may seem rude but ask people on the forum for donations. That way better prizes and more competitions can be supplied.



On Air Talk
I've seen how it works in fm radio stations as I'm sure others have and yes I know habbox isn't fm but wouldn't it seem more professional if your djs made a script before each show? Rather than them go on air and stutter and talk about complete ******** that no-one wants to hear. Ask the djs to prepare a script and what songs they are going to play, they can work their requests into the scripts but if all fails and no-one requests a song they can go by the script. This will also let you see which djs can be actually arsed to put effort into habboxlive.



Interact & make fans
Lets be honest, djs pop on air and the same listeners say 'your my favourite dj' but say the exact same thing to the next dj. The djs need to attract their own listeners, get on habbo get chatting with people and in the process meet new friends. Speak to more people on the forum, post around the forum a little more and in fact it should be mandatory that they post around the forum. As much of a ***** fest habboxlive is, the djs need to work together, when I worked for habboxlive I had my own 'group' as some would call it, when one of us were on air we would advertise loads for the other person, we would tune into one another and ask everyone on our list to tune in and I can assure you it definitely brought in more listeners. There was like five or more in our 'group' imagine how successful habboxlive could be if everyone worked together invited, listened in and were using their initiative to help out when not asked.



Spice up the shows
Try get the listeners more active, get a skype account and have a chat with them. Do what they do in fm radios, record yourself speaking to them, then play it on it on air (for obvious reasons) dig up some old tunes you haven't heard in a while, have a poll asking what songs the listeners are getting bored of, have a list for them to choose from. Introduce different genres, dubstep, r&b, rap, classical? do what you gotta do.



Speaking over songs & radio going off air
I have to admit, fair play. After the last rant I had its been cut back loads, which is fantastic. It still happens but what can you do. The radio still seems to be boring at night. Perhaps jin should take a look at http://shoutautomation.com/ they have been around a long time and its basically an online auto dj which plays when the radios goes offline and I'm sure you can set it so when a dj connects it kicks the auto dj off air. You can setup playlists, genres, what time you want a song played at, record voice clips to be played at certain times, add jingles etc. Its very helpful just a suggestion and no I'm not getting paid to advertise for them (Thanks to skizzling for showing me this). The radio is delayed by 15 seconds already, I reckon it would be better to delay it by about one minute so if the radio does go off air it gives another dj the time to realise the radio has gone offline and connect without buffer.



Advertise
Put up a few facebook advertisements, google, trade advertising links with other websites. Yeah it will cost money but sure habbox have money now from kazopark use it while you have the chance. The prices aren't too extreme for advertising.



Make the radio compatible for as many programs as possible
Flash, wmp, adobe etc. Have a drop down menu for visters to choose from.



Different competitions
Maybe I am contradicting myself with the above by saying we need more habbo furniture, maybe its time for a change. Give away cds, yes it may be personal to give out peoples full address. Parents should have the trust of habbox management, ask the listener for their parents name or ask them could they ask their parents to email you. All details should stay confidential and if they don't want you knowing their address suggest to their parents that you could send it to their nearest post office for them to collect. That way the only details needed is the post office address and the collectors name.



Take suggestions like a complement
It shows that some people are actually trying to help habboxlive improve its quality and existence. Don't take everything so personal it might sound bad but we are just trying to help improve habboxlive at the end of the day.



Jingles
Have jingles for advertising the helpdesk, the habbox lottery, the forum, the news, the rare values, the competitions and events. Sounds like a hell of allot of jingles but it will change the shows and make them seem different. They don't need to be played constantly.



Stop being so up yourself
I know some staff that won't even bother speaking to new people as they just think they are some how above them and better. Everyone is the same and both new & old should be treated with the same respect staff members get.





thats just a few suggestions that I think may help habboxlive, ignore them if you wish.
Richard.

[Samantha.]

I see where you are coming from but like you said Jess and Gemma can only higher what they get offered. I'm not a young DJ!

[scott]

I remember this thread coming up not so long ago!

The thing about DJs, you can't always hire people with expereince, the best habbo DJs. Like Samantha said, they can only hire who applys. What people have to understand is that people gain expereince and improve over time and that's what is happening with HabboxLive. You can't turn away people who apply whos clip sounds good because 'you have no expereince' that's hardly fair.

The listeners have dropped quite a bit and i'm going to say what I said the last time, shoot me down all you wish but it's what I think is the case. Habbox.com - It used to attrat a good amount of listeners, Habbo introduced the market place it took people away from using Habbox for rare values, the lack of content/things to bring people back to habbox.com and sometimes the lack of Habbox events advertising us on habbo.

Yesterday I was talking to Jess about it and during the HabboxStarz show they had 80 listeners 50 of which were all in the party room so it shows that the listeners that are listening are indeed mostly from the HabboxLive site itself. The Habbox radio player should be changed to the same kind as HxL - I know many people who have complained about not being able to listen to the radio whatever the reason is I don't know that could be one of them. When comparing HabboxLive to many other fansites around then there is a decline in listeners quite a bit the likes of ClubHabbo gaining 30 listeners and peak times, so it's not just us.

I think HabboxLive need to have a bigger presence on Habbo itself it is the only way to get in listeners - I don't know if this has changed but when i was Asst. HxL manager i tried to get a HabboxLive sort of chill/chat room made, well I had it made I was just stopped from using it and making it an official room. Things like that HAVE to be done presence on habbo gains the listeners all fine and well saying use HxHD but it really isn't the same.

There is a rule for events organisers to have to advertise the habbox sites during the events, is there any rules about HxHD staff advertising? I know for one I do not look at room descriptions so I wouldn't see the sites being advertised and I very rarely see HxHD staff advertising - maybe that is something that can happen.

[Circadia]

I agree with everything people have siad As a listener my self i use to tune in alot last year because there was more reason to listen for competitions and Djs i liked i have become less interested in habboxlive because there is no reason to tune in anymore the majority of the Djs act immature and they don't know what to say so they just make up random crap when they talk. I used to love Listening to people like Richie and Davey because they made it fun by doing things like find the Dj or GTP. They also spoke to you on the forum. With davey he was more prepared with his party rooms he would choose them before the show so he would be ready to get underway with the djing and he would have appropriate things to say to the listeners I dont think he ever partied in the HxHD because its very boring. But now-days everyone goes there and they cba looking for a party room because they cba with Djing altogether.