Sulake Corp., the Finnish founder of the Habbo Hotel online avatar-world, just revealed that as of June 15, 2006, more than 50 million virtual transactions have been conducted in its cyberspace environment.

Habbo is a free virtual community (for ages 13 and up) where you can hang out, chat and otherwise commune with like-minded denizens, create and design your own personal room as well as take part in Habbo hosted activities and contests or user made ones. The Habboverse even hosted a mini-Olympics to coincide with the real one in Torino.

Using real-world cash--credit, more precisely--, members can purchase room upgrades and home furnishings, virtual pets, club memberships and more for their Habbo-world counterparts--a feature of the game that's proven so successful, companies such as Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Nike, Sony PlayStation, Gillette and L'Oreal have lined up to feature their products in the Habbo Hotels' virtual stores.

Since its inception in 2000, the Habbosphere has grown to cover 18 countries (real-world ones, that is) with more than 7 million unique monthly users and more than 53 million Habbo avatars created.

More info at www.habbo.com.
 
 

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