Second semester

The second semester started really well. Our house was in walking distance from Uni. Once i got my bearing right it was all good. The house was a bit old and we had pest problems but it was all good. I began to relax and feel happy about my life here.

I got along with my new housemates (my friend and her daughter). We had a good understanding of each other and cared about each other. My attend uni in the mornings and afternoon. She goes to uni during the evening and at night. So i babysat for her. It was a bit tough during the first few weeks or even months. But me and her daughter got along really well and we had fun most of the time. Oh yeah, just like any other kid , she had her tantrums but we go thru.

I became much better with the bus routines and we began to go to shopping centers and figure our way out. it was soo cool. Now, i can say, life's good. My life was my own.

I thrived as person as well. Got good grades for assignments and made new friends and took part in extra curricular activities.

As for my personal life, i still called home like every week. talked to my little sister, whom i missed most and also talked to mom and others (sisters and brothers and all)

End of second semester, it was time to go on a holiday. I travelled to singapore to meet my partner. we had a great two weeks holidays staying in a wonderful hotel called the Swissotel, the Stamford. it was really really great and relaxing.

He was waiting for me at the airport when I came out...but it was strange. I felt strange. hmm, i guess i was getting used to living away from him and as a single person. Actually living as a single isn't so bad. I wonder why people go crazy if they don't have a partner /boyfriend. and then again, it all comes down to being strong and how strong u'r faith is.

End of the holidays, it was winter my favourite time of the year. Life was good. i came back one week before classes started for the third semester. That was my relaxing week..doing nothing.

A week later...the third semester - my second year of Uni started. One year gone by and i looked back and wondered where the time has gone ....

After first semester

After first semester it was time to go home for holidays. I wasn't going to go but my housemates were going so i had to since i didn't have a place to stay and we were moving out of that accomodation for good. And also my housemates had a new baby and their son had some issues with an additional person living with them as a family, they decided to live seperate. So it was time for me to look for my own accomodation. I was nervous and scared but it was alright. I am strong and I always survived in situations like this. But at that time i had mixed feelings about my entire first semester experience.

Anyways, I decided to go home, to rethink things over and relax, see my family and partner. The catch was i let my family think that i was not going back for holidays and one night i just arrived in Male' at my family home doorstep and Viola! mission accomplished. Everyone was so surprised! hehehe...it was a very interesting experience.

The first few weeks were cool and I was happy to be back, everyone else were happy to see me. My sister gave birth, I got busy trying to be there for everyone and giving each and everyone the time they craved. By the end of one month i was so stressed and bored to death. All i wanted to do was just get the hell out of there. My partner was working and out of Male' most of the time. So didn't get to spend much time with him either.

When it was time for me to leave i was so excited. Ofcourse everyone else were feeling a bit down. I as elated and excited but i bit nervous.

By then my accomodation was arranged and I was supposed to live with another friend of mine who had rented a house near Uni.

And Hence, starts my second semester...

First day of Uni

On the first day of Uni, my friends dumped me in Uni and left me to find my own way. Me being bad at direction i was very quickly lost. I quickly learnt that the best thing to do when left on your own is to ask for help and if lost to ask for direction. So I managed the first day of Uni pretty well. But oh dear, it was time to go home and I couldn't figure out a way to go to the Uni bus stop. I walked around and tried to read the sign boards(which wasn't much of a help) in the hope of finding the bus stop.

Oh yeah, after hours of walking on end, I finally figured out where the bus stop was and managed to get home...

Hooray!! three cheers for me, my first day of Uni was successful.

First Few Weeks.

We had a car, but none of us had a license so tough luck. It was time to learn how to take the bus. I am extremely bad at directions and didn't have a clue of how vast Western Australia was. I kept expecting to see the sea around the corner just like we do in Maldives.

Lucky for me, the bus stops near the apartment I lived so taking the bus wasn't so difficult but on my way back I remember I used to be so scared that if I don't ring the bell for the bus to stop at the right time, I wouldn't be able to get off the bus at the right stop.

It took me a while to get used to the bus routes and the people who gets on and off the bus at every single stop. Sometimes, it gets scary when drunk/stoned people come on the bus. The trick is to get off at the next nearest stop and wait for the next bus and hope that this one is better than the previous one.

I figured that as long as I remember the bus numbers that would take me to Uni and back home I will be alright. I never let my guard down even for a moment and kept on making friends with people and observing and absorbing everything that goes around me.

Touch Down!

My flight landed and my heart was doing doubles. I was very excited. The moment I came out of the airport hours after the plane landed, it "was as if all my fears and loneliness faded away. My first thought was "It's so beautiful". Ofcourse, my friends who were already in Perth were there to pick me up. As we drove along the highways and roads of perth I felt totally at home.

This was my life now. Me and ...just me. whooo hoooo....At first it was kinda difficult to make my own decision for myself without thinking about others. I kept thinking, what would mom think if I do this, or what would my housemates (who happen to be my close friend) would think if I do things my way. I was very worried about stepping on her toes. I was very conscious of what I did and said all the time. Mostly I observed intensly on what's going on around me.

Living away from Home

I always thought being blessed with a family was the best thing that could ever happen to me. I always thought that no matter how the western idealism promoted, living with my family would be a great value and tradition to hold on to. I remember a promise I made to myself "I would keep my family together. I would not let it fall apart like alot of families do, no matter what." So obviously all my life after that self vow, I have always believed it and worked towards achieving that goal. So far so good.

And then one day....

It was time for me to leave home. As i prepared to leave, I gave away some of my things and threw away alot of junk I've collected over the years. It was as if unconsciously preparing for an absense of a lifetime. I don't know why, but that was how it felt. When I left home, I also left behind a partner, parents, sisters, brothers, nephews and friends. There were mixture of emotions floating around me as my departure came near.

And then one night...

It was time for me to leave. Saying goodbye was difficult but in a way easier than I thought. I checked in, breezed through customs and boarded the plane, that would take me to my destination, Perth, Western Australia. It was after I boarded the plane i realised my safety net - my family was not going to be there with me every step of the way. Not even my partner. That realisation was a bittersweet sensation.

It took me a few minutes to get settled and to dismiss the feeling of loneliness. I make friends easily and soon I made a friend who kept me company all the way to Malaysia. That morning we boarded seperate flights. She was off to Tasmania (also part of australia) and me to Perth.

INTRODUCTION

Hi everyone, Welcome to my case study based on the Social Community : HabboHotel.

With the advent of the internet and computer mediated communications (CMC) the world has become a global village. This case study will look at the interactive virtual community HabboHotel. In our tutorials we have identified groups of interest as one of the major entities of a virtual community. Therefore, this case study will also look at whether it is necessary to have groups of interest among the target audience to make this interactive online environment a virtual community.

WHAT IS A VIRTUAL COMMUNITY?

Before I go any further let us look at the definition of Virtual Communities. In his book The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier Howard Rheingold (2000, p.5) defines Virtual Communities as “social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace".

These “long enough public discussions” which according to Rheingold forms webs of personal relationships in cyberspace can occur within newsgroups, support groups and online fan clubs in a text based asynchronous form.

WHAT IS A SOCIAL COMMUNITY & HOW DOES IT WORK?

The Internet has become a way of life. Virtual communities have thrived on the social networking software’s interactivity. Not only scholars, academics or groups with specific interests but children as young as 13 years of age are becoming part of the Interactive virtual communities. People are going online with the intention of making friends and socializing in a more interactive environment.

Most of the online social communities need software that could be used as a common interface between networked users. Some of this software such as The Palace needs to be downloaded on to the user’s desktop. Other software such as HabboHotel is web-based and can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

CASE STUDY : HabboHotel as a Social Community Online

Target audience: 13 -17 yrs.

Fast Facts about Habbos inventors (Greenfields & Nuytemans, 2004)

• Habbo Hotel is a product of Sulake Labs Ltd.

• The online game market is estimated to be worth US $5 billion by 2005 (Source:
  Interactive Entertainment, Sector Review, CSFB). Overall consumer spending on games
  has already exceeded box office revenues of the movie industry.

• Sulake Labs' turnover was about 5 million in 2003.

• In September 2003, Sulake Labs was awarded an Ars Electronica Golden Nica Award for Habbo Hotel, in the seventeenth annual Prix Ars Electronica Awards. Ars Electronica is considered to be the most prestigious cyber arts award in Europe with 2,714 entries this year from 85 countries.

• Just recently Sulake Labs has raised 4 million to finance the company's international expansion. One of the leading venture capital companies, 3i Group plc, is investing 3 million, and Sulake's biggest shareholder, the Finnish marketing communication group Taivas, 1 million.

BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION of HabboHotel.

Habbo Hotels is a web based interactive gaming software that runs on macromedia shockwave. They have got hotels in 16 countries around the world.

Australia
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Norway
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
UK
USA


I checked into Habbo Hotel Australia a couple of months ago and have been a regular Habbo.

CHECK IN

Habbo Hotel is a graphical chat and gaming environment for teenagers to hang out, make friends and have fun. Users have to sign in and create a virtual character (avatar!) whose appearance can be personalized (clothes, skin, hair, shoes.) and hang out in a virtual hotel. Once you are signed in, you become a Habbo officially. Habbos are able to eat, drink, talk, shout, walk, dance and swim, and can change appearance at any time. They can decorate their rooms, play games and interact with other Habbos.

Click here if you want to check in right now.

HABBO ROOMS

HabboHotel consists of 2 categories of Space. Public Space such as:

• The Welcome Lounge
• The Chill out room
• The Swimming ‘ool (pool)
• The Opera House
• The Main Lobby
• The Club Woop Woop (my favourite!)
• The Pizzeria and more.
  
  And Guest Rooms which are created by Habbos themselves. Guest rooms ranges from games rooms to theme rooms or just bedrooms. Some of the guest rooms are password activated and some are free access rooms. The trick is to make your room the most visited room in the hotel.
  
  Users can visit different Habbo Hotel public rooms by using the navigator interface on the Habbo Hotel site or visit the guest rooms created by other Habbos. In the hotel's various rooms, Habbos communicate with each other by chatting. Each user has a Habbo Console for locating and communicating with their friends (instant messaging). This console also indicates who are online and who are not and where they can be located.

HABBO CREDITS

Habbos are able to dive at the swimming ‘ool (not a typo, this is the Habbo way of saying Pool) using Habbo credit, buy furniture for their rooms or buy gifts for their friends from the Habbo catalogue. There are 6 ways of buying Habbo credit. It can be bought using a home phone, mobile phone, ezypin, sms (only available in Australia), money order or cash.

HELP AND SECURITY

There are very simple rules which all Habbos must follow when on HabboHotel premises. Follow the rules and you will have heaps of fun and break them to get yourself banned from HabboHotel.

In order to protect the Habbo privacy, they have a privacy policy, FAQs as well as a parental guide. Habbo Police (Hobba) also patrols the premises and helps maintain a safe and non-threatening environment.

HELP AND SECURITY : THE BOBBA FILTER

It is very important that Habbos watch their language when they are in this online environment. Due to a large number of young Habbos using this environment and also for protection and security reasons Habbo Hotel uses a technical filter that replaces certain words and phrases with the rather unusual word 'bobba' - the Bobba Filter.. Anything that goes against the Habbo Way - this includes swearing, racism, explicit sexual comments and also email addresses and phone numbers are now in the filter so that Habbos can't give them out. The Bobba Filter is constantly updated - sometimes several times a day - with new words and terms.

Some of the unacceptable words are - control, msn, cocktail, horny and pussy.(please excuse me for typing them on this page).

ANALYSIS

It is interesting that when I first signed it to HabboHotel, I did not expect to enjoy being around a population of teenagers. However, as weeks went by, I totally enjoyed chilling out by the pool during the day and go dancing on the WoopWoop dance floor at night. I used the Labyrinth when I needed a moment to myself and to reflect upon my experiences online. It was on one of the days I spent in the Labyrinth that I started wondering whether my life online was real or virtual. Whether I would call these computer mediated communications (CMC) a virtual community.

This feeling led me to question my beliefs so far about the notion of virtual communities. According to Watson (1997) scholars have attempted to prove that “a group of people sharing something online are in fact a community”. Therefore, the simple fact that I am a Habbo makes me part of the Habbo community. Yet, I did not feel like I am part of a community. It was more like living in a neighbourhood.

To explore further, I decided to ask some questions. Six of my online “friends” with whom I have been interacting online over the past couple of months allowed me to interview them.

INTERVIEW : Why do people join the HabboHotel?

Jilla: Why did u join HabboHotel?

Buzz : to meet with people and to make new friends.
Adam : to hangout with people my age.
Rocchic : meet with people
Carmen: to get a boyfriend
Finladen: to irritate people.
Roxychic: just to be myself.

So, the main reason why people join HabboHotel is to meet with people, to make new friends and to socialize.

INTERVIEW: How much time do people spend in HabboHotel?

Jilla: How long have you been in HabboHotel?

Buzz : 4 weeks
Adam : me too
Rocchic : 3days
Carmen: not so long
Finladen: 1day
Roxychic: months

Jilla: Do u come here often?

Buzz : everyday after school
Adam : I sign in from work every night
Rocchic : after school
Carmen: every now and then
Finladen: after school
Roxychic: all my free time

From this second set of questions, it can be seen that there is a continuity of presence among them. This was their place to hangout with their friends after school. They might know some of these friends from school but the rest would be from all over the world (mostly from Australia and NewZealand).

INTERVIEW: Ease of use & is HabboHotel a VC?

My third set of questions was: Do you think using HabboHotel is simple? Do you enjoy being here? And do you think HabboHotel is a virtual community? All the interviewees found that it was very easy to use HabboHotel and there was always someone to ask for help if you get lost. All of them enjoyed being a Habbo and being on HabboHotel from day one. However, when it came to the third question of this set, Most of them had never even heard of the word “virtual community”. I had to rephrase my question by asking them whether they feel that their involvement in HabboHotel is real or virtual to them. And their answers were “pretty real” except two guys who thought it was just a place to make a friend and then they would prefer to continue outside HabboHotel (on msn or offline).

CONCLUSION

According to our in-class discussions (tutorials) and on the online blog, we came to the conclusion that a (virtual) community happens when a community share common interests, share proximity, share common experiences, communicate and commune with each other.

So is HabboHotel a virtual community? Well, the community there has:

• a shared interest of meeting people and making friends, (but not interest groups)
• a shared proximity of the HabboHotel environment,
• common shared experiences of playing Falling furniture or singing at the Opera House.
• Several modes of communicating with each other.

Sure! all of these happen in the HabboHotel’s virtual environment. And also,
HabboHotel’s aim and objective is to provide a safe environment for teenagers to meet with each other and make new friends. From my involvement and observations I found that these aims and objectives are being met. Therefore, it can be said that HabboHotel is a virtual community and a successful online networking software. However, I could not put my mind at ease because I still felt a sense of removal and a lack of complete and serious commitment around this virtual environment. The level of communion was low in HabboHotel.

HabboHotel’s lack of communion and commitment indicates that it is not a perfect virtual community. It was very interesting to find that my evaluation of the HabboHotel environment has made me realize that “sharing a common interest” does not necessarily have to be regarded as “groups of interest”. Therefore, I have to conclude HabboHotel is a Virtual Community in some ways and it is not necessary to have groups of interest as an entity of an interactive Virtual Community.

My Last Say :P

“If I had encountered sociologist Barry Wellman and learned about social network analysis when I first wrote about cyberspace cultures, I could have saved us all a decade of debate by calling them 'online social networks' instead of 'virtual communities’.” (Rheingold as cited in Cervini, 2003)

Well, I feel that perhaps it is time we broaden our horizons by thinking outside virtual communities. With the popularity of online networking software such as HabboHotel maybe we should start thinking about “Virtual Neighbourhoods”.

Comments and thoughts are welcome.

Thank you & have a good day :)

REFERENCES

Cervini, A. L. (2003). Network connections. Retrieved on May 6 , 2005, from http://stage.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~alc287/thesis/thesis_networkanalysis.html

Greenfield and Nuytemans. (2004). Make New Friends. Where Else? Retrived on May 1, 2005, from http://www.ogilvy.com/viewpoint/view_ko.php?id=41318&iMagaId=-1

Rheingold, H. (1996). The virtual community: introduction. Retrieved on May6, 2005, from http://www.well.com/user/hlr/vcbook/


Further Readings


Interview with Howard Rheinegold. Retrieved on May 1, 2005, from http://www.well.com/user/hlr/texts/mindtomind/frontline.html

Nip, J.Y.M (2003). The relationship between online and offline communities: the case study of the Queer Sisters. Retreived on May 2, 2005, from
http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~jour/documents/joyce/Queer_Sisters.pdf

Online community resources (2004). Retrieved on May 1, 2005, from http://www.fullcirc.com/commresources.htm

Rheingold, H. (1998). The art of hosting good conversations online. Retrieved on April 27 , 2005, from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/artonlinehost.html

White, N. (1999). Interview with Howard Rheingold. Retrieved on May 1, 2005, from http://www.fullcirc.com/community/hrheingold.htm

Tour of HabboHotel

signin
Originally uploaded by shabz.

This is the HabboHotel Sign in Consule.

Habbo console

habboconsule
Originally uploaded by shabz.

This is my individual Habbo console. The little faces on the left indicates my friends who are online.

Welcome lounge

Welcome lounge
Originally uploaded by shabz.

Welcome Lounge, where the newbies come and meet other new Habbos

WoopWoop dance floor

WoopWoop dance floor
Originally uploaded by shabz.

This is my favourite place on HabboHotel-the WoopWoop Dance floor.

Swimming 'ool

Swimming 'ool
Originally uploaded by shabz.

The swimming 'ool is the busiest area of the HabboHotel.

Pizzeria

Pizzeria
Originally uploaded by shabz.

Let's go and eat pizza

Game room : fallinfurniture

Game room : fallinfurniture
Originally uploaded by shabz.

Playing the game of Falling chairs is like playing musical chairs.

Private room 4 200 cr

Private room 4 200 cr
Originally uploaded by shabz.

This is a 200 credit room and also a very good example of a private room.

welcome

Welcome to my BLOG.

cheers
shabz