You remember how that new boy band 365 were doing some virtual promo on the Habbo Hotel 3D chat community website thingy? Well, chatting with the Habbo residents seems to be in fashion, with a stack of artists chatting over the net to the chat room's teenage fan base.
Apparently Lily Allen, Akon, Chamillionaire, Shayne Ward and McFly have all been in Habbo Hotel recently, and upcoming are Faithless (sometime this week), Jamelia (4 Dec), Matt Willis (15 Dec) and Little Chris (18 Dec). And U2 are apparently hosting an international pub quiz in mid December. Oh, and PopWorld will be doing something related to their PopWorld Promotes thingy in there too.
Habbo say that an increasing number of labels are showing an interest in their chat platform because their 5.4 million users and 750,000 daily users outstrips the audience of any of the mainstream music magazines or radio shows. A spokesman for the chat room told CMU: "[Artists'] visits are so much more than a general web chat. Habbo creates a bespoke promotional package that allows artists to interact with users in a creative fashion, actually integrating them into the heart of the community. Chamillionaire has just judged a rap competition, Jamelia will be launching a brand new beauty salon where Habbos can swap style tips and McFly will take lucky Habbos on dates. Habbos can queue for up to eight hours to meet artists on such occasions".
Habbo say they will launch an official music player within their network next year to further expand the music potential of the service. Press info on all of this can be obtained from Spring PR.