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Where else? “The world’s biggest hotel has its headquarters right in the centre of Helsinki.” Timo Soininen, CEO, Sulake Corporation “Sulake’s thing is community-based entertain- ment. People are the best entertainment.” Step inside, and just believe it: Habbo Hotel has either to just bump into random strangers on the unless there are other people there. The entire seven million visitors every month. street and start talking to them. service rests on a fundamental human need, the At Habbo’s headquarters, a rather impressive And it makes no sense – or at least it’s not easy need to be sociable. It’s not a need created by the turn-of-the-century granite fortress of a building, – to look for someone with the same taste in Web, but it hasn’t gone away either. Sulake’s guests are received at an oddly curving front desk music on an American community website with thing is community-based entertainment. People in electric-blue plastic. And then greeted by Timo 274,000 groups based around music. And even if are the best entertainment,” Soininen says. Soininen who appears on the run. your interests are slightly more esoteric, such as Although the dinosaurs are tottering, this is just Soininen is head of the Sulake Corporation, history or science, that still leaves 8,200 groups. the beginning. That is what Soininen believes. which accounts for a good one-fifth of the Taivas Sulake’s business idea draws its power from “It’s astounding what amazing things people Innovations investment portfolio. Its most the vastness of the Internet and its unbridled can come up with.” important product is Habbo, a virtual world in growth. The company creates the tools for virtual That is an expression Soininen uses a lot: hotel form that has already spread to thirty encounters. Better ones than before: tools that astounding, or even incredibly astounding. He countries. Sulake fluidly combines the old and enable users to find a place of their own in the also often says something is incredibly interesting the new, just as their headquarters combine turn- chaos that is the Internet; that switch the huge for and that is how he feels about his job at Sulake. of-the-century fortress and electric-blue plastic; the small, exchanging vast masses of users for Soininen took over as head of Sulake in 2001. Internet technology and people’s most personal contacts. And all done more easily than “My old colleagues thought I’d gone mad,” fundamental need: to be part of a community. before. Soininen once said about his job change in an In the lobby of this old and dignified building interview in the Finnish financial periodical stands a cardboard pixel art figure wearing Fakta. And went on: “But the magic of Habbo Speedos and rabbit ears, next to a samovar. Users “Users in Habbo have drew me in.” in Habbo have created some 70 million such created some 70 million Perhaps not everyone found it easy to see what pixel-art figures. That equals fourteen times the Sulake really was. “I like a challenge. And population of Finland or one and a half times that such pixel-art figures.” anyway, I’d been doing traditional marketing of the UK – to base comparison in the first Habbo work for a number of years,” Soininen says. countries. These figures are staggering. The next development phase of the Internet “These five years at Sulake have been an amazing Soininen, however, considers the huge figure will be actual user-friendliness, Soininen adventure. And a great opportunity to do great to be merely a good start. predicts. That will open up virtual worlds to stuff with clever people every day: - an amazing “We’ve only scratched the surface,” he says. people who have no coding skills at all. People opportunity to create something global,” he says “Community-based entertainment has enormous who don’t even know how to copy and paste. with enthusiasm, pulling himself up in his chair growth potential. I’m convinced that we are just “A good community media company develops and spreading out his arms in a gesture that seeing the start of a huge mega-trend.” the best possible tools to enable its users to create underlines his message about worldwide On the brink of a mega-trend like this, virtual a much more relevant service for themselves than opportunities. worlds are still living in the age of the dinosaurs. a Yahoo group, for instance,” Soininen explains. Soininen explains it as the Internet Cretaceous “We’ll then be able to attract even the Internet Period. “And we know what happened to the couch potatoes. Services will become less and “Habbo is the most dinosaurs,” he adds. By dinosaurs, he is referring less tech-dependent. That’s a very good trend,” boring place in the to huge Internet services and media corporations. he continues. They are big. Too big, in fact. This is specifically what prompts Soininen to world unless there are “In the capacity of an oracle, I would think like predict a new mega-trend. Young people are this,” Soininen begins – and it is in the capacity already quite at home in web communities. They other people there.” of an oracle he has been asked for an interview. glide sure-footed from one service or community “Internet services are beginning to segment. In to the next, or even use them simultaneously. Soininen is a fast talker, the words flow in an the future, there won’t be just one MySpace of “Users are beginning to create paths between unending stream and he uses expansive gestures. YouTube or Flickr or other such services,” he services – links, their own short cuts, as it were,” When he talks about the tools for building says. Soininen says. “People move in quite a matrix on communities, he sketches a toolbox in the air and Multiple communities of people won’t want to the Internet these days.” hands it over using the invisible handle. He uses be included under the same Internet brand, they Soininen believes that even the most the word mindgames and gestures about his simply won’t feel at home as part of the same big monolithic dinosaurs on the Internet are already temples. He alternately stretches up and hunches concept. Instead, people’s mother tongue, for on their way out. Slightly smaller giants will down in his chair, leaning forward as he talks example, will take on renewed value, as will grow up alongside them. One of these little giants about concentration and waving his arms as he religion. The hegemony of English-language is Habbo, Sulake’s flagship product. It was built talks about growth. services will start to crumble, or so Soininen by Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä, who “I’ve always been a bit hyperactive. believes. Services available in English only will will tell their story in the next article. To begin Enthusiasm and impulsiveness are part of my not thrive. with, it was a virtual meeting place for a band personality, and I respond easily to stimuli. I “It is not interesting for users when a service they had with their mates. Seven years after the simply can’t sit still,” he says. Then he admits has, say, 27 million people accessing it – after all, boys’ brainwave, even the slowest of media, the that he has had to learn to be patient. “But it’s all how interesting are 27 million people as such?” periodicals, have started tooting the horn about a bit like the leopard and his spots.” Soininen asks, and promptly answers his own the importance of Internet communities and the Before he came to Sulake, Soininen was head question. Web 2.0 concept invented by Silicone Valley of the marketing campaign for the job-search “Not a bit. However, what is interesting is five consultants. The Person of the Year is you, portal Stepstone in Finland and Sweden, and people with the same interests as you: five proclaimed Time. before that, he was in charge of marketing at friends, five new people you meet.” “At Habbo, you have been the star all along,” Fazer Biscuits. At Sulake, this marketing veteran That’s it: people are the same, online or IRL, as Soininen points out. had had many of his ideas turned upside down. they say. After all, it makes no sense in real life “Habbo is the most boring place in the world “The traditional approach is that you manage a buy services one small piece at a time, like you then again, it has the courage to focus. At the brand. And brand management is turned into a would in a candy shop,” Soininen says. He same time, the company has been able to avoid science. But the really big thing is how the brand follows up with his favorite expression: “It will the original sin of Internet companies. That is interfaces with the consumers. Companies have be incredibly interesting to see where virtual something Soininen considers one of the greatest to stop acting like control freaks about their economy models will lead.” successes of the company and of his own career brands; they have to ask the consumers how they The dominance of the big US corporations – at Sulake. feel, what gives them kicks, and then continue to the dinosaurs – will also be broken in terms of “Even during those difficult moments, we’ve build on that. It’s a big change of mindset. And how online services make money. “The United recklessly believed in this idea. We’ve managed it’s also a very interesting idea,” Soininen adds States has an incredibly advanced advertising to avoid the typical sin of companies that build up with enthusiasm.

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