hi5 Launches New Music Applications By iLike and Qloud

By working with iLike and Qloud and embracing OpenSocial (a set of open technologies for building social applications across the Web), hi5 is enabling its members to utilize new iLike and Qloud music applications with their hi5 profiles to access and share the music of hundreds of thousands of artists globally. The applications also deliver localized content, richer functionality and improved search features for hi5 users.

“We are very pleased to increase the depth of our music offering for our members around the world, making it easier for them to find, listen to and post more of the music they like on their hi5 profiles,” says hi5 Networks, Inc. CEO and Co-founder, Ramu Yalamanchi. “These collaborations with iLike and Qloud really demonstrate how well the OpenSocial initiative can make it simpler for developers to build useful, fun and engaging applications for hi5 users.”

Ranked by Alexa® as a top 10 website globally, and the #1 or #2 most-trafficked site in nearly a dozen countries, hi5 is the preferred social network of the world’s Spanish-language population. Recognizing these users’ needs and preferences, the iLike application will be available to hi5 users in both Spanish and English.

The iLike application will enable hi5 users to post songs and videos on their profiles. Artists who previously had to maintain a separate presence on hi5 can now reach their fans on hi5 via the iLike Univeral Artist Dashboard™, which will also syndicate their content on other channels across the Web. For more information, go to: http://www.iLike.com/forartists.

“We are thrilled to offer artists and fans the ability to connect on hi5, a massive social networking site,” said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. “Artists can now post songs and videos once via iLike’s Universal Artist Dashboard and reach a potential additional audience of more than 70 million music fans.”

The Qloud My Music application will also now be available to the international hi5 population. By installing the My Music application, users can immediately see and legally play entire songs and videos from their complete iTunes libraries within their hi5 profile. My Music also allows users to see and play online the iTunes libraries of their friends, view and exchange playlists with their friends, browse and play the most popular songs among their social groups, and add their hi5 friends’ songs to their own hi5 profile libraries.

"We are enthusiastic about offering Qloud's unlimited, on-demand music discovery experience to over 70 million potential new users," said Mike Lewis, co-founder of Qloud. "International markets provide great growth potential for services built on social networks, and we anticipate that hi5's strong global brand and loyal user base will deliver an effective environment for generating new My Music fans around the globe."

The iLike and Qloud music applications will become available to hi5 users in a phased implementation, reaching the entire hi5 user base by the end of January 2008.

Open standards for the social web

OpenSocial is a set of common APIs that brings more powerful and pervasive social capabilities to the web.  Using these open technologies, developers can develop and distribute their applications more easily.  Users will be able to enjoy new social features faster and in more of the websites, web applications, and social networks they use. 

"The new music applications on hi5 are a terrific demonstration of how open standards benefit developers, Web sites and users," said Joe Kraus, a director of product management at Google.  "Using OpenSocial, hi5, Qloud, and iLike were able to get these up and running and out to hi5 users in a very short amount of time."

More information about OpenSocial is available at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/.