Hi5 Blog

hi5 Help en Español

2008-05-07T01:40:52Z

To further support hi5's numerous Spanish-language users around the globe, we're pleased to announce our new hi5 Help section in Spanish. All members who are using one of the three Spanish language options we currently have available can now access hi5 Help en Español by clicking on "Ayuda" in the page footer. There, you'll find FAQ articles and the ability to submit inquiries to hi5 Customer Support, as well as receive email responses -- all in Spanish.

This new offering is among many ways we support our Spanish-language customers. After initially translating our service into the most common form of Spanish a couple years ago (making it our first non-English language option), we began offering email-based customer support in Spanish in 2007. Last month, we rolled out two new Spanish language options: Argentina Spanish and Castilian Spanish (with more local/regional dialects of the language planned for the future). With the hi5 Help section now also in Spanish, we're delivering a complete service-to-support Spanish experience for our users who are most comfortable communicating and interacting in this language -- which is the primary tongue of 21 nations around the world and one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

hi5 Skins Gallery Tops 1000

2008-04-08T18:43:40Z

We’re excited to announce that the hi5 Skins Gallery has surpassed 1000 published profile skins!

The gallery has come a long way since September, when it totaled just 157 skins by 79 designers. Today, it boasts over 360 designers from 42 nations around the world.

In addition to top themes such as stars, flowers, and grunge, the skin designers are inspired by their national pride, resulting in submissions featuring Colombia, Guyana, and Portugal, to name a few. We also currently have 15 sponsored skins that connect members with their favorite brands and products, like these from Nike and Nokia.

]]> hi5 Profile Skins Lounge, which is a discussion forum for skin artists, has also grown to over 20,000 members since our skins feature was first announced. Many of the active contributors to the group are popular published skin artists, such as DJXXX, Miguel Ángel, and Gad. Since conversation in the Skins Lounge occurs mainly in English, hi5 members have created Spanish and Thai language groups to help designers with their submissions in-language.

Not all skins are made for gallery submission. Some hi5 members create personal skins for their profile, and for sharing with their friends. The directions to share the code for a private skin can be found on the front page of the hi5 Profile Skins Lounge. Users who want to learn more about making a skin should look at the guidelines and specifications page.

Designers with Most Published Skins
Diana of Romania: 38 skins
Markituh of Portugal: 29 skins
Laguren of Mexico: 18 skins
Toney of Barbados: 18 skins
Erick of Mexico: 18 skins

Most Popular Member-Created Skins
“Star Dust” by Didier, 460671 profiles
“Punk” by Serge, 278602 profiles
“Euphoria” by DJXXX, 278433 profiles
“Pink Night” by Joao, 237184 profiles
“FireDragonz” by DJXXX, 230701 profiles

Over 150 New Ways to Enjoy hi5

2008-04-04T18:27:28Z

On Monday, hi5 launched its new Developer Platform with an initial batch of 65 new applications for hi5 users. We began making these apps available to hi5 users in phases throughout the week, and are now pleased to announce that all 80 million hi5 members now have access to our new Application Directory. In it, there are over 150 new ways to enjoy hi5, with many more to come!
]]> in no particular order):

PixWall: Decorate a bulletin board with photos, stickers, videos, notes and fun gifts, whether on your profile or those of your hi5 friends

Heritage and Flags: Show off your ethnic, cultural and national pride

MyMiniLife: Bling out your ‘home’ and show off your style using music, pictures and videos, or impress your friends by leaving them sticky notes and gifts

Mi Ingles: Mejora tu nivel de inglés, y supera el de tus amigos (Improve your level of English, and exceed that of your hi5 friends)

BuboMe: Pimp your photos by adding themes and bubbles and be the celebrity or superhero you always wanted to be; now available in English, Portuguese, Chinese and Vietnamese

Music iLike: Add music and videos to your profile, list your favorite artists, and test your skill in the Music Challenge (over 23 million users across the Web, with nearly four million on hi5)

MyCauses: Show the world what are you passionate about

TypeRacer: Compete against your friends and the whole world in this first-ever competitive typing game

TheVerb: Engage your friends in real life by planning things with them on hi5

iThink: Express your deepest thoughts, share opinions, banter and comment

Superlatives: Tell the world what you think about your hi5 friends

Chuck Norris: Deliver a roundhouse kick, Chuck Norris-style

Bible Verses: Play the Bible Verses quiz with your friends, or post a prayer and your favorite Bible passages

Buddha Quote of the Day: Amazing and inspiring quotes from Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama)

My Footprints: Leave virtual footprints across the globe - be it your own cozy home, your favorite restaurant, your last vacation spot or any place worth a mention

Texas Hold’em Poker: Compete in the biggest, free Texas Hold’em Poker game on the Web (with over seven million players)

Books iRead: Organize your favorite books, rate and review them, and browse what other iReaders and your friends are reading

Sketch Me: Create stunning sketches from your photos and post them to your profile

Restaurants: Find and share opinions about local eats throughout the world

Ammas: Trade your knowledge, earn real rewards and find quality answers to questions in over 500 categories

Spanish – Word of the Day: Learn Spanish with a new word every day (includes audio pronunciation)

Soccer Fan Badges: Add crests from champions, premier, series A, MLS, and world national teams

Honesty Box: Enable your friends to tell you honestly (and anonymously) what they think about you

IQ Test: Take a free 15-minute intelligence test to find out your IQ and compare it with the rest of your hi5 friends to see who is the smartest

Hangman: Play this classic game to brush up your vocabulary, with various levels of difficulty and associated scoring

And many many more!!! So, what are you waiting for? Log in to your profile and join in the fun today!

Developers:
Thanks for all the great apps you've submitted so far! Check out our blog for developers to stay up-to-date on the latest hi5 Platform news, and learn about how to optimize and spread your apps on hi5.

Detailed information about building apps for hi5 users is available at http://developer.hi5.com/. The hi5 Platform team is also available for chat via irc://irc.freenode.net#hi5dev.

hi5 Has Launched New Developer Platform; Helping Establish OpenSocial Foundation

2008-03-31T23:35:40Z

Today marks a significant milestone in the evolution of hi5, as we have launched a robust new developer platform that will help bring about many new ways to communicate, interact and have fun within the hi5 community. Now, developers of social networking applications will be able to more easily create, deeply integrate and increase the success of their applications on hi5, by leveraging a suite of common APIs, including those of OpenSocial.

hi5 has also announced today that our company will be joining Google, Yahoo! and MySpace to help establish the OpenSocial Foundation. This new non-profit organization is being formed to focus on advancing the neutrality and longevity of an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the Web, hence the name OpenSocial. What this commitment ultimately means for us is more ways for you to enjoy hi5!
]]> — in collaboration with numerous organizations and developers from around the world:

Those we joined last fall when the OpenSocial initiative first launched, and who have worked with us since then to advance OpenSocial at conferences, hackathons, code labs and other developer meetings, including: two Silicon Valley Web Builder events in January and February; the Social Graph Foo Camp in February; the Graphing Social Patterns conference on March 4, and the Silicon Valley Google Technology User Group meeting earlier this month

Those who came and contributed to the hi5 Hackathon, the industry's first-ever, bi-national hackathon, which was simultaneously held at the Google campus in Mountain View, California and at a university, ITESM, in Mexico City, Mexico

Those among the more than 7700 commercial, independent and student developers who have registered to build apps for the hi5 community

We extend our sincere appreciation to all of the organizations, individual developers, hi5 staffers and others who have contributed their time and talents to help us arrive at this momentous occasion.

More Information for hi5 Users:
In the coming days, weeks and months, you will see many new applications get added to hi5, in about 20 categories initially and multiple languages, with more to come. To ensure a smooth transition and optimal user experience, we are rolling the new apps out to our membership in phases through April. Once live, you will be able to access and peruse hi5's new application catalog by clicking on the "Applications" tab from your profile.

More Information for Developers:
If you are interested in building applications for hi5, detailed information is available on our developer platform. The hi5 Platform team is also available for chat via irc://irc.freenode.net#hi5dev.

iLike on hi5: R.E.M. Album Exclusive, Song Dedications & More!

2008-03-24T18:00:30Z

I'm here to share breaking iLike news with the hi5 community...

R.E.M. Worldwide Exclusive

Starting today through March 26, R.E.M.'s highly anticipated new album, Accelerate, is available to listen to in its entirety by hi5 users who have added the iLike music application. R.E.M. chose iLike to debut their new album before it will be available anywhere else. If you use iLike on hi5, you now have exclusive access to:

Full song streams from R.E.M.'s 14th studio album
A video message in which R.E.M.'s frontman, Michael Stripe introduces and discusses the album

Accelerate is intense and relevant — with songs inspired by the WTO riots in Seattle, the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and other topical themes. As Michael said in our press release: "Collaborating with iLike, and debuting Accelerate across the Web is in keeping with the spirit and immediacy of the album. Accelerate is our turbo-charged response to the times we live in."

We hope you enjoy our first-ever Worldwide Listening Party.

New iLike Features for hi5 Users
Almost four million users have added iLike to their hi5 profiles since we launched three months ago! Now, we're gonna make the service even better in the next few weeks, by adding two of your most-requested features...

Song dedications: dedicate and send songs to your friends, with a personalized message
Music video playlists: create personalized music video playlist on your hi5 profile page

Enjoy the R.E.M. Worldwide Listening Party, and tell your friends about iLike on hi5!

Note to Musicians: If you aren't already using iLike's Universal Artist Dashboard™ to conveniently share music, videos and concert dates with more than 23 million iLike users across the Web, you can get started now by clicking here.

Vote for hi5 — A Webware 100 Finalist!

2008-03-06T01:29:33Z

Each year, Webware.com hosts the Webware 100 awards to recognize "the best Web 2.0 sites, services and applications that are leading the next wave of innovation." Thousands of nominees are mulled over by the Webware editors (led by veteran tech journalist and CNET Editor-At-Large, Rafe Needleman), who then put the finalists up for public vote.

That's where you come in. This year, hi5 is a Webware 100 finalist. We're up against 29 other contenders in the Social category, and the polls are now open through March 31. You can cast your vote here.

Thanks in advance for those votes cast our way!

hi5 now available in Russian (УРА!)

2008-03-06T01:15:50Z

Russian has recently been added as hi5's 15th language option, and is being used by a quickly growing community of users in the Russian Federation, its emigrants and individuals in countries of the former Soviet Union.

A recent article in eMarketer pointed out that Russia is expected to become the #2 Internet market in Europe — second only to Germany — over the next five years. "Russia, Poland and the other Eastern European countries are the growth drivers for Internet adoption in Europe," wrote eMarketer senior analyst, Ben Macklin.

Russia is actually the world's most commonly spoken Slavic language, a language family that includes Polish, Ukranian, Belarusian, Czech, Serbian, Slovenian, Bosnian, and many others. It is a synthetic language with six cases, posing a non-trivial internationalizationchallenge for us.

To the nearly 300 million who count Russian as a primary or secondary language, hi5 extends its welcome!

hi5 приглашает всех, кто говорит по-русски!

With So Many Languages, Look For The Globe

2008-02-07T00:29:24Z

As we rolled out simplified and traditional Chinese, you may have noticed that we added a new globe icon in the hi5 language navigation (see upper right hand corner of the hi5 homepage). We offer hi5 in so many languages now, they don’t all fit on one line anymore! So, we’ve added the globe icon to support an ever-expanding menu of language options.

Looking ahead…

Over the next six months, we’ll be adding new languages every month, and have other exciting features to make hi5 locally and culturally relevant coming as well. To take an active role in the fun, please visit, join and participate in our Language Forum.

hi5 Now in Chinese! 现在有中文版的hi5!

2008-02-07T00:28:27Z

In time for Chinese New Year (新年快乐!), we’ve added simplified and traditional Chinese as hi5’s newest translations. Over 1.2 billion people use these two written languages – making them so common, they were a perfect fit for our growing Asian offering.

“Chinese” is actually a collection of many diverse dialects including Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Min, Xiang, Hakka, and others. While Mandarin (the official language of China) is most often written in the simplified Chinese script, we provide the traditional Chinese script as well — to make hi5 readily available for as many Chinese-language Internet users as possible.

China has actually surpassed the United States in Internet usage, with over 150 million users spending nearly two billion hours online each week and a steady growth rate of 18% annually (see related Forbes article). With the addition of the Chinese scripts, we look forward to welcoming many new hi5 members in China, as well as those in other locations where the language is regularly used, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, and more.

欢迎全世界的华人！

hi5 Named as OnMedia Top 100 Company

2008-01-19T00:20:09Z

For the second year running, media firm AlwaysOn is recognizing the top 100 emerging companies that are demonstrating 'game-changing' innovations in marketing, branding, advertising and public relations. Known as the OnMedia Top 100, this year hi5 is among the honorees within the "Community Platforms" category.

To make the cut, hundreds of private companies were nominated and judged based on AlwaysOn’s five primary evaluation criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value creation, and media attention. Among those who weighed in to determine the honor roll: KPMG, Bridge Bank, Merrill Corporation, Manatt, Phelps & Philips, and the AlwaysOn editors.

In a congratulatory message to hi5, AlwaysOn founder and CEO, Tony Perkins said, "The nominations were extremely competitive and...the level of excellence in the top 100 was remarkable. These companies are proving to have significant innovation, substantial customer adoption, large market potential, noticeable buzz, and are well on their way to creating tremendous value for their investors."

We appreciate the kudos Tony, and are pleased to be included in this distinctive group.

Good Times Roll at OpenSocial Hackathon

2008-01-17T20:16:03Z

If you've used the hi5 versions of the iLike and Qloud music applications, you've experienced the power of OpenSocial. It's an enabling technology that allows great applications to run on hi5.

We're working with the developer community to bring about even more applications using OpenSocial. To help this process, Google and Six Apart sponsored a "hackathon." Hackathons are great because they allow for developers to socialize, learn and write code. A good one also generally requires a hefty dose of Wi-Fi, pizza and beer too.

Last night, all were in abundance with over 100 people crammed into the Six Apart office in San Francisco. The fun began with status updates, followed by presentations on the OpenSocial API, the Shindig OpenSocial server, and how to get applications up and running.

After that, much elbow-rubbing, coding and learning took place. For hi5 that meant meeting dozens of new people who came to use our OpenSocial development "sandbox," and a new social application prototyped by Zynga - Battleship!

The folks from Zynga were able to get their Battleship game working in the hi5 Developer's Sandbox and integrated it with your friends list and profile data. Not bad for a few hours of hacking!

We're going to continue working on OpenSocial, and you can expect to see many new and interesting applications coming to hi5 in the future.

-- Paul

New Features: Online Now, Status Updates & More!

2008-01-14T22:30:49Z

With the new year comes many new hi5 features! Here’s an overview of our latest rollouts:

Online Now: Ever wonder which of your friends are on hi5 at the same time as you? Now you'll know with the new Online Now feature. Any friends simultaneously using the site will be listed on the left-hand side of your homepage.

Status: Let your friends know what you're up to and see what's going on with them with the new Status feature. Located right on your homepage, it’s a quick and easy input box for updating folks on your current status, mood or personal statement. What’s particularly cool: the old “Scrapbook Topics” has been merged in with the new Status feature, so your friends can let you know what they think about the Status you’ve posted.

Bulk Inbox: You've spoken and we listened....so you'll be able to easily access all of your most important messages from your friends in your hi5 Inbox, without any clutter from non-friends (those messages will fall into the new Bulk Inbox).

Profile Updates: Fives now has its own module on the profile, above Comments on the right side of the page. We also moved Schools and Workplaces up into the top area.

Profile Invisible to Blocked Users: In our ongoing efforts to maintain your privacy, we're preventing any user you've blocked from seeing any of your profile pages. Goodbye unwanted glances – hello friends!

And that’s just the beginning of the exciting releases we have to come. We hope you enjoy them, and let us know what else you’d like to see on hi5 in our “How Can We Make hi5 Better” discussion forum.

hi5 Now In Thai! เย้! วันนี้ hi5 มีเวอร์ชั่นภาษาไทยแล้ว

2007-12-28T23:01:05Z

To thank and support those who have made hi5 the #1 social network in Thailand, and to welcome new hi5 members in this beautiful kingdom, we've now added Thai (ภาษาไทย) to our rapidly growing set of language options.

Thai is currently spoken by an estimated 65 million people. The written language was introduced in 1283 by the third Sukothai period king, Ramkamhaeng, and has undergone little change since its introduction (inscriptions from the Sukothai era can still be read by modern Thai readers).

We’re excited to launch Thai as hi5’s 12th language, and welcome your feedback in the hi5 Thai Language Forum ภาษาไทย. Many thanks to all who have contributed to this latest hi5 translation! ขอขอบคุณทุกท่านที่ให้การสนับสนุน hi5 ภาษาไทย

There are also many more languages to come. If we aren’t already available in your native tongue, suggest a translation in the hi5 Language Forum.

hi5 — A Hot Search Term in 2007

2007-12-28T17:00:05Z

Google's 2007 Year-End Zeitgeist is out, and as many bloggers and reporters have noted — social networking is topping the charts! From the billions of Google search queries this year…

hi5 comes in at #9 of the "fastest rising global" search terms. We’re honored that so many folks around the world are looking for hi5, and even more pleased that Google is helping them find us!

hi5 Launches New Music Applications By iLike and Qloud

2007-12-21T23:52:47Z

hi5 has announced the launch of two new music services through collaborations with iLike and Qloud. iLike and Qloud each launched an application on hi5 by leveraging the common set of OpenSocial™ APIs to deliver new music services to hi5’s more than 70 million registered members — making these the first applications using OpenSocial to go live on hi5.]]> 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/.