Announcements: March 2008 Archives

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!

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

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.