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Fantasy Sports Game 2010 World Futbol Challenge Launches on hi5.com in Time for the 2010 World Cup

We are pleased to announce our partnership with RotoHog, one of the fastest-growing fantasy game developers for major entertainment brands and professional sports. Through this strategic partnership, we've launched the first-ever fantasy sports game to be published on our website, 2010 World Futbol Challenge.

"RotoHog has quickly built a reputation in sports and entertainment of being able to create and maintain high quality, smooth functioning game applications, especially in the fantasy space, and we are very proud to partner with them," said  Kevin Gliner, SVP of production at hi5. "Soccer's following around the world is second to none, and we are very excited to give our millions of monthly users an opportunity to play along with their favorite countries during next month's landmark event in South Africa." 

"On a global basis there is no sport that has more potential for fantasy gaming than soccer does," said RotoHog CEO Kelly Perdew. "We are very pleased to be able to partner with hi5 to create their first-ever fantasy sports game, as fans shift their focus to all the excitement and international pride that will be on display as the world's greatest sporting event begins in June in South Africa."    

2010 World Futbol Challenge gives players the ability to participate in a country-by-country fantasy soccer game in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The game is currently available on hi5.com and will be a featured game on our website for the weeks leading up to the start of the games in South Africa on June 11. In this bracket-style, confidence pick 'em game, players select their favorite countries and then assign them extra virtual goods called "confidence points," which provide weighted returns on those selections. Each participant is given 1,000 points to start, with the opportunity to purchase more points through the hi5 virtual goods store.

To play 2010 World Futbol Challenge, visit www.hi5.com.

To learn more about the hi5 Game Developer Program, please visit http://hi5networks.com/partners/gdp.html.

About hi5 Networks
Founded in 2003, hi5 today is among the top 20 largest web sites in the world and the leading destination site focused on social entertainment and gaming.  Combining a robust social platform with premium content and game mechanics, hi5 delivers a fun, expressive, and interactive entertainment experience to millions of users around the world.  Available in over 50 languages, the site features localized games, virtual goods and other content that is monetized through hi5 Coins, a global virtual currency supporting over 60 payment methods and 30 currencies worldwide. For more information on hi5, visit http://www.hi5.com.

About RotoHog
RotoHog builds powerful, award-winning games around any set of structured data (statistics, website activity, appearances on magazine covers, ticket sales, song downloads, etc.) for media partners such as BloombergSports, Sports Illustrated, NBA.com, NASCAR.COM, Turner Digital, Military.com, The Los Angeles Times, Pro Football Weekly, AVP, Fox Sports International, UsWeekly and MySpace. Their gaming platform allows major brands and media companies to engage and monetize their audiences via a Games as a Service model. RotoHog is privately held, and based in Los Angeles, CA. Investors include Allen & Co, Mission Ventures, DFJ Dragon and Sports Capital Partners Worldwide.

Deal boosts hi5's leadership in commerce platforms and payment processing

San Francisco, CA; Feb. 24, 2009 -- hi5, the largest social entertainment site focused on gaming, today announced the acquisition of social gaming company Big Six. The Austin-based company was founded by gaming veterans Kevin Gliner, Monty Kerr and Chad Hansing, all of whom will join the hi5 management team, as announced separately today.

The deal enhances hi5's growing leadership in commerce for virtual goods and games. Building on hi5's current commerce platform, which includes a global virtual currency called hi5 Coins, support for over 60 payment methods worldwide, and new advertising-based transactional capabilities - the Big Six acquisition brings significant new technology and software platforms in the areas of payment processing, fraud detection and conversion optimization. In addition to its proprietary commerce platform, Big Six also designed a social gaming platform which will become part of the core hi5 site.

"The Big Six team and technology are a perfect complement to what we have already developed at hi5," said Bill Gossman, CEO of hi5. "Over the last two years, we have made a substantial investment in building out the industry's most robust commerce infrastructure for virtual goods and gaming and this acquisition will considerably augment both our commerce platform and domain expertise."

"We are excited to be joining a company that shares our philosophy and vision for how social gaming will evolve," said Kevin Gliner, co-founder and CEO, Big Six. "This deal is a perfect match because it enables us to accelerate our go-to-market plans by leveraging hi5's huge global audience."

As part of the acquisition, employees of Big Six will relocate from Austin and join the rest of the hi5 team in San Francisco.

About hi5

Founded in 2003, hi5 today is among the top 20 largest web sites in the world and the leading destination site focused on social entertainment and gaming. Combining a robust social platform with premium content and game mechanics, hi5 delivers a fun, expressive, and interactive entertainment experience to millions of users around the world. Available in over 50 languages, the site features localized games, virtual goods and other content that is monetized through hi5 Coins, a global virtual currency supporting over 60 payment methods and 30 currencies worldwide. For more information on hi5, visit http://www.hi5.com.

Media Coverage

VentureBeat
TechCrunch
paidContent
Gamasutra
Industry Gamers
GamesIndustry.biz
San Francisco Business Times
Austin Business Journal
Inside Social Games
Social Gaming Guide
Edge Online
Virtual Good News
Virtual World News

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.; Dec. 1, 2009 - hi5 today announced Alex St. John, founder of one of the world's largest online gaming sites and a lead creator of Microsoft's DirectX gaming platform, has joined hi5 as President and Chief Technology Officer. In his new role at hi5, St. John will be responsible for product development, technology, network operations and audience acquisition - spearheading the company's successful social gaming and entertainment strategy.

"We are very excited to add a gaming visionary like Alex to the hi5 team as we continue our evolution into becoming a dominant, next-generation social entertainment platform," said Bill Gossman, CEO, hi5.  "Alex's background is a perfect fit for moving the company forward. His extensive experience and leadership in gaming platforms, traffic optimization, and game monetization make him a vital addition to the hi5 team."

As founder of WildTangent, St. John grew the company into the world's largest privately held gaming site and 5th-largest gaming property worldwide with over 30 million monthly unique visitors.  St. John led several key revenue innovations at WildTangent, including a highly successful virtual currency, WildCoins, used for microcurrency transactions, and an advertising partnership with WPP to sell sponsored microcurrency to Fortune 500 brands. WildTangent's game studio produced over 100 downloadable, streaming and multiplayer games during his time at the company, and publishes over 200 third party games to its network a year.  St. John also pioneered several technology innovations, including the WildTangent WebDriver, a browser plug-in for streaming 3D games, instant messenger based gaming for AOL and an extensive patent portfolio, including patents in online game streaming, in-game advertising, game compression, instant messenger based multiplayer gaming and DRM.

Prior to WildTangent, St. John was instrumental in creating Microsoft's DirectX media architecture, a suite of programming APIs for everything from 2D and 3D graphics, sound, video, multiplayer gaming and input control which became the basis for Microsoft's Xbox gaming OS. As Group Manager for Windows Media Strategy and Marketing at Microsoft, St. John led the company's successful strategy to make DirectX a leading gaming architecture. He also led the design and development of DirectPlay, which became the multiplayer architecture for Microsoft's casual game network, and managed the company's game developer programs.

"The next wave of innovation and differentiation in gaming is happening in social gaming and hi5 is at the forefront of this sea change," said St. John. "I've long said that the current generation of game consoles will be the last and that the future of the game business will be online. I'm thrilled to be joining a company that has the team, technology and vision to lead that transition."

About hi5 Networks
Founded in 2003, hi5 today is among the top 20 largest web sites in the world and the leading destination site focused on social gaming and entertainment.  Combining a robust social platform with premium content and game mechanics, hi5 delivers a fun, expressive, and interactive entertainment experience to millions of users around the world.  Available in over 50 languages, the site features localized games, virtual goods and other content that is monetized through hi5 Coins, a global virtual currency supporting over 60 payment methods and 30 currencies worldwide.  For more information on hi5, visit http://www.hi5.com.

Press Coverage:

• VentureBeat
• Virtual Worlds News
• paidContent
• Gamasutra
• GamesIndustry.biz
• MCV
• Inside Social Games
• Industry Gamer
• Develop Online
• GamePro
• TechNews
• TechOat
• Gizmodose
  
  
  
  

SAN FRANCISCO -- Oct. 14, 2009 -- Global social entertainment site, hi5, today unveiled an entirely re-designed user interface, focused on games, virtual goods, direct user payments and high-fidelity interactivity.  Featuring a streamlined, high-energy look, the new hi5 is the first major social site to introduce animated, 3-dimensional avatars, called hi5 Stars™, on every user's profile page - providing a compelling medium for interactivity and self-expression.

The new hi5.com is available in public beta at http://new.hi5.com and begins going live globally to hi5's millions of users worldwide this week.  Highlights of the new hi5 user experience include:

• Re-designed, high-fidelity user profile page, featuring hi5 Stars 3D avatars
• hi5 Stars designer tool for customizing avatars as a fun, supplemental representation of users on the site
• Simplified top-level navigation, highlighting the hi5 Games channel and hi5 Coins virtual currency, with mouse-over secondary navigation to other popular pages
• New corporate identity, emphasizing hi5's social entertainment value proposition around gaming, friends, and fun.
  

"hi5 Stars provide a new level of self-expression and interactivity to the hi5 user experience," said Andrew Sheppard, executive producer, hi5.  "We designed our avatars to be an integral part of the hi5 user's online experience and a natural extension of their real-world persona - complete with moods, motions, and status updates. Stars serve as the basis for extending game-like mechanics into the online social experience."

With the launch of Stars, hi5 is pioneering a new level of fidelity for social sites.  The customizable, fully-animated characters are powered by a breakthrough 3D rendering engine, developed by hi5. This framework is built on top of the Adobe® Flash® Player from Adobe Systems, which enables engaging, interactive animations directly in a web browser with no additional download or plug-in required. hi5's 3D engine will form the basis for future development of even more immersive animated features on the site.

"hi5 Stars are a compelling example of an interactive, 3D user experience that is delivered entirely within a standard Web browser running Adobe Flash Player 10, with no additional download," said Tom Barclay, senior product marketing manager for Flash Player at Adobe. "The 3D engine hi5 has built to run on Flash Player is a great example of the type of next-generation, immersive online experiences that the Adobe Flash Platform enables across the Web."

In addition to forming a foundation for a more interactive and immersive user experience, hi5 Stars represent a new monetization opportunity for hi5. In Q4, hi5 will extend the current virtual goods store on the site to include premium merchandise for hi5 Stars. Payments will be made using hi5 Coins, the site-wide virtual currency. Avatar merchandise also presents a new promotional opportunity for hi5's advertising partners.

"Our new user experience featuring hi5 Stars further delivers on our distinct social entertainment value proposition," said Bill Gossman, CEO, hi5.  "In addition to games and virtual gifts, avatars are a third key pillar in our strategy of driving revenue from direct user payments.  Micro-transactions using our virtual currency, hi5 Coins, already account for over 15 percent of our overall revenue, and we expect premium items for hi5 Stars to further spur that growth."

The new hi5.com site has been in private beta since August.  Adoption and enthusiasm around the look of the new site, and hi5 Stars in particularly, has been significant during the beta program.  Average page views per session in the new version is nearly double previous levels, and average minutes per session has also increased.  The new site began deploying worldwide this week.

About Adobe Flash Platform
The Adobe Flash Platform is the leading Web design and development platform for creating expressive applications, content, and video that run consistently across operating systems and devices and reach over 98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops. Flash Player 10 was installed on more than 93 percent of computers in just the first ten months since its release. For more information about the Adobe Flash Platform visit http://www.adobe.com/flashplatform/.

About hi5
Founded in 2003, hi5 today is among the top 20 largest web sites in the world and the leading destination site focused on social gaming and entertainment.  Combining a robust social platform with premium content and game mechanics, hi5 delivers a fun, expressive, and interactive entertainment experience to millions of users around the world.  Available in over 50 languages, the site features localized games, virtual goods and other content that is monetized through hi5 Coins, a global virtual currency supporting over 60 payment methods and 30 currencies worldwide.  For more information on hi5, visit http://www.hi5.com.

Media Coverage
TechCrunch
Inside Social Games

San Francisco, CA; July 1, 2009 -- Bigpoint, one of the largest online gaming portals, and hi5, a leading social entertainment web site, today launched Seafight, Bigpoint's flagship Flash-based pirate game, to users worldwide on the hi5 Games channel.  The game is available globally in 20 languages, making it the most widely translated game out of the hundreds of game titles available through hi5.

Seafight is a real-time fantasy-adventure game and Bigpoint's most popular title.  Since the game runs entirely in Flash, hi5 users can play Seafight directly from the hi5 Games page, with no separate application installation.  Users default to a language in the game based on their hi5 language preference.  Initial languages supported include English (UK and US), German, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brasil), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.  The game, which is live on hi5 today, will be prominently featured on the hi5 Games page.  

"Given our multi-lingual global user base, deploying in-language premium content is a major priority for us," said Ramu Yalamanchi, founder and chief product officer of hi5.  "Bigpoint shares this world view and has been a leader in translating their innovative Flash-based games to a wide variety of languages, which makes them a good partner for hi5."

"As one of the world's largest online communities, hi5 provides a very compelling distribution channel for our best-in-class online games," said Heiko Hubertz, CEO Bigpoint GmbH.  "With localized versions of Seafight for virtually every hi5 user, regardless of language, we will be able to jointly tap into new markets that English-only gaming and social sites cannot effectively address."

The partnership is the latest in hi5's strategy of aligning with leading game developers worldwide to distribute their titles through the hi5 Games channel to the site's 60 million plus monthly users.  With global advertising support and a virtual currency interface for collecting in-game payments, hi5 is a compelling new distribution and monetization option for third-party game developers.  The companies expect to integrate additional Bigpoint titles into hi5 in the future.

About Bigpoint
Bigpoint.com is the largest browser game portal worldwide, and is among the top 3 gaming portals in the world.  Bigpoint's range of products and services includes games at a level of quality which, until now, was only available with CDs and consoles.  Bigpoint GmbH is a publisher of online games, a content provider for media agencies and a developer of browser-based games.  Over 240 employees from more than 25 different nations work at the world's largest Internet provider of browser games, which is based in Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany.  At the German headquarters, games are developed in over 20 languages and are played for free by over 70 million users worldwide.  For more information on Bigpoint, visit http://www.bigpoint.net/

About hi5 Networks
Headquartered in San Francisco, hi5 is one of the world's largest and fastest growing social entertainment sites. Our focus is on delivering a fun, interactive, and immersive social experience online to our users around the world.  With over 60 million unique visitors every month, hi5 is a top 20 website globally and the number one social site in dozens of countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The service is available in over 50 languages, delivering localized content, games and other applications to users worldwide.  For more information on hi5, visit http://www.hi5.com

Coverage:
Social Times
IGN

Orange and hi5 announced a partnership under which Orange will exclusively represent hi5's online advertising inventory in Spain. The deal enables hi5 to increase our revenues from our audience of more than 1.5 million monthly unique visitors in Spain.

Orange issued a press release on the news on Thursday. The press release is posted in English and Spanish on the press page of the hi5 corporate site.

The announcement has already generated several articles in Spanish publications, including:

• PuroMarketing
• El Economista
• hoyTechnologia
• Yahoo España
• La Bolsa
  

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.; June 09, 2009 - hi5, the world's leading social entertainment site, today announced Peter Foster, a veteran in the field of online advertising, has joined hi5 as chief advertising officer. Foster will play a critical role in driving new revenue as the company continues to rapidly expand its social entertainment strategy.  In his new role, Foster will be responsible for all advertising sales and operations including: direct sales, regional partners, ad network relationships and mobile.   

"Peter's results-oriented skill set is an ideal fit for hi5 as we continue to advance our social entertainment strategy and develop innovative ways to monetize our audience of over 60 million users," said Bill Gossman, CEO of hi5 Networks.  "Peter is a seasoned executive and his extensive background in leading advertising sales at large properties will bring additional focus, leadership, and success as hi5 enters its next phase of growth."

Prior to joining hi5, Foster was the senior vice president of sales for Kosmix where he oversaw revenue generation efforts as well as directed the day-to-day operations of the company's sales team.  Foster also served as the senior vice president of sales for Photobucket, where he formulated strategy for direct sales and partnerships, growing revenue 300 percent and contributed to the company's acquisition by Fox Interactive Media. Foster has also held leadership positions with ValueClick Media and MaxOnline, which was later acquired by Ask.com.  Foster graduated with honors from Kenyon College.

About hi5 Networks
Headquartered in San Francisco, hi5 is one of the world's largest and fastest growing social entertainment sites. Our focus is on delivering a fun, interactive, and immersive social experience online to our users around the world.  With over 63 million unique visitors every month, hi5 is a top 20 website globally and the number one social site in dozens of countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The service is available in over 50 languages, delivering localized content, games and other applications to users worldwide.  For more information on hi5, visit http://www.hi5.com

en Español

Mexico City, Mexico; June 3, 2009 -- Televisa Interactive Media ("Televisa"), the online division of Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (NYSE: TV; BMV: TLEVISA CPO), the leading Spanish-speaking media company in the World, and hi5, the leading social entertainment website across Spanish-speaking Latin America and the 12th largest website in the world by page views, today announced a unique commercial arrangement to maximize their online audiences in the region.

As part of the deal, Televisa will be the exclusive representative of hi5's online advertising inventory in Hispanic Latin America and jointly the parties will launch a co-branded premium video channel for users of hi5, the popular social entertainment website in Latin America, serving a library of full and short length videos provided by Televisa, most of which are available through Esmas.com and through Televisa's vertical video site Tvolucion.com. The video channel will not be available to users in the United States. The availability of this new video channel is scheduled for this summer with additional premium content delivered via micro-sites shortly thereafter.

Jointly, Televisa Interactive Media and hi5 sites reach more than 33 million unique users per month across Hispanic Latin America, which represent 63% of the total market. Internet usage in these countries is growing at a rapid pace of up to 16.6% last year according to Comscore, nearly triple the North American growth of 5.7% for that same year, according to the same source.

"hi5 is an ideal content and traffic extension that perfectly complements our best-in-class suite of promotional solutions for advertisers and brands in this region," said Juan Saldívar, General Manager of Televisa Interactive Media.

"This business relationship solidifies our leadership position in Latin America and delivers compelling content to our huge Spanish-language audience. Televisa's experienced sales team and deep industry relationships will help us maximize our revenue potential in the Latin American market," said Ramu Yalamanchi, Founder and Chief Product Officer at hi5.

About Grupo Televisa, S.A.B.

Grupo Televisa, S.A.B., is the largest media company in the Spanish-speaking world and a major participant in the international entertainment business. It has interests in television production and broadcasting, production of pay-television networks, international distribution of television programming, direct to home satellite services, cable television and telecommunication services, magazine publishing and publishing distribution, radio production and broadcasting, professional sports and live entertainment, feature-film production and distribution, the operation of an internet portal, and gaming. Grupo Televisa also owns an unconsolidated equity stake in La Sexta, a free-to-air television venture in Spain.

About Televisa Interactive Media

Televisa Interactive Media is Televisa's digital business unit. Through this unit, Televisa hosts, publishes and commercializes most of Televisa's online brands. Televisa Interactive Media includes a horizontal portal, Esmas.com; a video vertical online destination, Tvolucion.com; a vertical online music brand, Tarabu, and the leading premium content supplier for mobiles in Mexico; Esmas Movil. With more than 18 million unique users and more than 320 million page views per month, Televisa Interactive Media is positioned as a leading news, entertainment and sports online operation in the Hispanic America.

About hi5 Networks

Headquartered in San Francisco, hi5 is one of the world's largest and fastest growing social entertainment sites. Our focus is on delivering a fun, interactive, and immersive social experience online to our users around the world. With over 60 million unique visitors every month, hi5 is a top 20 website globally and the number one social site in dozens of countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The service is available in over 50 languages, delivering localized content, games and other applications to users worldwide. For more information on hi5, visit www.hi5.com. 

Coverage:
Wall Street Journal
Forbes
Reuters
Reuters América Latina
Variety
San Francisco Chronicle
El Universal
Hollywood Reporter
Virtual Worlds News
Social Times

Aukland, New Zealand; June 2, 2009 -- SmallWorlds, a new generation of 3D virtual world that integrates seamlessly with the rest of the web, today announced the unveiling of their engaging virtual world within the hi5 social entertainment community. With this launch, 60 million monthly unique hi5 visitors can directly access the virtual world through the hi5 Games channel to participate in the SmallWorlds experience. While inside SmallWorlds, hi5 members can create their own avatar, explore the community, customize their pet, decorate their own room with furniture, music and videos - even create their own experiences to share with others through SmallWorlds' unique Interactibles framework.

"Through this partnership, we are able to provide the hi5 community with valuable, entertaining content and a seamless experience when purchasing premium items in SmallWorlds using their hi5 Coins," said Ted Tagami, Vice President of Business Development for SmallWorlds. "We anticipate this partnership to be greatly beneficial for both parties."

With the integration of SmallWorlds into hi5, members now have immediate access to the virtual world through the hi5 Games channel and can enjoy creating and playing in competitions, games, quests and missions. In addition, hi5 members will be able to spend their hi5 Coins in SmallWorlds to purchase premium items such as rare monthly collectibles, upgrades for their room and enhancements for their avatar.

"We are dedicated to fostering social engagement for our global audience. By integrating a highly interactive virtual environment like SmallWorlds into hi5, we are providing our audience with another medium for fun and engaging social experiences," said Anil Dharni, Vice President of Products at hi5. "With the seamless integration of our virtual currency into SmallWorlds, our community will also enjoy being able to purchase items within the virtual world using their hi5 Coins."

hi5 recently announced their social entertainment strategy of seamlessly integrating interactive content from key OpenSocial partners into their infrastructure, which is continued through this partnership with SmallWorlds. The SmallWorlds virtual world will be deeply integrated into the hi5 API, providing greater access for SmallWorlds to the hi5 audience and to revenue-sharing opportunities. SmallWorlds and hi5 will share revenue generated through the SmallWorlds virtual world.

For more information, please visit: games.hi5.com.

About SmallWorlds

SmallWorlds is a new generation of virtual world combining digital media, web content and casual games into a highly accessible and entertaining 3D world that integrates seamlessly with the rest of the web. Inside SmallWorlds, audiences create their own personal space with an avatar, pet and room, and then share experiences with their friends in the community like playing games, watching videos, listening to their favorite bands, browsing through photo galleries, and so much more. SmallWorlds is also connected through open social platforms including Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. Bringing together the best aspects of online games, instant messaging, social networks and digital media, SmallWorlds integrates these interactive and engaging elements into a browser-based virtual world that is just a click away. For more information, visit www.smallworlds.com.

About hi5 Networks

Headquartered in San Francisco, hi5 is one of the world's largest and fastest growing social entertainment sites. Our focus is on delivering a fun, interactive, and immersive social experience online to our users around the world. With over 60 million unique visitors every month, hi5 is a top 20 website globally and the number one social site in dozens of countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The service is available in over 50 languages, delivering localized content, games and other applications to users worldwide. For more information on hi5, visit www.hi5.com.

Coverage:
VentureBeat
Virtual Goods News
Social Times