Recently in Press Releases Category

Earlier today, we celebrated our debut in the Top 10 Online Gaming category in comScore Media Metrix reports. The news marks a significant turning point for hi5 as the company sheds its social networking roots and transitions towards becoming a market leader in the social gaming sphere. Ranking above Nickelodeon Casual Games, Yahoo! Games, and MSN Games, hi5's impressive debut among the top 10 online gaming properties reflects how far the company has already come towards that goal. The change in categorization comes as comScore identified that more than two-thirds of the content on hi5 now consists of online gaming.

Moving forward, we are continuing to build a thriving gaming environment for players and developers alike, delivering tools for developers to increase monetization of their games and breaking down barriers that prevent new users from playing games. There are already over 110 social games live on the hi5 social play network, offering ample opportunities to enjoy gaming on hi5, and with another 400 social games in the pipeline, hi5 has plenty to offer gamers in the future.

Early coverage of the announcement news can be found over at VentureBeat, and a full version of the press release can be found here.

New Platform Features Ad/Commerce Hybridization Model - Initial Results Indicate a 200%-300% Increase in Monetization

SAN FRANCISCO - February 23, 2011 - hi5, one of the world's leading platforms for social games, today announced the launch of the SocioPay monetization platform designed to maximize revenue for social games. SocioPay dynamically determines the optimal monetization solution for every commerce opportunity, including identifying players who are less likely to purchase and offering advertising as an alternative to traditional payment options. The launch of the new SocioPay platform marks the first public release of a robust ad/commerce hybridization model for the social games industry. hi5 will demonstrate how early adopters of SocioPay will optimize social game revenues in a dedicated session at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco on March 1 at 11:15 a.m. in Moscone Center's North Hall, Room 122.

"While results are still early, we expect SocioPay to increase revenue in social games by 200%-300% over traditional commerce and lead-generation offers found on other social networks," said Monty Kerr, hi5 Vice President of Commerce and Advertising. "The key innovation is that SocioPay extends beyond the hi5 platform; allowing developers to see dramatically increased revenue wherever their social games are distributed - even on other social networks."

hi5 invites developers who launch their games on hi5 to leverage SocioPay for maximizing revenues everywhere they publish their social games. "We've received a lot of requests from developers to help them mitigate the commerce losses they are experiencing with currency and payment solutions on other social networks, and this is certainly an area where we can provide significant support," said Alex St. John, hi5 President and Chief Technology Officer.

"Over the last year, we've been working closely with hi5 on the distribution of our social game titles, Port Casino Poker and Port Casino Blackjack. By implementing SocioPay, we'll be able to gain actionable insights and achieve measurable improvements in monetization and revenue per user. hi5 is a strategic partner for us as we look to expand our business this year and we are planning to launch more titles leveraging their new SocioPay platform," said Richard Garriott, Co-founder and Creative Director at Portalarium.

The newly launched SocioPay technology will complement the latest release of SocioPath, the next generation social gaming platform designed to liberate social games from their dependence on social networks through viral audience acquisition, which is also launching at GDC this year. The new version of SocioPath will enable over 100 social games currently distributed on the hi5 platform to be accessible directly from the site without requiring a user account or registration.

"By utilizing the SocioPath platform for our title, Bush Whacker, we've been able to take down the barriers to entry and acquire more new users directly into our game. hi5 is driving a new model for virally acquiring audience into social games that is effective and will be instrumental in helping us achieve our growth goals for 2011," said David Whittaker, Co-founder of DJArts Games.

For more information about the SocioPay monetization platform and the SocioPath next generation social gaming platform, please visit http://developer.hi5.com.

About hi5
Founded in 2003, hi5 is among the top 20 largest web sites worldwide and one of the leading platforms focused on social entertainment and gaming. hi5 delivers a fun, interactive entertainment experience to millions of visitors worldwide by combining a robust social platform with premium content, including localized social games, virtual goods, avatars and more. The hi5 Game Developer Program enables talented social game developers to drive audience acquisition and monetization of their games on the hi5 platform through free promotion, access to viral channels, a robust commerce platform and favorable revenue shares. To learn more about the program, visit http://developer.hi5.com.

- Leading Developers BigPoint, Digital Chocolate, Playdom, Casual Collective, Portalarium and More Partner with hi5 to Leverage the New Platform - 

 

SAN FRANCISCO - October 6, 2010 - hi5, one of the world's leading social entertainment sites, today announced the beta launch of "SocioPath" a next generation social gaming platform designed to free social game developers from their dependence on social networking portals for viral audience acquisition. hi5 will provide details and a demonstration of the new platform in a dedicated session at GDC Online on October 6 at 11:00 a.m. in Room 8C of the Austin Convention Center.

 

"Social media game developers and publishers are facing significant barriers to drive audience and revenue on social networks, and are struggling under the restrictions imposed on them by these portals," said Alex St. John, hi5 President and Chief Technology Officer. "We're providing a platform that enables social game developers and publishers to be liberated from the walled garden social network, build their own communities around their games, and monetize them efficiently."

 

Earlier this year, hi5 launched a Developer Portal and support for Facebook-compatible APIs. Over the coming months, hi5 will roll out the SocioPath beta program to a select set of partners. Current developer partners include: BigPoint, Digital Chocolate, Playdom, Casual Collective, Portalarium, Slingo, TheBroth, Sneaky Games, HitPoint Studios, Minsh, and HeyZap.

"By working with hi5 and leveraging the new platform for our game Millionaire City, we'll have access to all of the powerful messaging, notifications, invites, and gifting mechanisms associated with social gaming. This will enable us to build more direct relationships with our user base and empower users to connect with friends from across the web," said Trip Hawkins, founder and CEO of Digital Chocolate.

 

"We've already been experiencing early success with our title, PortCasino Poker, which has received five times more traffic on hi5 versus other social networks," said Richard Garriott, co-founder and creative director at Portalarium. "We're looking forward to growing our relationship with hi5, bringing more of our games to the site, and leveraging their new platform to increase our audience."

 

"We've been very fortunate to work with hi5 on the integration of Backyard Monsters with their platform. They understand the value of partnerships and are always working to better their platform to meet the needs of both the user and the developer. Furthermore, their new product enhancements will allow us to virally reach more users through new channels. We're looking forward to more games and more success on hi5," said Will Harbin, CEO of Casual Collective.

 

For more information about the new "SocioPath" next generation social gaming platform and the hi5 Game Developer Program, please visit http://developer.hi5.com.

 

About hi5

Founded in 2003, hi5 is among the top 20 largest web sites worldwide and the leading destination site focused on social entertainment and gaming. hi5 delivers a fun, interactive entertainment experience to millions of visitors worldwide by combining a robust social platform with premium content, including localized games, virtual goods and more. The newly launched hi5 Game Developer Program enables talented social game developers to drive audience and monetization of their games on the hi5 platform through free promotion, access to viral channels, and favorable revenue shares. To learn more about the program, visit http://developer.hi5.com.

 

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