hi5 Launches Developer Platform; Becomes Founding Member of the OpenSocial Foundation
· hi5 Platform enables third-party developers to deeply integrate, promote and monetize their OpenSocial™ applications within the world’s 8th most-trafficked website
· Applications offer hi5’s 80 million registered members new ways for social interaction and self-expression
· hi5 Networks, Inc. will help establish the OpenSocial Foundation
San Francisco, CA; March 31, 2008 — hi5, a leading international social network, today announced the official launch of its robust application development platform. Now, third-party developers will be able to leverage a suite of common APIs, including those of OpenSocial, to create social applications for members of hi5, which is ranked as the #1 social network in over 20 nations. The hi5 Platform also provides ways for developers to deeply embed, spread and monetize their applications within hi5. With less than 25% active user overlap with any of the other leading social networks, hi5 presents a significant growth opportunity for developers’ applications.
“In designing our platform, we listened to what developers wanted and focused on how we could best support the success of their applications, while also delivering an engaging and optimal experience for our users,” says hi5 Founder and CEO, Ramu Yalamanchi. “In doing so, we have provided a rich set of APIs that will enable developers to rapidly create and generate revenue from interesting, fun and relevant applications for our 80 million registered members globally.”
In addition to launching its developer platform, hi5 Networks, Inc. is also joining as a founding member of the OpenSocial Foundation, a new non-profit organization jointly proposed by Yahoo!, MySpace and Google last week. The foundation is being established to ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the Web. More information about the OpenSocial Foundation, including resources for developers, is available at http://www.opensocial.org.
"From the very beginning, hi5 has played an active role and contributed significantly to advancing the goals and technical specifications of OpenSocial," said Joe Kraus, director of product management at Google and another early contributor to the OpenSocial initiative. "I congratulate the hi5 team on the launch of its platform, and am excited that developers now have a cumulative potential audience across the OpenSocial community of hundreds of millions worldwide."
hi5 Support for Developers
In total, there are now over 7,700 commercial and independent developers from around the world who have registered to build applications for hi5’s membership. With registration, they gain access to the hi5 Developer Console, which enables them to add, edit and manage their hi5 applications right from their hi5 profile. Once an application is submitted and approved, it is integrated within hi5 in several ways, including a seamless and flexible Application Module on user profiles, as well as a dedicated Application Canvas Page that a developer can monetize through advertising. The hi5 Platform is also the first OpenSocial-enabled platform to launch with numerous user distribution channels for developers’ apps, including notifications, invites, messages, friend updates and more.
What Developers Are Saying
“It was really simple to create My Causes using the OpenSocial APIs, and most of the development was actually done on the hi5 sandbox since it felt the most polished,” says independent developer, Fariz Chowdhury. “I was attracted to porting my application over to hi5 due to the sheer reach that hi5 has around the globe. It feels like the perfect companion to an application, which is targeted to reaching and connecting diverse users with similar beliefs.”
“hi5 is taking the right approach to launching their platform. By opening some reasonable viral channels and making the social map available to developers and their users, hi5 is highly likely to become one of the biggest application platforms and see widespread user adoption,” says Zynga Game Network founder and CEO, Mark Pincus. “This is key for social games, such as Poker and Triumph, which quickly enables users to start and play games with their friends.”
"I found it very easy to include my event application, TheVerb on hi5, and look forward to adding more for hi5 users in the future," says Suhail Doshi, an independent developer. “I think this launch will be the most successful thus far, especially with their implementation of viral APIs.”
More Information
The new hi5 Platform will open the door to hundreds of new applications and widgets being rolled out to the hi5 membership in the coming days, weeks and months. Those interested in building applications for hi5 will find detailed information at http://developer.hi5.com/. To join hi5 and create a free member profile, please visit http://www.hi5.com.
About hi5 Networks, Inc.
hi5 Networks, Inc. is a privately-held firm headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Its flagship service, hi5, was launched in 2003 and is now one of the leading social networks in the world — ranked by Alexa® as the 8th most-trafficked website globally and the #1 social network in over 20 countries, including many in Latin America, Europe and Asia. More than 80 million people in over 200 nations are currently registered for hi5, which is available in 21 language options (with more to come). Individuals use hi5 to stay connected and share information with friends and family around the world, meet new people, express their identity, discover linkages, and build relationships across a lifetime of memories. For more information, please visit http://www.hi5.com or http://www.hi5networks.com.
Media Contact:
Denise Graab, PR at hi5.com, (415) 962-7075
Google and OpenSocial are trademarks of Google Inc. Other product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
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