Posts Tagged ‘hi5’

Is MySpace going Hi5?

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

When then-at-the-time social network Hi5 announced almost one year ago to date that they’d failed to secure another round of financing, and were forced to dramatically cut staff members, it looked as though the social networking site was on death’s door.

Less than one month later, Hi5 had more or less reinvented itself, titling the platform as a social entertainment site, Hi5 switched from social networking – to social gaming. They brought Bill Gossman on to steer the ship, and in just over 8 months, had reached a visibility level high enough to lure Alex St. John over to the Hi5 side.

Could MySpace now be on a similar trajectory?

Announced at yesterday’s GDC events, MySpace has completely revamped the Games section, allowing both developers and players much easier access to application and analytics tools, and discovery and sharing, respectively.

MySpace_GamesFrom a users’ point of view, the new format should allow them to stay up-to-date with personalized game notifications, as well as discover new games through a system tailored recommendation system – including data from popular games charts and friends’ games. Users’ rating input will also affect future search and recommendations results.

On the developer side of the table, new analytics tools, as well as a new API, will allow devs to review application specific analytics. These tools will allow for invitation conversion, active users, notification responses, and demographic data, as well as tracking of the source of app invites. MySpace is also now utilizing the Unity 3D engine (as is Bigpoint with their Battlestar Galactica MMO), which allows developers to crank out 3D browser based entertainment. MySpace has also implemented Scoreloop technology, which allows games to share leaderboard, achievement, challenge, and buddy lists across different platforms. Rounding out the shiny new toys for developers is GroovyCortex, a cloud-based service that is designed to provide a “low latency push [data] for multiplayer games.” And just for that added extra push – MySpace announced MySpace Neon, a slated iPhone app that will give users mobile access to their MySpace games. While no mention of mobile play is to be heard, MySpace says that users will be able to interact with their games, share notifications, view their game related stream, and allows for remote installation of games.

So while the news that News Corp (MySpace’s parent company) is putting the push on focusing on MySpace as a gaming platform, this is the first solid ‘flag in the ground’ that we’ve seen come out of the games division at MySpace. But the question is…is it enough, and is it in time, to help the once King of the Hill regain it’s place back at the top?

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5 acquires Six

Friday, February 26th, 2010

After hi5 came close to calling it a day altogether, it seems as though they’re on one heckuva rebound, and obviously putting the social networking chips in the gaming basket was the right call. Announced on Wednesday, hi5 has acquired Austin, TX based social gaming company Big Six. Announced separately, Big Six’s founders Kevin Gliner, Monty Kerr, and Chad Hansing will now join hi5’s management team. These three will now also join one of hi5’s most recent acquisitions, Alex St. John.

hi5logoThe main draw for hi5 is/was Big Six’s proprietary commerce platform. This new acquisition will allow hi5 to expand their commerce in virtual goods and games sales. hi5 currently employs a commerce system that includes a universal virtual currency that can be spent in any of their titles. This acquisition brings new technology to hi5 in terms of payment processing, fraud detection and conversion optimization. As an added bonus to the deal, Big Six have also designed a social gaming platform that will now 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.”

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Friendster to be bought by month’s end

Friday, December 4th, 2009

A recent report by TechCrunch indicates that first on the scene social network Friendster will most probably be sold by month’s end. While the deal is yet concrete, inside sources have indicated that the company will be sold to an unnamed Asian buyer for at least $100 million.

new_friendsterTo say that Friendster’s had a long and winding road might be the understatement of the decade. Founded in 2002, the original social network ruled the internets for a short while, but was quickly taken over by MySpace and Facebook. At least in the U.S. market – as Friendster ended up finding a home in the most unlikely of places, Asia. Currently, while numbers are paltry in the U.S., Friendster enjoys 50 + million users in the Asian market (over half the networks total number of users).

TechCrunch put a valuation of $210 million on Friendster back in July, which doesn’t account for Friendsters refocusing of their monetization strategy which they launched at the end of this past October. Instead of relying on advertising revenues, the social network made the shift to revenues coming from microtransaction purchases. A move that’s apparently been working well for hi5, with an admission that hi5 is now more gaming focused than social networking focused. However, that’s not to say that Friendster doesn’t have the same potential. Especially when you look at where their highest market concentration is, who’s buying them, and what market they’re operating in: Asia.

In hindsight, it looks like this deal has been in the works for quite a long time. Last year, Friendster brought now CEO Richard Kimber on board. Prior to Friendster, Kimber headed up Sales and Operations in the South East Asia region for Google. This past summer, Friendster opened itself up on the ‘for sale’ block, and as stated above, this past October they initiated a major shift in monetization from advertising to microtransaction reliance.

Again, no buyer has been named, but the inside source indicated that China’s Tencent Holdings was amongst the short listed buyers. Facebook also showed interest, but was turned away due to competition and IP issues. My guess is that Facebook could really care less about the actual mechanism of Friendster itself, but would love to get their hands on the 5 U.S. patents that Friendster currently holds with the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office.

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Alex St. John joins hi5

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

It seemed for a while that once-social-network, now online gaming destination hi5 was down for the count. At the end of March of this year it was announced that the company had failed to secure a round of funding, which was then followed by a round of layoffs. These layoffs essentially left hi5 with only it’s entertainment, gaming and microtransactions unit left in tact. By the end of the month, hi5 was already beginning it’s resurgence, when they announced that industry veteran Bill Gossman was taking over as CEO, shortly after announcing a deal with Mochi Media. And now, almost 9 months to date later, hi5 has scored another major player: Alex St. John. St. John will be now filling the President and Chief Technology Officer role at hi5.

St. John’s new role at hi5 will be to primarily focus on product development, technology, network operations and audience acquisition. In other words, St. John has been brought in to add his expertise to hi5’s currently operating business model – social gaming and entertainment.

“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.”

Prior to joining hi5, St. John founded currently operational WildTangent, which he grew to the world’s largest privately held gaming destination, garnering some 30 million unique monthly visitors. And if microtransaction based revenue is what hi5 is banking on, St. John is worth his weight in gold. While with WildTangent, St. John was involved with several revenue generators, least of which was the implementation of WildCoins, as well as an advertising partnership with WPP, offering microcurrency to Fortune 500 brands.

St. John’s most notable previous position is his work with Microsoft. He was a leading player in developing the now practically standard DirectX media architecture. This suite of tools including 2D and 3D graphics, sound, video, multiplayer gaming and input control are essentially the basis for the current Mixrosoft Xbox gaming OS. However, it was his role as Group Manager for Windows Media Strategy and Marketing at Microsoft that firmly placed DirectX as THE architecture of choice for games developers.

“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.”

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SGN splurges on hiring binge – bags more than a few industry heavy hitters

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

If the question of the rise and dominance of social games has ever come into question, a perusal through the past years headlines, and the associated talent defecting to smaller, up-and-coming social games firms should give a pretty clear picture as to what’s going on. Chalk up another major shift in the social gaming industry, as SGN has recently announced that they’ve been on a bit of a hiring binge as of late, and have netted some serious talent.

Randy BreenFormer Electronic Arts and LucasArts executive Randy Breen will now be reporting to SGN’s CEO Shervin Pishevar, in his new role as Chief Operating Officer. Breen, a long time and founding executive at EA, was responsible for the Road Rash series of games, one that’s sold million of copies and spawned a number of sequels and off shoots. Likewise, at LucasArts Breen was the man in charge of overseeing product developments within the Star Wars and Indiana Jones license lines.

Serving as new Director of Game design at SGN is Randy Angle, another industry veteran, who’s worked on a number of projects, most notably the Lord of the Rings. Another EA vet, Margaret Foley-Mauvais has been hired to serve as Art Director, while Dan Brazelton joins the SGN team in the role of Executive Producer. Brazelton brings to the table 17 years of gaming and film industry experience. And rounding out the new netting at SGN is Adriana Gasoigne, formerly of Hi5, who will be serving as the company’s Director of Global Communications.

“We’ve experienced tremendous growth over the past year, and I’m thrilled we have attracted a leader like Randy Breen to SGN and assembled a world class team to capitalize on our position within the booming social gaming industry,” said Shervin Pishevar, CEO of SGN, in a statement.

Based in Palo Alto, California, SGN has now topped over 100 hires, and has been in operation since 2007. Owing their success to the rise of social gaming, SGN has also served as a primary influencer in and producer of such titles in the social gaming space. Their first success can be attributed to a Facebook app, Warbook, and SGN quickly followed up this success with a number of additional titles. Quickly spreading their reach to Myspace and Bebo applications, SGN started focusing on iPhone games over the past year.

While they may have had a decent following and interest in their work with social network based games, this expansion into iPhone games is what truly put the company on the map. SGN has sold over 400,000 copies of it’s F.A.S.T. jet fighter game, and approximately 24 percent of all iPhone and iPod touch users have a copy of the firms successful iBowl app on their device. And lest we forget that it was SGN that was the very first to bring the successful Mafia games genre to market.

Again, it’s quite clear to see what’s going on here. A number of execs and non-execs alike are either fed up with, or see greater opportunities in social gaming then the traditional stalwarts of the industry. Granted, a number of larger games development firms are now interested in, and/or beginning their own exploration of social gaming, but is it already too late?

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Industry Vet Bill Gossman takes the reins at Hi5

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

April has certainly been an interesting month for (now dubbed) social entertainment website Hi5.  After breaking new from VentureBeat and Techcrunch reported that the social portal had failed to receive additional funding, things weren’t looking so good.  Hold that thought for 48 hours, and Hi5 jumped back into the game and headlines with their announcement of a partnership with Mochi Media.  Well, just to round out the month with a bit more news about Hi5, they’ve recently announced the appointment of a new CEO, Bill Gossman.

Gossman, former CEO of Audience Science, CEO of Sabrix and founder and COO/CFO of  @mobile, as well as a current executive in residence at Mohr Davidow Ventures, hi5’s main investor, brings his wealth of experience in online advertising, behavioral targeting, and additional forms of online audience monetization.

“The founding team at hi5 has built a tremendous asset in one of the world’s largest online communities, and a truly global distribution and monetization platform for games and other social entertainment content,” said Gossman. “I’m excited to be joining the organization to help leverage that asset by focusing on our continued leadership in the social entertainment space and building a scalable, highly profitable business.”

So another layoff at Hi5?  Not quite.  Ramu Yalamanchi, founder and CEO since the companies beginnings in 2003 will not focus his efforts on operational responsibilities and leading the product and engineering departments.  His new goal is to deliver innovative features that set hi5 apart from competitors in the social entertainment space, with a heavy focus on expanding hi5’s microtransaction infrastructure and maximizing revenues.  Not a bad thought for a company who’s recent round of funding fell through, however, interesting to note that the new CEO comes from one of hi5’s primary investors.

“It is great to have Bill joining hi5 at this exciting stage of our business,” said Yalamanchi. “We have been incredibly successful in building a huge global audience and pioneering the social entertainment space. Bill brings highly applicable, stage-relevant leadership experience, particularly in monetizing online traffic and building scalable sales organizations, that will help take our company to the next level.”

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Hi5 layoffs could have a silver lining

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Hi5, the world’s third largest social network hasn’t exactly had it easy this April Fools day.  Both VentureBeat and TechCrunch lit up the airwaves yesterday with reports of this, that and the other.  Let’s take a look at what happened, and what’s going to happen.

hi5logo_300dpi_3300x2550The social network news reports were abuzz yesterday afternoon when rumors were confirmed that hi5 had recently failed to secure another round of funding.  According to MG Siegler’s source, the deal was as good as done, just in need of a few signatures.  This wasn’t just pocket change, as the deal would have been somewhere in the $30 million range, effectively doubling it’s previously raised $35 million.

VentureBeat’s source admitted that hi5 was now down to one group  – the group focusing on entertainment, gaming and microtransactions.

Hold up.  Let me get this straight. The world’s third largest social network was passed over for additional funding, and are now down to the gaming/microtransaction group?  Seriously?  With 62 million monthly visitors, this could be downright huge.

Enter stage left – the silver lining

Ok remaining hi5 folks, take a second and give a deserved lick to those wounds.  Layoffs are never fun.  It’s comeback time.

And coming back they are.  Hi5 has just announced a partnership with games distributor and ad network Mochi Media.  Mochi will introduce 200 flash games initially, with plans for many more to come.  Games on hi5 is not new, as they introduced their virtual currency, Coins, in December of last year, and approximately 40 games back in February.  However, in the newly introduced Mochi Media games, hi5 coins will allow users to buy virtual items, download a select number of games, and access special, or additional features.  It might be fair to say that hi5 is arriving fashionably late to the party, as the site has on average 62 million users per month, but hasn’t really nailed down how to monetize these users.  Given Tencent’s conglomeration of an instant messaging client, social network and web portal recently reported over $1 billion in revenue from a variety of virtual goods, and Habbo recently announcing their $60 million in virtual goods sales (although I’ve also seen $70m and $74m – dang € to $ conversion), chances are hi5 is still very much in the running.  Earlier this month the company stated that they were aiming towards a $25 million take this year, with half of the revenues stemming from virtual goods, half from currently existing advertising.

Again, hi5 may have sustained a significant blow when additional funding fell through, but clearly they’ve already been working on monetization via microtransactions and virtual goods sales, so they’re already one step closer to a complete re-invention of themselves.  Will all of those 62 million users stick around?  That is yet to be seen.  My guess is that sure, some of them may go when they start to see dramatic changes to the site, but on the other side of the coin, by re-inventing themselves as a primary gaming destination, and combine both forms of revenue generation, we might very well see not only the return of hi5, but perhaps a hi10.

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Social Network hi5 introduces hi5 Games

Friday, February 6th, 2009

San Francisco based social network hi5 has recently announced the launch of hi5 Games, a vehicle for users to further interact with their social network contacts and meet new people.  With over 60 million unique visitors per month, hi5 is one of the world’s largest and fastest growing social networks.  hi5 Games will be presented in a fun and socially integrated gaming environment.

Setting itself apart from other social networks, hi5 focuses on deeply integrating social context within game content.  Their integrated messaging, challenge, and invite features also seek to make it a more compelling gaming experience with existing friends and easier to find new friends.

Staying true to their commitment of delivering fun and interactive ‘social entertainment’, hi5 Games represents a new and important monetization opportunity using hi5 coins.  hi5 Coins is the systems’ proprietary virtual currency, and will allow users to purchase premium content, advanced gaming features, and status upgrades via direct transactions.  In addition to these microtransactions, hi5 will also offer advertisers new and immersive options within hi5 Games, thereby allowing brands to better engage their ideal target audience.

“For our target audience of 15 to 24 year-olds, social gaming represents a major expenditure of time and money around the globe. hi5 Games is just one of a range of immersive features that will further engage our users, both keeping them on the site longer and driving them towards new forms of monetization for our business,” said Ramu Yalamanchi, founder and CEO of hi5.

hi5 Games kicks things off by offering players a variety of casual games in sports, arcade, strategy and card genres.  The site will be adding additional games on a monthly basis.  hi5 Games launch highlights include Disco Bowling, Pool, and Mahjong.

Any hi5 Games players out there?  We’d love to hear your feedback: Leave a comment below…

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