hi5 is a social network that’s actually quite large, ranking third after Facebook and MySpace. They boast 60 million unique users and, with the launch of hi5 Games, intend to grow at a rapid pace.
hi5 Games marks a continuation of hi5’s approach of delivering interactive social entertainment. It’s also a new monetization opportunity using hi5 Coins, their virtual currency that launched in December. Users will eventually be able to utilize hi5 Coins for direct transactions, such as premium content, advanced gaming features, and status upgrades. From an advertising perspective, hi5 will be offering new and immersive ad options on hi5 Games, allowing brands to better engage their target audience.
Unique to other social media sites, hi5 is focused on deeply integrating social context with game content. hi5 Games makes it easy to play with existing friends and make new friends with hi5’s integrated messaging, challenge and invite features.
Today, hi5 Games offers users with a variety of casual games in genres such as sports, arcade, strategy and cards. hi5 Games will be actively adding more games to the site every month. Some of the more popular games that will be featured during the hi5 Games launch include Disco Bowling, Pool and Mahjong.
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Nominee for City Beat’s Best of the City: Vote for My Wine Education under Public Eye > Blog: http://www.bestofcincinnati.com/
by Brian Solis
Happy New Year!
Comscore released its list revealing the top Social Networks and Social Media properties for 2008 (note, these numbers to not include December traffic). Google’s Blogger.com blogging platform is clearly dominating, however Facebook continues its meteoric rise and appears on track to imminently earn the number one spot. Myspace appears to have leveled off a bit, but is still in third place. WordPress comes in at a close fourth, demonstrating the continued growth of its blogging network. Windows Lvie Spaces and Yahoo! Geocities trail in a distant fifth and sixth place, however, Flickr shows a strong position at number seven. Scribd deserves a mention as it continues to grow as a premier social network for the sharing and discovery of documents.
Total Unique Visitors (000) as of November 2008
1. Blogger – 221,503
2. Facebook – 200,189
3. MySpace – 126,168
4. WordPress – 113,661
5. Windows Live Spaces – 86,760
6. Yahoo! Geocities – 69,159
7. Flickr – 63,866
8. Hi5 – 58,069
9. Orkut – 46,446
10. Six Apart Sites – 45,606
11. Baidu Space – 40,276
12. Friendster – 31,325
13. 56.com – 29,171
14. Webs.com – 24,230
15. Bebo – 24,149
16. Scribd – 23,524
17. Lycos Tripod – 23,350
18. Tagged.com – 22,300
19. Imeem – 21,889
20. Netlog.com – 21,1777
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by Michelle Lentz
hi5 is an international social networks. It has now introduced virtual gifts – and virtual currency – to its network. The hi5 Gift Store will initially offer an assortment of 36 virtual gifts that represent a vibrant cross section of the world’s customs and cultures. hi5 Coins is their virtual currency that enables hi5 members to purchase virtual gifts for friends and family.
Since hi5 has a high international adoption rate, the Gift Store offers a variety of culturally relevant virtual gifts many of which are based on holiday traditions and customs. For instance, at launch, hi5 Gifts offers a virtual Rosca (Mexico), a steamed pork bun (Chinese), and a dreidel (, which is a popular toy for children during the Jewish holiday Hanukkah.
According to Ramu Yalamanchi, CEO of hi5, “With the addition of virtual gifts and a virtual currency on hi5, we are enabling our users to celebrate their cultural traditions and strengthen their relationships with friends and family.”
Currency, of course, isn’t free. Similar to Facebook Gifts, the currency can be purchased with a credit or debit card and can be used to unlock premium goods and services. hi5 is using ClickandBuy as their payment provider.
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by Brian Solis
Girls in Tech presents its first ever, “Developer Forum” at hi5 in San Francisco on November 19th from 1:00pm – 5:00pm, followed by a cocktail party.
The event is co-produced by GIT, hi5, Intel, RealTimeMatrix, Slide, MySpace, GLAM, RockYou, Mochi Media, Photobucket, ThoughtWorks, Watercooler and iLike. This will be a casual, yet interactive engagement of developers, designers and engineers throughout the Silicon Valley and beyond. The afternoon event will highlight hot and relevant topics in the development and engineering space such as unique languages – Ruby, PHP, Perl, Java, Python, OpenSocial, new application trends, monetization of applications and platforms, and design and build options.
Please RSVP by emailing Adriana.
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