Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry

Tagged Begins Transformation Of Acquisition hi5

TECH CRUNCH – Jan 26 – Following December’s announcement of its acquisition of struggling social network hi5, Tagged now says it’s ready to begin the transformation to “a Tagged.com experience with a hi5 wrapper.” Though the changes are still another six to eight weeks away, hi5 users will begin receiving emails later today notifying them about the plans. The biggest impending change will be the removal of the platform’s third-party game developers and replacing it with games developed in-house by Tagged. For the foreseeable future, Tagged has no intention of merging the two sites but intends to keep them as separate but similar entities.

by Anthony Ha
See full article at Tech Crunch

See all posts on Tagged
See all posts on hi5

Tagged Acquires hi5

TECH CRUNCH - Dec 14 - Social network Tagged has acquired the social game network hi5, doubling Tagged’s monthly active users to 20M. The combination will also increase the total number of registered users to 330M, up from 100M. The deal’s terms were not disclosed, but include the hi5 website and user base.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

See all posts on Tagged
See all posts on hi5

hi5 Raises $14 Million

TECH CRUNCH - July 13 - hi5, a gaming-focused social network, has just closed a new round of funding of over $14M led by Crosslink Capital. This brings the social network’s funding to over $34M. The new funding will be used for hi5′s continued expansion into social gaming and virtual goods. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Hi5

HI5 To Support Facebook Games

CNET NEWS - Mar 2 - Hi5, a social network that changed its focus to gaming relatively recently, that it has built some code so that Facebook app developers can transport their creations to Hi5's platform with minimal effort. It's specifically targeting game developers. Beb announced a similar plan to accept Facebook apps late in 2007, but it's unclear as to the extent it was actually executed. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS

See all posts on Hi5
See all posts on Facebook

hi5 Acquires Social Gaming Company Big Six

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 24 - hi5, one of the world’s most popular social networks, has been actively remodeling its site to cater to the gaming industry. Last fall, Hi5 launched a totally revamped site that places a much stronger emphasis on games and virtual currency, along with a new avatar system. Today, the company is furthering this strategy with the acquisition of social gaming developer Big Six. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The games section of hi5’s site accounts for around 1/3 of the site’s traffic, and direct user payments through the game already account for 15% of hi5’s revenue. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Hi5

Social Networks Baffle East Europe Media

BUSINESS WEEK - Oct 20 - As Facebook and other social networks explode in Eastern Europe, traditional media outlets are struggling to cash in on the trend. In September, Facebook had 271,000 users in Romania, but Hi5 boasted 2.3M users in a country of 21M. In the Czech Republic, the number of Facebook users has doubled in 2009 to 1.3M, more than a tenth of the country's population. Facebook, which hit the 300M-user mark this year globally, registered a 180% jump in the number of users in Eastern Europe in 2008 over the year before. In Poland, for example, the largest social network, Nasza-Klasa claims to be adding 20,000 new accounts daily. It had more than 11M active users at the end of 2008.Social networking has already stirred massive interest from advertisers. In the Czech Republic, the number of advertisers on Facebook has surged by 30% in 2009, according to Ataxo, an agency that sells ads on search engines. Paid advertising on social networks in the region is still marginal.  In Romania, it accounts for only 1% of online advertising, a market that last year reached 20M euros. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK

See all posts on Facebook
See all posts on Hi5
See all posts on Nasza Klasa

Small Worlds And Hi5 Combine Virtual World And Social Networking

VENTUREBEAT -- June 2 -- SmallWorlds has teamed up with Hi5 to open up SmallWorlds’ cartoon-like virtual world to Hi5’s visitors. Hi5’s users can use Hi5’s games channel to access the browser-based virtual environment of SmallWorlds, which has hundreds of casual games available to play. Hi5’s games channel has become a major focus for revenue generation. FULL ARTICLE @ VENTURE BEAT

See all posts on Hi5
See all posts on SmallWorlds

Hi5’s Latest Virtual Moves

VENTURE BEAT -- May 20 -- Hi5 is trying to be more of a “social entertainment site” and less of a social network. Yesterday, it announced a deal with Playdom, a company that builds gaming applications for social networks, following another recent announcement with RockYou. These games are using Hi5’s virtual currency. Hi5 has also introduced two more ways to take advantage of its site-wide virtual currency. One is a flirting sub-site where you can use Coins, the site’s virtual currency, to buy gifts for romantic prospect. The other service, called Supporter, lets you pay Coins to block most advertising on the site. FULL ARTICLE @ VENTURE BEAT

See all posts on Hi5

Virtual Currencies Power Social Networks

CNN -- May 19 -- Currencies that exist only online are becoming a more significant part of commerce on the Web and in the real world. Some, like the hi5 Coin, operate almost like tokens in an arcade or tickets at a fair: They're a stand-in for real-world currency. Other "virtual currencies," like Second Life's Linden Dollars, however, are traded on markets. The currencies also fuel online gaming communities and are becoming an important part of social networks. Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University, says people transfer at least $1 billion into the virtual currencies each year, with most of that money going into online games. FULL ARTICLE @ CNN

See all posts on hi5
See all posts on Second Life

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

hi5 And RockYou Partner

MARKET WIRE -- May 13 -- hi5 announced a partnership to distribute RockYou Pets game to hi5's 63m global users through the hi5 Games channel. RockYou will exclusively accept hi5 Coins, hi5's virtual currency, for payments in the hi5 version of the game. The partnership marks the first time a major social site has opened its payments platform to a leading social application developer, enabling better monetization opportunities for both companies. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKET WIRE

See all posts on hi5
See all posts on RockYou

More Layoffs Hit hi5

TECH CRUNCH -- Mar 31 -- hi5’s VP of Marketing, Mike Trigg, wouldn’t say how many employees were being let go but we’ve received multiple independent tips that hi5 laid off 50% of its staff. Previous to this round of layoffs, hi5 employed around 100 people. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on hi5

Hi5's Glittering Gold

FORBES -- Mar 16 -- Hi5 hopes to make millions this year from avatars, gifts and other digital glitter. Hi5 provides an entire mall full of digital gifts--kisses, roses, bottles of beer and more--that users can send each other. Most cost less than a dollar. The company wants to take in $25m this year. Last year, more than 90% of the money Hi5 took in was from advertising. This year, the breakdown is somewhere in between those numbers. FULL ARTICLE @ FORBES

See all posts on Hi5

This post also appears at the SNC Forums.

Buy hi5 Virtual Currency With Just Your Phone Number

MASHABLE -- Mar 9 -- A few months ago hi5 introduced virtual gifts and currency with international flair. Now there’s no need to enter credit card information anymore. Using Paymo, a mobile payment system that’s similar to the one powering MyYearbook’s Lunch Money economy, hi5 members in 24 countries can now use just their phone number to cash out quickly in the hi5 Gift Store. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

See all posts on hi5

hi5 Introduces Virtual Gifts

MASHABLE -- Dec 10 -- Starting today hi5 is offering an assortment of 36 virtual gifts. All of the hi5 virtual gifts come "wrapped" so that your recipient can feel like they are really opening it. The price of these gifts is set at 80 coins. In the US you can snap up 80 coins for $1. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

See all posts on hi5

Hi5 Lays Off 10-15% Of Staff

TECH CRUNCH -- Oct 16 -- On Monday, the 110-person company laid off 10 to 15% of its employees in what it is calling a "restructuring" move. A tipster told us that the cuts came mostly in Design, HR, and QA. I called to ask for a comment and Hi5's VP of marketing Mike Trigg confirms: We did a restructuring this week. We did let a few people go, but we are also hiring people. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

Mark Brooks: That's got to make the people who were let go feel extra bad! C'est la vie. The downturn is giving the SNS industry the kick it needs to do some pruning so it can become more profitable more quickly.

See all posts on Hi5

Discuss this at the SNC Forums

hi5 Guns For Facebook

CNN MONEY -- Oct 15 -- hi5's patrons visit 10-15 times a month, the founders say, and spend 17 minutes per session playing games, sharing pictures and looking at their friends' profiles. The site nearly doubled its users in the past year to 56m in August from just 32 million a year earlier. In July 2007, the founders took $20m in financing from Mohr Davidow to improve and grow the site. They have translated it into 27 languages and dialects and plan to expand to 64 by year's end. Advertising is only one part of hi5's business. The company sees a bright future in virtual goods. By the end of the year, they will introduce a slew of icons to buy and sell on the site. And they're also betting big on mobile; hi5 already has a very clean interface for users on cell phones. FULL ARTICLE @ CNN MONEY

See all posts on hi5

Shopit To Launch Shopit Store App On hi5

BUSINESS WIRE -- Oct 15 -- Shopit, a free social ecommerce platform provider, will launch the Shopit Store App on hi5. Hi5 users can build stores within profiles and sell to friends, people in their social community, and even people in other networks. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

See all posts on hi5

Hi5 Translations Go Live

MARKET WATCH -- Oct 2 -- hi5 Networks has introduced 10 new community-translated languages and dialects for its hi5.com site. Users who volunteer as translators benefit from building a community around their native language and local culture. To ensure high-quality translations, community-driven languages are rated by the community, validated by Lionbridge, the leading provider of translation and localization services, and tested by hi5's own localization team. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKET WATCH

See all posts on hi5