techcrunch

hi5, one of the world’s most popular social networks, has been actively remodeling its site to cater to the gaming industry. Last fall, the social network 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. See the full release below.

Big Six’s founders, Kevin Gliner, Monty Kerr and Chad Hansing, will join the hi5 management team. Hi5 says the deal will boost the social networks efforts in developing in commerce platforms and payment processing offerings. Right now, gaming is a central part of hi5’s strategy for growth so it makes sens for the social network to acquire innovative technologies and talent. 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.

Apart from the currency and payments technology, Big Six’s social gaming platform will also become part of hi5. With the massive success of Zynga and Playfish, it makes sense that hi5 would try to create a social network that centers around gaming itself. hi5 has over 60 million members, which is a far cry from Facebook’s 400 million users.

continue reading