hi5 is an American

social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It is owned by

The Meet Group The Meet Group, Inc. (formerly MeetMe) owns several mobile social networking services including MeetMe, hi5, LOVOO, Growlr, Skout, and Tagged. The company has offices in New Hope, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dresden, and Berlin. O ...

. Users can create a profile and provide personal information including interests, age, photos, and hometown. Users can also send friend requests via

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

to other users. When a person receives a friend request, he may accept or decline it, or block the user altogether. If the user accepts another user as a friend, the two will be connected directly or in the 1st degree. The user will then appear on the person's

contact list A contact list is a collection of User (computing), screen names. It is a commonplace feature of Instant Messaging and Presence Service, instant messaging, Email clients, online games and mobile phones. It has various trademarked and proprietar ...

and vice versa. Some users opt to make their profiles available for everyone on hi5 to view. Other users exercise the option to make their profile viewable only to those people who are in their

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

. In a 2009 redesign, hi5 added features oriented toward gaming and entertainment. The site featured over 200 games in a variety of genres, and was adding games at a rate of 2-3 per week. It is targeted to users that are interested in flirting, dating, and making new friends. In order to join hi5, users must be age 18 or older. Due to hi5's shift in focus to social gaming, comScore reclassified hi5 as an online gaming site in early 2011. According to comScore, hi5 ranked as the 6th most trafficked online gaming site.

History

The company was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi. It was profitable in its first year. By 2006, it had become the 8th largest

. Prior to 2004, the company had raised $250,000 from

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

s. By 2007, it was the 2nd largest

after Myspace. In 2007, the company raised $20 million in a

series A round A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

from Mohr Davidow Ventures, as well as $15 million in

venture debt Venture debt or venture lending (related: "venture leasing") is a type of debt financing provided to venture-backed companies by specialized banks or non-bank lenders to fund working capital or capital expenses, such as purchasing equipment. Venture ...

. In 2008, comScore reported that hi5 was the third most popular

in monthly unique visitors behind

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and MySpace. It was also the fastest growing social network. However, international growth of Facebook later hurt hi5. It was most popular in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

. The company had gained significant market share in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and

Mary Meeker use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , nationality = American , citizenship = , education ...

had cited hi5 as the 10th largest site in the World in her 2007 Technology / Internet Trends report. Bill Gossman was appointed CEO in April 2009, and at that time, hi5 refocused itself as a

social-network game A social network game (sometimes simply referred to as a social media game, social gaming, social video game or online social game) is a type of online game that is played through social networks or social media. They typically feature multiplayer ...

platform and opened itself to new game developers. In early 2010, hi5 acquired social gaming company Big Six. In 2010, it announced it had raised $3 million convertible note from existing investor Mohr Davidow, bringing the funding up to $38 million. In October 2010, hi5 announced Sociopath, a set of developer tools designed to make it easier for developers to bring their game to the hi5 platform. A major part of the program was the implementation of Facebook compatible APIs, which simplified the process of bringing games already developed for Facebook to hi5. Sociopath also introduced anonymous play to the site, making it easier for gamers to play games immediately without first having to provide registration info. Sociopath was initially introduced at GDC Online in 2010. In July 2010, the company raised $14 million from

Crosslink Capital Crosslink Capital is a leading early-stage venture capital firm with an asset management business that continues into the public equity market for fast-growing companies. The firm has over $2.0B assets under management that it invests in consu ...

. In January 2011,

Alex St. John Alex St. John, along with Craig Eisler and Eric Engstrom, created the original Microsoft DirectX technology platform. Alex became the Microsoft Windows Game technology evangelist for DirectX through his early work at Microsoft (1992-1997) to advanc ...

joined the company as President and CTO. Software-industry veteran

Karen Richardson Karen Richardson is an American executive. Her 30-year career in the software business includes positions in several companies. Career Richardson sits on several corporate boards including BP, the British energy company;Exponent, a Silicon Va ...

served as chairwoman of the company's board in 2011. As a companion to Sociopath, hi5 introduced Sociopay in early 2011. Sociopay was intended to help hi5 to better monetize users, increasing revenues for themselves and developers. Sociopay automatically adjusts the prices for hi5 coins based upon a user's region, capitalizing on hi5's international success and helping to monetize users from many different economies. Sociopay also helps monetize users less likely to purchase coins by instead serving them advertisements. In December 2011, the assets of the company were acquired by

Tagged Tagged may refer to: * Tagged (website), a social discovery website * Tagged (web series), an American teen psychological thriller web series {{disambiguation ...

. After selling to Tagged, the management team of hi5 formed magi.com as a pure gaming site open to other game developers. Magi.com was shut down in June 2012. With Tagged's acquisition of hi5, the gaming platform changed from third-party developed games to games developed by Tagged's in-house team. Tagged noted that hi5's games weren't as "vibrant" as they could be. In 2017, Tagged and hi5 were acquired by

for $60 million.

References

External links

* {{Social network 2003 establishments in California 2011 mergers and acquisitions American social networking websites Internet properties established in 2003 Multilingual websites

History

See also

References

External links