hi5 is an American

social networking service A social networking service (SNS), or social networking site, is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interest ...

based in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. It is owned by

The Meet Group The Meet Group, Inc. (formerly MeetMe) owns several dating Dating app, app networking services including MeetMe, hi5, LOVOO, Growlr, Skout, and Tagged (website), Tagged. The company has offices in New Hope, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, San Francisc ...

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

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

to other users. When a person receives a friend request, they 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 screen names. It is a commonplace feature of instant messaging, Email clients, online games and mobile phones. It has various trademarked and proprietary names in different contexts. Contacts lists' windows ...

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 Comscore, Inc. is an American-based global media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, advertising agencies, brand marketers, and publishers. History Comscore was founded in July 1999 in Resto ...

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 to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible de ...

s. By 2007, it was the 2nd largest

after

Myspace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

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

series A round A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in excha ...

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. Ventu ...

. In 2008,

comScore Comscore, Inc. is an American-based global media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, advertising agencies, brand marketers, and publishers. History Comscore was founded in July 1999 in Resto ...

reported that hi5 was the third most popular

in monthly unique visitors behind

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

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 is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

. 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 = , citizenship = , education = DePau ...

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, or online social game) is a type of online game that is played through social networks or social media. They typically feature gamification systems with m ...

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 (founded 1989) is a venture capital firm with an asset management business that continues into the public equity market for fast-growing companies. Crosslink Capital has over $3.0 billion in assets under management that it inve ...

. In January 2011, Alex St. John joined the company as President and CTO. 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. 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