San Francisco’s hi5, a social network that is increasingly focused on games, has announced a new set of Facebook compatible APIs which would allow very easy porting of an application developed for Facebook.  This is in addition to their current OpenSocial implementation, meaning that games developed for either API will be easily portable to the hi5 system, which is emphasizing games with their upcoming games portal.  
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If you’ve scanned the social networking news recently, you’ve probably noticed that many non-Facebook social networks are losing traffic, and a lot of them are shifting direction towards games.  hi5 acquired Big Six games last week and Bebo launched a dedicated games section late last year.  MySpace has been losing traffic steadily for years,  and their June 2009 staff cuts and re-emphasis on music, games and applications failed to entice users back to the site.  Tagged.com, measured to be 2.65% of the US social network market, integrated with the ourWorld games portal this week.  Can these moves help these social networks turn into social gaming networks and compete against the plethora of  social games available on Facebook?
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Late last week, hi5 announced that they were acquiring Austin-based Big Six games, furthering their transition into a games-focused social network.  Originally started in 2003 and having gone through several transitions, San Francisco’s hi5 now bills itself as “social entertainment for the youth market worldwide”. This comes direclty as a result of their innovative thinking in early 2008, when they raced to develop an application platform similar to Facebook. The platform exploded with games, and they morphed their business to suit those developers and gamers accordingly.
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More games for hi5. The social network that’s turned to virtual goods has teamed up with RealNetworks in order to distribute some 1,500 game titles through hi5. While the financial details of the deal have not been revealed, this does appear to be yet another way in which hi5 can leverage its virtual currency through users downloading and purchasing various premium games.

hi5 has gone so far as to create an entirely new section to house its games, which launched earlier this year. Since its launch, hi5 has been adding more and more games to its game channel, mostly through partnerships wih game house developers and distributors alike. As hi5 has also been heavily promoting its virtual currency for an integrated approach to purchasing goods, including games, it’s a win-win for both hi5 and its game providers, which is RealNetworks in this case.
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Online game portal Bigpoint is launching a game called Seafight on hi5’s recently revealed Games Channel, making it immediately available in 20 languages. Play the game on hi5 here.

The realtime fantasy adventure game is among Bigpoint’s most popular. The Flash game will be made accessible for all hi5 users without having to install a seperate application. So far the supported launguages are English, German, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Potuguese, Romanian, Russina, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Seafight is the lastest in a growing string of games included on hi5 and integrated with the social network’s own virtual currency. Having yet another popular game with which to apply the hi5 Coins is a revenue-generating strategy that both hi5 and Bigpoint can take advantage of. It’s a necessary shift in payment options, considering the platform approach hi5 is taking to its own growing virtual economy.
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Another big announcement from hi5 today: the social network is teaming up with Televisa in a commercial partnership with Televisa representing hi5’s online ad inventory for Spanish Latin America, and hi5 distributing Televisa’s video content through its new video channel on the social networking site.

No monetary details of the commercial partnership have been released, but the deal is exclusive between the two companies. Televisa reports significant growth on a global scale, while hi5 cites that Internet usage in Latin America has increased nearly 17% in the past year, making it one of the fastest growing Internet markets in the world.
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hi5 manages to keep our attention lately, with all the product roll outs the social network has, geared directly towards its Game channel and virtual goods-based economy. The latest to team up with hi5 is SmallWorlds, the 3D virtual community that launched last year.

The SmallWorlds integration with hi5’s Game channel is pretty seamless, as SmallWorlds already took advantage of several social media services for building out its own feature set. Incorporating things like YouTube video channels and other media consumption options, the virtual world is one of the more robust offerings out there.
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hi5 is expanding its gaming section with the addition of RockYou’s Pets game to all of its users. The RockYou Pet game has gained a steady following in its own right, so hi5 is seemingly looking to ramp up the offerings of its own game channel by layering in online activity that is sure to keep users around for extended periods of time, with game titles they already know and trust.

For RockYou, the new partnership means that hi5’s 63 million users will be able to access its gaming products. As one of the major application developers, RockYou has been among the first to create game apps for most of the major platforms, from Facebook to MySpace. So it’s no surprise to see RockYou reaching further with the new partnership with hi5.
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hi5 is extending its Games section by partnering with Mochi Media, the online games network. After launching Games earlier this year, hi5 is quickly expanding on its gaming portal, incorporating several new entertainment options for users and more revenue options for itself.

As with its own native games, those offered through the partnership with Mochi media will take advantage of the recently launched hi5 Coins, the social network’s virtual currency. While users will not be able to use hi5 Coins for direct transactions, there are plans for future options of purchasing downloadable games, challenging friends, accessing premium game content and status upgrades.
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hi5 has just added Games to its social network. It’s yet another way to waste time on hi5, and even interact with friends as many of the games are socially-integrated. With this global launch, I actually think it’s important that hi5 focused on creating the games in a socially-integrated environment, because it extends the social capabilities of hi5 as a network and communications platform.

It’s also interesting that hi5 has decided to launch Games as a native application within its network, avoiding the open platform approach where the majority of games would be made to available to hi5 users through third party developers. If you look at a platform like Facebook’s, there are several games available to users but they’re the result of third party developers that have taken advantage of Facebook’s open platform for both access and distribution. Some of these games are more social than others, and application games overall aren’t unified, even for some separate games that come from the same developer.
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