Hi5 Partners With RockYou On Virtual Currency

Today social network Hi5 announced that it would partner with RockYou to distribute the RockYou Pets game to its 63 million users through the Hi5 Games channel. For the Hi5 version of the game, RockYou will exclusively accept Hi5's universal Hi5 Coins virtual currency. This will be the first time a social network has opened a proprietary currency form up for use by a social app developer.

As part of the RockYou Pets move to Hi5 Coins virtual currency, RockYou Pets will be more deeply integrated into Hi5 than social network games usually are. RockYou Pets will not be treated as a separate application that users must choose to install, but instead will be playable with a single click of the mouse. Hi5 will be able to promote RockYou Pets aggressively through preferred placement on the Hi5 Games channel, Hi5's built-in viral promotion tools, and promotions on the Hi5 homepage.

“This partnership gives RockYou access to hi5's global user base, as
well as direct access to the payments platform already familiar to hi5
users,” said Lance Tokuda, CEO and founder of RockYou. “With virtual
currency integration, viral marketing hooks and an expanding games
channel, hi5 provides a compelling distribution channel for social
application developers. RockYou Pets should do well with hi5’s engaging
environment.”

RockYou Pets's deep integration into Hi5 is the first example of the changes to the Hi5's overall direction promised earlier this year by Hi5. The company promises it's also the first example of more deep third-party content integrations that Hi5 users can expect to see more of in the future. The deep integration uses a suite of new APIs that Hi5 is integrating into its basic OpenSocial platform that give partners more access to Hi5 user data and features.

As part of getting the new APIs and virtual currency platform, RockYou has agreed to share revenue with Hi5 in both RockYou Pets and other apps to be announced. It is not known how this will affect any of RockYou's licensed virtual goods deals with third party licensees. 

This is perhaps the most clever part of Hi5's new business model. Imagine if Facebook got a cut of all of Zynga's revenue in return for making it even easier for the company to recruit new players and convert them into paid players. That would make a huge difference in Facebook's revenue–and it's a safe bet that if social apps continue to take off on Hi5, it'll make a big difference to that company's bottom line, too. 

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