Hi5 Acquires Social Developer Big Six

Hi5 announced today that it has acquired social platform developer Big Six for an undisclosed sum, according to Venture Beat. Big Six is an Austin-based company that operates its own virtual currency platform. Big Six's co-founders Kevin Gliner, Monty Kerr, and Chad Hansing will assume positions within the Hi5 executive team after the acquisition, moving to San Francisco to work at the social network's main office. 

Hi5 hopes the acquisition will fuel new growth at the company, which serves about 60 million users. Despite Hi5 initiatives built around social gaming and virtual currency that began roughly a year ago, including partnerships with the likes of RockYou, SmallWorlds, PlaySpan, and Mochi Media, its overall userbase hasn't grown significantly over the course of the past year. The Big Six acquisition seems an attempt to drive growth or at least higher revenue by putting more emphasis on social gaming and the virtual goods revenue that social games drive. 

According to statements made by Hi5 CTO Alex St. John, the acquisition was driven by a desire to use Big Six's technology to improve Hi5's commerce technology. Hi5's alternative would be to essentially invent its own solution, which would be both costly and time-consuming. Through Big Six, Hi5 will be able to do its own payment processing and fraud management. 

Gliner indicated that Big Six agreed to the Hi5 deal so it could quickly gain access to a broad base of social network users interested in social gaming. Kerr expressed a desire to work with St. John and interesting in Hi5's open platform approach that favors independent developers. Big Six had raised an undisclosed sum of funding late last year that the company intended to use to launch its own social game platform. Instead, Big Six will incorporate its platform into Hi5 and its already-extant library of social games.

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