MySpace Adds Viral App Features To Attract Game Devs

Beleaguered number two social network MySpace is trying to rally around social gaming, adding new viral features to help games spread more quickly and announcing that 30 million of its 100 million monthly active users are social gamers. This means about one-third of MySpace users will play social games (as opposed to an estimated one-half of Facebook users). MySpace's top 20 gaming apps have an average session time of 80 minutes. 

MySpace is introducing three new viral features meant to help grow the popularity of its social games (and, hopefully, its user base). A new sharing feature allows players to post their in-game achievements, like beating an opponent or acquiring a particular item, to their MySpace activity stream. MySpace says that Share already drives 10% to 20% of new installs for some social games on its platform. 

The second feature is In-App Friending, which lets you search for new friends without leaving the application. Some developers report 65% to 70% acceptance rates for friend requests send through apps, as well as a 16% boost in gifting. The final new feature, the App Requests API, creates a special channel where users can send and receive game notifications including virtual gift requests. Users can also send requests to join a new game with in-game gifts attached. 

Many of the features that MySpace is adding are similar to ones Facebook has already disabled or restricted earlier this year. Facebook's largest social game, FarmVille, serves over twice as many people as are gaming on the MySpace platform at all. MySpace's new changes could help draw more avid social gamers and top developers to their social network, though, which in turn could reverse MySpace's decline in use. 

[via Worlds in Motion]

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