Oh my God, it's full of stars!
Posts tagged virtual gifts
How Tagged Found A 100 Million User Path Post Facebookocalypse (Video)
Sep 3rd
Heard of Tagged? Back in 2005 it was a teenager-only social network, catering primarily to U.S. high school students as Facebook charged through the college crowds. By 2007 they were profitable and worth over $100 million.
Just one problem though. Facebook eventually started letting high school students in, and then everyone else. Tagged responded by opening up to everyone, too. But by mid 2007, CEO Greg Tseng tells me, Tagged knew it was in trouble.
“Facebook beat us,” he said. “We were just another social network…but not in the top five.”
So Tseng and team decided to reach out to users and ask them what they wanted. “The most important thing we learned was that people were using our site to meet new people.”
Bingo! Facebook isn’t big on helping you meet new people. You can search by name, and you can click on friends of friends, but you can’t just find new people you aren’t already connected to via someone else. At Tagged, people were using filtered search to meet people. For sharing activities, dating, or whatever.
“We focused on being the best place to meet new people for any social reason,” Tseng tells me.
Dating is obviously a big part of this. Facebook doesn’t have dating profiles. And there’s a stigma associated with Match.com and other dating sites, at least for some people. But on Tagged people can meet and date or engage in other activities. “Going to Tagged is like going to a bar with friends, and you will probably meet new people. Going to Match.com is link going to a singles event, and there’s a stigma with that.”
Users definitely agree. In 2007 Tagged had 20 million active users. Today they’ve hit 100 million. 1/3 to 1/4 visit the site each month and the site has 5 billion monthly page views.
And they’re spending money. Virtual gifts. VIP accounts that let you do things like see who’s viewing your profile for $20/month. Revenue has grown to $30+ million, and Inc. named them one of the 500 fastest growing companies two weeks ago. 2011 revenue should be $50+ million, says Tseng.
Via | TechCrunch
Popularity: unranked
Slide Lays Off 10% Of Staff, Shutters Short-Lived Games ‘SuperPocus’ And ‘Top Fish’
Mar 5th
Slide, the online entertainment company founded by Max Levchin (who we just interviewed in Davos), has decided to stop development on two of its social games, Slide SuperPocus and Top Fish, and will be laying off “less than 10%” of its employees in the process. The company had around 40 employees working on the two games, some of whom will be reassigned to work on other projects. Prior to the layoffs, Slide had around 137 employees.
This is a somewhat surprising move, because Slide only launched the two applications last fall. The magic-themed SuperPocus launched in October, and Top Fish, a virtual aquarium app, launched in early November. Both games were designed to turn into virtual economies that revolved around virtual gifts. Clearly Slide has a ’sink-or-swim’ attitude with regard to its applications, and it’s ready to cut its losses quickly. Slide VP of Strategy and Business Development Keith Rabois says that the company is continuously evaluating its games based on their growth, user retention, and monetization, and that the two games weren’t reaching their goals. Rabois says that the company intends to release a new project later this month.
Slide has dabbled in quite a few areas related to social gaming and online communities over the years. It is behind some of Facebook’s most popular games, as well as other entertaining apps like SuperPoke. The company used to generate most of its revenue through advertising, but the majority of its income now comes from virtual goods.
Information provided by CrunchBase
Via | TechCrunch
Popularity: 1%
Adobe Taps PlaySpan To Power Payments For AIR Developer Platform Shibuya
Mar 3rd
Micropayments startups PlaySpan is racking up the partnerships. The startup has signed deals with hi5, THQ and Nickelodeon, and today, with Adobe. PlaySpan the payments platform for Adobe’s developer service, codenamed Shibuya. PlaySpan powers micro-payments across over 1,000 video games and virtual worlds and has virtual goods storefronts on Facebook, MySpace, within games and on its standalone site.
In private beta, Shibuya allows Adobe developers to monetize their Adobe AIR applications through a try-and-buy mechanism, and allows developers to upload and sell their applications on the Adobe AIR Marketplace. To enable micro-payments via PlaySpan, developers can add a few lines of provisioning code, set the price and trial period, and then publish the application with the payments technology. Developers will also receive reports, analytics, and automatic settlements on a monthly basis.
The Adobe Air Marketplace allows consumers to try paid applications on for free. If they like the application they can purchase it using a credit card, PayPal, an Ultimate Game Card or over 85 other global payment methods provided by PlaySpan.
The micropayments startup has been securing key partnerships, and a deal with Adobe only validates its place as a player in the micropayments space. In December, PlaySpan revealed some telling numbers about the strength of the virtual goods space, reporting that over $30 million was spent on virtual gifts over the holiday season. Last year, PlaySpan acquired micro-transaction app developer Spare Change, which powered micropayments across 700 social networking apps on Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo.
Via | TechCrunch
Popularity: unranked
Location-based Virtual Goods Up Next From Little World Gifts
Mar 1st
Little World Gifts, the mobile virtual goods startup, has signed WWF as its first major brand partner. That’s WWF-UK, the world-renowned conservation charity, not the wrestling federation with the same initials.
More interesting, however, is where Little World Gifts is headed next: Location-based gifting. In a future update, users of the company’s iPhone app (iTunes link) will be prompted to purchase and receive virtual gifts based on their current location, moving the service a little towards the rewards element of the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla.
Via | TechCrunch
Popularity: unranked
Facebook Now Takes PayPal
Feb 18th
Over the last year or so, Facebook has been gradually ramping up its Credits system, which for a long time was used just to purchase virtual gifts (now you can use it to buy real gifts, songs, and it’s been integrated with some applications). Today comes news that will make it even easier to buy Facebook Credits: you’ll be able to buy them with PayPal.
The new partnership actually encompasses a few areas of Facebook’s payments. Along with Facebook Credits, you’ll be able to use PayPal to purchase Facebook Ads.
This is big news for both companies. PayPal has been trying to establish a greater presence in micropayments and on Facebook itself. And Facebook will now make it easier for PayPal’s 81 million users to quickly stock up on ads and buy its credits, which are only going to become more important on the site going forward. Other payment options for Facebook include standard credit cards and mobile phones (using Zong).
One other reason why this is interesting: given Facebook’s interest in extending itself beyond Facebook.com through services like Facebook Connect, it wouldn’t be surprising if it started prompting people to start “Paying With Facebook” on external sites, which would make it competitive with PayPal. Given how nascent Facebook payments are this would likely be a long ways off (if it’s even coming).
Note: I made the image above, so the payment screen may look a bit different.
Via | TechCrunch
Popularity: 1%
