Second-tier social network Hi5 has acquired app developer PixVerse for an undisclosed amount, just four months after launching its app platform based on the OpenSocial specification. PixVerse offers several applications such as Pix Chat and Pix Wall, which are Flash-based and run on not only Hi5 but other social networks like Facebook as well. The company was founded in February 2007 and is financially backed by Venrock. It was also one of the earlier adopters of Google App Engine. CrunchBase Information PixVerse hi5 Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
EMI, which is looking less like a music label and more like a lawsuit label, is at it again. This afternoon they filed a lawsuit alleging “massive and blatant” copyright infringement by Hi5, VideoEgg and ten John Doe defendants to be named later. The core of the suit is over copyrighted EMI content that appears on Hi5, particularly music videos. EMI is a particularly litigious company. In the recent past, they’vd sued or threatened to sue AllofMP3, YouTube, Apple, MP3Tunes, XM Radio, Infospace (can’t really blame them there) and even The Beatles. One person close to the litigation says that the parties have been negotiating with EMI for well over a year to avoid litigation, but that they were unable to reach agreement. The shakedown attempt before litigation is standard practice these days. But what is a little different here is that EMI is going deep into the supply chain to find other deep pockets. VideoEgg, for example, provided video functionality to Hi5 in the past, but the deal ended in April 2008, and they no longer work together. The ten John Doe defendants are presumably other service providers, and/or executives of Hi5, VideoEgg and those other companies. The fact that EMI included VideoEgg in the lawsuit shows that they care little about current infringement – they just want a payoff for stuff that happened in the past. VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez says that they comply with all DMCA takedown demands, but never received one from EMI. VideoEgg also used AudibleMagic , he says, to identify and proactively removed copyrighted material. The lawsuit complaint, which was filed in New York, is below. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/wrapper.ashx?doc_id=859300&swf_url=http%3A//content1.docstoc.com.s3.amazonaws.com/Capital+v.+VideoEgg.pdf.swf&showrelated=0&showotherdocs=0&showstats=0&enableFullScreen=1EMI Music v. VideoEgg, Hi5 and others – Get more Legal Forms CrunchBase Information EMI VideoEgg hi5 Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Is MySpace worth $3 billion, or $20 billion? It depends on how you value a user. It’s time to start comparing the big global social networks on something other than unique visitors and page views. I believe an effective way to value a particular user is based on the average Internet advertising spend per person in the country they live in. The higher the spend, the more value the social network can get out of the user by serving them advertising and other products. That means that, for now, users in a handful of key countries are worth far more in terms of revenue potential than those in the rest of the world. We’ve begun to build out a model that looks at social network usage by country/region and compares that to available data on total Internet advertising spend in each of those countries. The model is then able to turn an apples-to-oranges comparison into an apples-to-apples comparison. The early results are surprising. The ultimate financial value of any asset is, ultimately, what the market will pay for it. We have only a few data points to help us: Facebook, Bebo and LinkedIn are worth $15 billion, $850 million and $1 billion, respectively, based on relatively recent valuations (although only Bebo was actually sold completely; Facebook and LinkedIn raised investments at those valuations). The last valuation of MySpace was just $580 million, back in 2005 when it was acquired by News Corp. Which valuation is most “correct?” It’s hard to say based on the data that’s been available to date, which is mostly just aggregate page view and unique visitor numbers from Comscore and other services. Based on worldwide unique visitors, for example, Facebook recently overtook MySpace to become the “largest” social network. According to raw worldwide user number, the biggest social networks are Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut and Bebo, in that order. But when you apply the model that we’ve created below, which takes into account where users live, the rankings change substantially. MySpace is by far the most valuable social network based on available data. A competitor like Orkut is worth only 1/20th of MySpace, even though it has nearly 1/4 the number of users. Properly Ranking Social Networks Our model takes Comscore data for available countries and regions. We’ve graphed each of 26 well known social networks with the data we have been able to collect. → Read More
In April, Facebook caught up to MySpace in worldwide unique visitors (actually nudging past it with 116.4 million unique visitors versus 115.7 million for MySpace). Now the worldwide comScore numbers are out for May and Facebook continues to blow past MySpace with 123.9 million uniques (up 6 percent), versus 114.6 million for MySpace (down 1 percent). Facebook also boasted more pageviews worldwide (50.7 billion versus 45.4 billion). Maybe MySpace’s redesign which just went live this week will pick things up for them again. In the U.S., though, which is the biggest advertising market, MySpace is still well ahead of Facebook, with 73.7 million unique visitors in May compared to 35.6 million for Facebook. And that number for MySpace is up 2 percent from April, whereas Facebook’s had 0 percent growth. So it remains to be seen if and how fast Facebook can catch up in the U.S. As for the second-tier social networks, they have fewer than half as many visitors. Here is the breakdown for May: Worldwide Unique Visitors To the Top Social Networks Facebook—123.9 million MySpace—114.6 million Hi5—49.6 million Friendster—38.1 million Orkut—32.2 million Bebo—25.1 million → Read More
Bowing to the inevitable, Microsoft took a big step today towards data portability by announcing that Windows Live contacts can now be exported to social networks and other Websites. Its Windows Live Contacts API will work with Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Taged, and LinkedIn to start. Members of those social networks will be able to import their Windows Live contacts (i.e., their Hotmail address book) so that they can more easily find or invite those people into their social networks. Microsoft is also launching a site, Invite2Messenger, for importing social networking contacts into Windows Live. Right now that only works with Facebook. Although Microsoft is part of the Data Portability Workgroup, this is a separate effort, confirms a spokesperson. So much for industry standards. But this is an important step in allowing people to take their contacts with them no matter where they reside, whether in their email or social networks. Instead of startups scraping Hotmail to ingest contacts, now they have a legitimate way of doing so. In a way, this is a bit of a catch-up move. You can already import contacts easily from Gmail into services such as Facebook, Friendfeed and others. Maybe Microsoft had a touch of Gmail envy or were concerned about being left behind. At a certain point, an email service that doesn’t let you export your contacts could really be a damper on your social life elsewhere on the Web. → Read More
OpenSocial is gaining some steam. In addition to Yahoo deciding to join the effort, hi5 is going to actually launch its developer platform based on OpenSocial on March 31. The big draw for developers will be to expand their reach globally. Hi5 is the third-largest social network in the world with 38 million unique monthly visitors. While both MySpace and Facebook each boast more than 100 million unique users per month (all numbers are from comScore), Hi5 reaches some different markets. It is especially strong in Mexico and Latin America, Portugal, and Thailand. As an incentive for Web developers to create apps for hi5, CEO Ramu Yalamanchi says: For the first 100 apps, we are going to provide free hosting and translate them. As with Facebook apps, developers will be able to place their own ads on the “canvas’ page that hosts the app. And they will be able to tap into the notifications, invites, messages, and friend updates on hi5 to try to make their app go viral. By adopting OpenSocial, hi5 is hoping to make it it easy for developers to port their apps to or from other OpenSocial Websites (which will include MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, LinkedIn, Ning, Six Apart, and many others). Of course, OpenSocial has to get through its growing pains first. Yalamanchi notes: The development of OpenSocial may have initially looked a little messy, but it is evolving to a point where there is a solid foundation. To get things going, hi5 is hosting two simultaneous hackathons on March 15. One will be at the Googleplex in California, and the other will be at a university in Mexico. For more details on the hi5 platform, developers can go here. CrunchBase Information Hi5 Facebook Bebo Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
In the global race to be the top social network, MySpace and Facebook are neck and neck. In January, 2008, MySpace was still the biggest social network worldwide with 109 million unique visitors, according to comScore. But Facebook was close on its heels with 101 million. (Meanwhile, the data in the U.S. for Facebook at least shows a possible slowdown in growth). While MySpace and Facebook are fighting it out for the top spot, back in the second pack some interesting sprints and scuffles are going on that are worth keeping an eye on. Everyone in that second pack (Hi5, Freindster, Orkut, Bebo, Imeem) are about a third to a quarter the size of the leaders in terms of worldwide unique visitors, so I’ve isolated their performance in the chart above (it is harder to see if you include Nos. 1 and 2, MySpace and Facebook). In January, both Hi5 (No. 3, in red) and Friendster (No. 4, in blue), made moves to pull away from Google’s Orkut (No. 5, in green) and Bebo (No. 6, in yellow). The latter two maintained a more steady pace. Coming on strong from behind is Imeem (No. 7, in purple), which surpassed Multiply (No. 8, not shown). The chart below has most of the stats, except for the last two—Imeem had 17.8 million global visitors in January, 2008, a 477 percent annual growth rate (Multiply had 17.6 million, a healthy 203 percent rise from the year before). For Hi5 and Friendster, global growth is a major part of their game plan. Friendster, for instance, which dropped off the radar for most of us in the U.S., is now the single largest social network in Asia. It’s top five countries are the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, the United States (legacy members who never left, plus new growth among Asians here), and Singapore. Friendster has kept its growth going by launching fan profile pages for Asian pop singers, launching four new languages since September (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish), and letting developers create apps for its site. So does that mean that Friendster and Hi5 are worth more than the $1 billion Bebo is rumored to have sold itself for? Not necessarily. It depends on the actual composition of their members, click-through rates, and other financial factors. Generally speaking, advertisers like to target their campaigns by geography, and pay less for ads that target populations with → Read More
Spanish language social networking site Sonico is the biggest social networking site you’ve probably never heard of before today. If you haven’t you wouldn’t be alone, it has zero hits in Google News as I write this post. Buenos Aires based Sonico from FNBox launched in August 2007 with the usual social networking mix of message boards, profiles and networks based on school or workplace. Nothing remarkable, until you look at the numbers. Sonico now has over 8 million registered users, and has recently launched a Portuguese version as well (so as to cover the rest of South America). According to Alexa the site now ranks at 167, and is in the top 50 sites in Colombia, El Salvador, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru, Honduras, Panama, Chile, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Cuba and Mexico. We can only get the worldwide figures from comScore and although it’s still below the leading second tier social networking sites, it’s still placed extremely well for a site that is just 6 months old. Targeting the South American market is in vogue at the moment with players such as MySpace and Facebook now offering Spanish language versions, and smaller players such as Wamba trying to get a foot hold in a continent that has a growing online user base. Google’s Orkut is already big in Brazil and Hi5 is also popular locally. If their current growth continues Sonico will be a site to watch. → Read More
Google may have just come out of nowhere and checkmated Facebook in the social networking power struggle. MySpace and Six Apart will announce that they are joining Google’s OpenSocial initiative. Silicon Alley Insider reported the MySpace rumor earlier today. We’ve confirmed that from an independent source, as well as the fact that Six Apart is joining. Per the update below, Google has also confirmed Bebo is joining. Google will be making an announcement today. MySpace and Six Apart join Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle as announced Google partners. No word on whether MySpace will continue with efforts to complete its own recently announced platform, but the answer is probably yes. They are likely to simply do both (Update: see below). Suddenly, within just the last couple of days, the entire social networking world has announced that they are ganging up to take on Facebook, and Google is their Quarterback in the big game. Update (12:30 PST): On a press call with Google now. This was embargoed for 5:30 pm PST but they’ve moved the time up to 12:30 PST (now). Press release will go out later this evening. My notes: On the call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said “we’ve been working with MySpace for more than a year in secret on this” (likely corresponding to their advertising deal announced a year ago). MySpace says their new platform efforts will be entirely focused on OpenSocial. The press release names Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING as current OpenSocial partners. We’re seeing a Flixster application on MySpace now through the OpenSocial APIs. Flixster says it took them less than a day to create this. I’ll add screen shots below. Here’s the big question – Will Facebook now be forced to join OpenSocial? Google says they are talking to “everyone.” This is a major strategic decision for Facebook, and they may have little choice but to join this coalition. Bebo has also joined OpenSocial. Flixster/MySpace screen shots: CrunchBase Information MySpace Six Apart Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Did you know that Imeem is the fastest-growing social site in the U.S (up 1,590 percent in monthly uniques). And that AIM Pages is growing slightly faster than Digg (345 percent growth versus 323 percent)? Well, at least according to comScore. I asked comScore to do a ranking of social sites in the U.S. and then I reordered the list by growth rate. Here it is: Here are my takeaways. MySpace is still growing at a healthy 23 percent, despite its size. But Facebook is coming on fast, with 129 percent growth. Notice also the strong showing by Bebo (growing 83 percent) versus the lackluster U.S. growth of Hi5 (3 percent) and the decline of Xanga (negative 55 percent). In blogging platforms, Blogger is beating Six Apart on both absolute numbers (32 million visitors versus 13 million) and growth (55 percent versus 44 percent). In the doldrums territory, you’ve got Windows Live Spaces (with a one percent decline) and Yahoo Groups (four percent decline). And in the you-ought-to-seriously-think-of-shutting-this-down territory, there is Lycos Tripod (23 percent decline), MSN Groups (36 percent decline), and Yahoo 360 (’nuff said). Here is a more comprehensive list of social sites ranked by total number of visitors. It includes sites where comScore could not calculate a growth rate because it did not have enough data for September, 2006. Some sites that stand out on this list, having come out of nowhere in the past year, include WordPress.com (with 11.9 million monthly visitors), Freewebs (with 6.6 million), BuzzNet (with 4.4 million),and Kaboodle (with 2.5 million). (Update: Also, you will notice that Google’s social networking site Orkut isn’t even on the list. That is because while it had 24.6 million visitors worldwide in September, 2007, Orkut only attracted 503,000 visitors in the U.S.). CrunchBase Information Imeem Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
San Francisco based social networking site Hi5 has raised $20 million in a new round of funding led by Mohr Davidow Ventures. Hi5 doesn’t get a lot of coverage (we last covered it in January), however whilst Facebook has been getting all the press, Hi5 has become a global success story. According to Alexa, Hi5 is now ranked as the 11th most popular site online above Facebook at 13th. If you’ve never heard of the site though, there is a reason; most of Hi5′s traffic doesn’t come from the United States. Hi5 is the No. 1 ranking site online in Portugal, Ecuador, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala, and ranks at No 2 in Jamaica, Honduras and The Dominican Republic. 16.2% of visitors to Hi5 come from Peru and 7.7% from Portugal, by comparison visitors to Hi5 from the Unites States make up only 2% of the sites traffic. As of December 2006, Hi5 claimed to have 50 million registered users. (via Gigaom) → Read More
Some of the best data on the growth of social networks is coming out of the widget startups. People put widgets on their various social network user pages, and traffic is referred back to the widget companies. Other than policy changes that can have a significant impact on widget usage, it is the best traffic data available outside of the social networks themselves. What I’m hearing from some of those widget companies is that San Francisco-based Hi5, already a big network and rumored to be quite profitable, is surging. “Traffic is up 15% month over month, and Hi5 looks like it’s second only to MySpace at this point” said one executive at a large widget startup. He also said “They are clearly bigger than all the second tier social networks – Piczo, Bebo, Tagged, etc.” The available third party data is mostly agreeing. Hi5 has a large presence in the U.S., but the bulk of its usage is in other countries. That may explain why Comscore, which puts them at the 79th largest website based on 23 million worldwide unique visitors in December (just ahead of Facebook, which is no. 83 overall), shows a declining U.S. audience. U.S. uniques declined to 3 million in December, down from a high of just over 4 million in July 2006. Hi5 claims to have 50 million registered users, which sounds about right given the 23 million monthly unique visitor number. Alexa shows significant growth as well, although Compete has a different story, more closely mirroring Comscore’s U.S. data. → Read More
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