As gaming on social network grows by leaps and bounds, there’s been a proliferation of startups that are helping game developers monetize by offering virtual currency deals in conjunction with advertisers. Offerpal, gWallet, Cherry Deals and others all partner with both developers and advertisers to offer virtual currency deals within games. Today, Boomerang Networks is entering the arena with its newly launched offer platform, Offerwall, which offers users the ability to rate and review virtual currency offers.
As more users participate in clocking and buying into the deals, good offers float to the top and bad offers are kicked off the system. Users can rate each advertising offer, giving it a thumbs up or thumbs down. Based on their experience, users can also write reviews and comments, which are then visible to the game’s entire community of users. Offerwall’s algorithm that sets the order in which advertising offers are displayed, allowing popular offers to rise to the top and unpopular or poorly related offers to be eliminated all together. If the user gives a thumbs down to an advertising offer, that particular offer, as well as similar offers, are never presented to that user again.
Similar to gWallet, Offerpal and others, Offerwall promises to avoid distributing spammy offers by employing a direct sales team that works with advertisers directly. Offerwall is also targeting international markets for its in-game offers and can be translated into all major languages including German, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Russian. Boomerang has also built partnerships with international payments providers, tailoring payment options to the region where the deals are being offered. At launch Offerwall is being used by 50 game applications, including BarnBuddy from TheBroth and MouseHunt by HitGrab.
As more players enter the virtual currency space, startups are developing innovative ways to make their offers more attractive. Offerpal recently launched Offerpal Tasks, gWallet just launched a new placement format for offers and Cherry Deals offers Groupon-like local deals to earn virtual currency. Offerwal’s international strategy and user-reviewed and rated format could help separate the startup from its rivals.
