hi5, which is one of the world’s most popular social networks, will release a totally revamped web site on tomorrow centered around social gaming, virtual currency and a new avatar system.  hi5 is not as big in the US as social networking players like Facebook and MySpace, but is quite popular overseas, with over 60 million monthly unique visitors (only 10% for the US).  With this recent move, hi5 is looking to capitalize on the rapidly growing market for casual social gaming.

As noted in an earlier post, social gaming players like Zynga and Playfish have delivered some pretty amazing results recently.  Emerging players like, Mochi Media has shown some very impressive early results and newer entrants like Playdom and PopCap have been receiving some pretty decent attention from the venture capital community.  The site won’t go live for everyone for a few days, but you can check it out now at http://new.hi5.com – screen shot below.

hi5 already has a “games” section to their site today, which has been performing quite well.  Launched only in February, the site already accounts for 1/3 of the site ’s traffic, and direct user payments through their games account for 15% of hi5’s revenue.  With the release of this newly revamped site that’s centered around games, one can only expect to see those numbers jump up substantially over the next few months.

Related posts:

1. CrowdStar emerging as new social gaming player
2. Scoreloop announces social gaming platform
3. Zynga’s new social game hits 10 million users in one week
4. Playdom fueling up to take on social gaming market
5. Nonoba’s white-label gaming platform enables next generation multi-player games

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