Hi5 was the first social network that I ever signed up to (I dont think fropper can be termed as a social network) way back in 2005. Infact it was the one social network wherein all my friends from college were also there. Then orkut came along and people shifted preferences. But Hi5 still remains a pretty popular in countries like Portugal, Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador and others.
A recent report by Opera stated that Hi5 was Thailands most popular social network. This is the very reason that Inmobi the mobile ad network based out of India has tied up with Hi5 to power the advertising on their mobile site.
InMobi has operations in 37 countries and serving over 7.5 billion ad requests monthly. This is an exclusive partnership with hi5 to serve ads on their mobile web site in Thailand.
Cathy Meyer, Senior Director of Ad Operations, from hi5 comments, “InMobi’s local language support and local sales efforts have dramatically increased the ad revenue for our mobile site while simultaneously offering our consumers locally relevant advertising.“
This is an interesting deal for Inmobi as it continues its effort to take on global player Admob which was recently acquired by Google. Global deals like these are crucial for Inmobi to expand its global ad impressions and reach.
Rajiv,
Thanks for linking to my blog. For me, the interesting element of the news is that Hi5 is sinking without a trace in Thailand, Facebook is taking over – having grown ten fold in the last year. That said, Hi5 is still number one in Thailand…question is for how long?
InMobi will sign exclusive, guaranteed revenue deals such as these until they run out of their VC sponsored money.