Hello Kitty Online Players Donate to Help Haiti – As more and more people send their help to Haiti, the folks over in Sanrio Land are doing their part as well with an event called Food for Friends 2 hosted by Sanrio Digital and Aeria Games within the Hello Kitty Online MMO. For each of the in-game items players donated to Aeria Games, the company would then donate to the Haiti relief efforts. Aeria has not released their total donations yet, but it did receive 534,358 donated items from players on their servers. Sanrio servers, however, garnered over 1.2 million donated items and donated US$ 18,038.30 to Doctors Without Borders.

gWallet Brings Virtual Offers & Currency to the Front Page – Social media monetization firm, gWallet, announced the introduction of the gWallet Brand Bar. Rather than bury potential offers in the back pages of social games, the Brand Bar’s intention is to allow social gaming offers to appear at the top of game screens on all pages, displaying offers the user can participate in, in order to earn virtual currency for their current game.

Playfish Sells 60M Pet Society Virtual Goods – This week, we caught a glimpse at how effective holiday virtual goods can become as Electronic Arts Vice President of Business Developments and Strategic Partnerships, Sebastien de Halleux, stated in Forbes that Playfish’s Pet Society had sold over 60 million virtual goods in the two weeks prior to Valentine’s Day.

Furthermore, it was noted that “tens of thousands” of flower bouquets were purchased through Valentine’s promotions (sponsored by ProFlowers) that earned players the game’s virtual currency. In fact, it was stated that half of all revenue generated in the said two weeks were from the bouquet sales, with total sales being 20% higher than February of 2009.

hi5 to Unveil New Game Developer Program at GDC – Described by the company as a “fundamentally different model for social games,” hi5′s Game Developer Program is something of an enigma. However, it does incorporate elements such as free marketing and promotion across the hi5 network, revenue share through both advertising and hi5 Coins (its virtual currency) usage, automatic game installs, and “super-charged” social channels with a dedicated game portal and promotional area for discovery.

Clarity is coming as President and CTO of hi5, Alex St. John has announced that details will finally be unveiled at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco on March 10, 4:15 – 5:15pm. The one hour session will be at the Moscone Center, Room 122, North Hall and open to all GDC pass holders, save student and audio passes.

Strategic Design Network Aquires Payout Hub – While the price and structure of the acquisition was not announced, social gaming startup, Strategic Design Network (SDN) has acquired the cash tournament company, Payout Hub. Now, the service that allows players to participate in skill-based tournaments for cash prizes (gambling, by some definitions) will be available for the coming line up of SDN titles.

In fact, SDN is already making use of Payout Hub’s capabilities with a new Payout Hub API for the iPhone. Installable in less than an hour, the integration of this API allows iPhone developers to quickly and easily incorporate cash tournament capabilities into their game, and allows users to effectively find all the tournaments currently running.

Chris DeWolfe is Going Shopping – Though virtually nothing is known at the moment, word on the street, via Gawker.com, is that MySpace co-creator and former CEO, Chris DeWolfe is going shopping — a rumor we heard something about last fall. However, this is no mere trip to the market, as he may be looking to buy a “social gaming platform play.” The time frame? It could be this weekend.

FarmVille on Android – While last week was host to Android’s new Flash 10.1 support, this week, the Android phones (Nexus One, to be precise) can now play the #1 Facebook title: Zynga’s FarmVille. A video of the FarmVille demo, in all it’s farming glory, can be found at Redmond Pie.

Hooked Media Launches Social Gaming Platform – In other social gaming news, startup Hooked Media announced it’s own social gaming launch: A social gaming platform dubbed Yoo-Mee. Through the platform, developers will be able socialize their games and embed them into a myriad of sites and devices (similarly to how Flash works). The new platform will fully support Facebook Connect, Twitter, and MySpace as well as two types of currency: Tokens, which are earned through play, and Gold, which must be bought.

eGames Sign License Agreement With Sonico.com – As of the 24th, PC, console, and web games developer eGames Inc. announced the signing of a content license agreement with Sonico.com, a Latin American social network. Evidently, it is a partnership that will bring social gaming to the network’s target audience with the first announced social game being a title called Burger Island(R).

[Editor's Note: Bobby McFarland of Super Rewards, part of Adknowledge, provides some tips on techniques for making money through virtual currencies in social games.]

Discount pricing programs have been used for years by online and brick-and-mortar businesses to acquire customers, promote products, drive brand loyalty, and materially increase profits. Similar programs have been proven to work extremely well for virtual currency and goods inside social games. Below are some discount pricing tips that social game publishers can use to maximize ROI and more deeply engage their players.

1. Tier Discounts for Virtual Currency

Creating different tiers or levels of discounts is a proven way to keep users engaged, especially for “hardcore” gamers. The Facebook game Country Life does a good job at this: gamers can pay $5 for 50 coins, $10 for 105 coins, $20 for 220 coins, etc. But once these direct pay ratios (or exchange rates) are set, it’s difficult to change them without irritating users who’ve grown accustomed to the pricing. One concern is that players will spend less when they get more. But this is a well-debunked myth. People will buy more than they need today, have a flush account, and then spend it all much more quickly than they intended. Brick-and-mortar stores have been proving this for years with massive bags of tube socks and ‘family-sized’ portions. Super Rewards provides simple tools for building these types of dynamic ratios.

It’s also very important to balance the payouts received from direct payments with those received from advertising offers to avoid cannibalizing offer revenue. For example, it would not make much sense to offer 100 coins for $10 via direct pay if the payout from a Netflix offer is $20 for 100 coins. Also, note that will cause some currency inflation as now you may have on average 125 coins going into your system for every dollar a user spends instead of your expected ratio of 100 points per dollar.

2. Set Proper Exchange Rates

Publishers and developers are increasingly using multivariate and A/B testing to help set their discount levels and currency exchange rates. Super Rewards is working with developers to help them set up accurate testing models to better understand user behavior in various scenarios. We encourage developers to build testing technology into their game designs to continually improve user experience and to maximize ROI. Many game developers have a ‘set it and forget it’ mentality when it comes to their exchange rate and use a number that they initially ‘felt’ was right. Virtual currencies are a science: go with facts not feelings. The Super Rewards Game Advisory Team or even our Account Managers can help with this, in addition to A/B testing tools.

3. Reduce Inflation with Dual Currencies

But over time, even smart discounts and exchange rates cannot completely escape inflation, which is the main reason why some games have developed two currencies (more details, here). The model works because it motivates both new and aggressive gamers to continue buying currency as they climb different levels. The model also improves user retention rates, enhances the overall game experience, and drives sustainable revenue for publishers. Mob Wars is a good example of the dual currency model in action. A user at level one will happily buy 10,000 coins for $10. A user at level 30, for example, may earn 100,000 coins a day on their farm. Make sure there is a compelling value proposition for all levels of players. This is where a dual currency easily allows you to offer more coins for the same price.

4. Tie Currency Discounts to Holidays & Special Events

Virtual currency discounts (e.g., a 20 percent off “across the board”) are also effective, particularly for casual gamers. While these “across the board” discounts are more volatile than the tiered discounts above, they can produce significant revenue spikes. Holidays (e.g., Christmas, Black Friday, Easter, 4th of July) and special events are good opportunities for publishers to offer this type of discount. For example, Galacticos Football has tied its discounts around World Cup soccer events, generally for one to two days. A pitfall to watch out for here is having players “wait” for a sale. If they know every Sunday is discount day, they will wait until Sunday to buy. Mix up the discount percentages and their frequency. You don’t want to be predictable. Having a sale will likely cause a dip in revenues as people ‘stock up’ on sale day, but the dip is always much less than the spike.

5. Discounted or Limited Time Virtual Goods

Finally, another simple but effective way to engage gamers is to discount virtual goods for short periods of time, usually one to two days or even for a few hours. This is most effective for role-playing games like World of Warcraft, or games where the goal is to accrue goods over time, such as Pet Society and FarmVille. In FooPets, you can find discounted water bowls or leashes for your favorite virtual pet. Having an ultra-rare item that is only available for a few days and then is no longer available or expires can often see spikes in revenue of 3-4x your usual daily rates with little residual revenue down turn effects in the following days.

This week’s crop of emerging games on Facebook is showing strong gains, higher on average than we’ve seen for several weeks. Each Friday, we source this list from AppData to show fast-growing games that still have fewer than a million players.

And, somewhat unusually, two of the top games are foreign: Okey Oyna is a Turkish social game, while Capitales del mundo! is in Spanish, and has to do with learning world capitals. You’ll also spot a few Chinese-language games on the list:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Okey Oyna	615,426	+433,066	+70.37
2.	Roulette Madness	674,511	+426,778	+63.27
3.	Capitales del mundo!	417,043	+345,884	+82.94
4.	Tiki Resort	613,378	+338,504	+55.19
5.	Poker Madness	637,020	+284,849	+44.72
6.	Funflow	562,407	+252,157	+44.84
7.	VIP Challenge	356,940	+245,676	+68.83
8.	Bubble Island	507,703	+244,301	+48.12
9.	Mahjongg Dimensions	400,042	+194,804	+48.70
10.	Enchanted Island	434,004	+188,209	+43.37
11.	Jewel Puzzle 2	308,492	+184,640	+59.85
12.	Collect Roses	494,110	+175,433	+35.50
13.	Jumping Dog	374,632	+168,264	+44.91
14.	SuperPocus	560,688	+159,048	+28.37
15.	快打之王	654,065	+155,261	+23.74
16.	Farkle 2	416,135	+153,051	+36.78
17.	Absolute Solitaire	245,845	+143,286	+58.28
18.	Fashion City	320,947	+136,587	+42.56
19.	The Crazies Tower Defense	201,593	+129,189	+64.08
20.	主題學校	417,081	+126,229	+30.26

Number two is Roulette Madness, and as you might expect, it’s a pretty straightforward roulette game. That doesn’t mean it’s low quality, as the roulette wheel is crisp and well-animated; other visual elements closely resemble Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker. An even closer resemblance might be found in Poker Madness, at number five; it’s by the same developer. Various other games are also linked into Roulette and Poker, although it’s not clear if they all have the same ownership.

Tiki Resort was recently released by Playdom. The game is an entry into the “social tycoon” category, and so far it’s a success, although our own testing found that it’s a bit simplistic, focusing more on decorating an island than interesting gameplay.

Bubble Island is growing well; we reviewed the bubble-breaking game at its launch three weeks ago. And last Friday we wrote about the release of Mahjongg Dimensions, based on a traditional Chinese tile game, by Arkadium. So far, that game is on track to reach the million users its developer said it would have in March.

Down the list a bit you’ll spot SuperPocus, by Slide, whose SPP Ranch! Top Fish both recently graduated to over a million monthly average users. Look for a post later today in which we’ll explain how Slide has managed to grow its apps so quickly of late.

And even further down, in the next to last place, is The Crazies Tower Defense, yet another game that we recently reviewed. Keep an eye on this one — it’s not only based on an upcoming movie that may turn out to be a hit, it’s also a pretty solid entry in the tower defense genre.

With the unveiling of the iPad, the cottage iPad speculation industry that had grown up around it has… kept going. Having seen and, in some cases, actually used the iPad, blogs and magazines are continuing a non-stop torrent of ideas and predictions for the upcoming Apple slate.

A particularly popular subject so far has been games. So we’ve taken some of the better lists out there and combined them — not to pick out specific games (for the most part), but to point out the concepts and game mechanics that are getting the most attention ahead of the iPad’s launch.

For this list, we looked at CNET’s top 30 picks, TechRadar’s top 20, Touch Arcade’s iPhone games to port, and Techland’s 5 games to make ASAP. Here’s what we came up with after melding them all together:

Civilization — This game is a top pick for pretty much everyone. Sid Meier’s classic has always been at least partially about seeing the sprawling extent of your empire, and smaller screens like the iPhone haven’t quite done it justice. Along the same lines, SimCity; and, for the real-time fans, Command & Conquer is a popular choice.

Board games — Another no-brainer, perhaps due to the close resemblance of the iPad to a real-life board. You you can take your pick: Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, Chutes & Ladders or pretty much anything else would work. Several of the lists pick Monopoly, but we’d have to disagree, unless there’s a major breakthrough in battery life.

FarmVille — Maybe it’s just this game’s unending popularity on Facebook, but FarmVille seems to be a consistent pick for any iPad wish-list. There’s certainly a synergy between the intended audiences, although the gameplay might have to be modified for longer play-times.

Line-drawing – CNET wants DrawRace, in which you draw out your car’s intended course, while Touch Arcade wants Boom Brigade, which is a bit like real-time, directed tower defense. The idea is the same in either case: lots of contact between your finger and the screen.

Nintendo games — Techland’s top two picks are both Nintendo games: Scribblenauts and Boom Blox. The latter seems like a good pick; a potential mechanic could involve first touching your target on the screen, then twitching the iPad for an accelerometer “throw”.

Point n’ click adventure — TechRadar suggests Beneath a Steel Sky; our own vote goes to King’s Quest. It’s the ability to tap the screen to achieve any action (this style of game interprets your click to perform the action on its own) that would make these games work.

Physics games — Draw objects with your finger, tilt the iPad to move them around. Crayon Physics, for example, was excellent on the computer, and would probably do even better on an iPad. There’s also World of Goo to consider.

Tower defense — The only question is which tower defense games will do best on the iPad. Fieldrunners would probably do well, as would Plants vs Zombies, which we reviewed earlier tonight. Our own vote is for a graphically amped-up version of Gemcraft, which blends in RPG concepts.

Bright lights, flashing colors — This isn’t a genre, exactly, but extremely visual games seem to be a thematic undercurrent in many of the lists. Pinball, Missile Defense, Geometry Wars — the idea is that the iPad will be bright, beautiful and perfect for some hand-twitching, seizure-inducing action.

Wooden labyrinth — Props to CNET for coming up with this one. This isn’t a computer game, of course. It’s an actual wooden labyrinth in which you guide a stainless-steel ball bearing with physical knobs. The iPad’s accelerometer and flat shape could pull it off perfectly.

Looking through these lists, it might seem that pretty much everything is being fingered as an iPad potential. But we can think of at least a few games that wouldn’t work at all. For example: Whac-a-Mole, played with real hammers. Or, more seriously, any full-on FPS like Quake or Medal of Honor. Without an external controller of any kind, some games will simply be awkward.

Finally, our own pick: Bubble Ghost. Sure, it’s an old game, and one that was never really revived during the console era. But the idea of navigating a bubble through a spiky maze is perfect for some intense iPad gaming, and the internet connection could even make use of some cooperative ghost-play. Just think it over.

As far as casual developers go, PopCap is one that stands out in people’s minds. Having poked their nose into social gaming more than once with games such as Bejeweled Blitz, and adding Facebook Connect to old titles such as Zuma, the port of another popular PopCap web game, Plants vs. Zombies, to the iPhone gave us some high expectations.

For those unfamiliar with the web version, the title is best described as the personification of “depth over breadth.” Ambiguities aside, it is a tower defense-style game in which zombies are marching toward your house and its up to you to defend it with some rather feisty flora.

Zombies approach on a grid, five spaces tall, and gradually work their way to your front door. The idea is to place – via tapping – different types of plants in their way to fend them off. Frankly, this is quite possibly the most amusing concept we’ve seen in a while, and truly shows what a designer can do with a little style.

Each plant is sort of a pun on existing plants and include defenses such as a basic peashooter, to a cherry “bomb,” to a potato “mine.” Of course, not all the style comes in the form of plant life either as zombies have a bit of that je ne sais quoi as well, with epic traffic cone helmet defenses, pole vaulting track stars, and newspaper shielded businessmen (with no pants).

The undead assault starts gradually early on, as players build up their defenses using the sole resource of sunlight. Periodically, little suns appear on-screen that must be picked up via a simple tap. However, in order to garner more sun, players must build a resource-producing plant – Sunflowers. Obviously, this will cost sunlight as well, so the game quickly becomes a challenge in determining what to build, where, and when. Moreover, there are only so many places plants can be put, thus deepening choices further (eventually you can dig them up and replace them). This is further topped off with the fact that decisions need to be both quick and thoughtful, because the zombie waves ramp up very quickly and it is very easy for your plants to be eaten and overrun.

Visually, the style of this app is just as fantastic as its creative character designs with each plant holding a vicious, yet cute, Mario-like art style, while zombies have this perfect, dimwitted, yet try-hard attitude about them. Heck, even the help menu is an amusing letter written in zombie’ish handwriting stating the player wins by letting the zombies reach their house. Even the sound effects compliment themselves perfectly to this zany, cartoon style.

Unfortunately, there is one significant letdown. Despite the fact that Plants vs. Zombies exemplify what an iPhone game should be, it easily falls on our list of games that should have Facebook Connect. Granted, the game does have extremely amusing achievements built into it, such as “Don’t Pea in the Pool,” but it’s just not the same without being able to post it to a feed. With the massive amount of potential strategies, layouts, and mini-games (i.e. bowling for zombies with Crazy Dave), this is an app that screams for social features.

Nonetheless, the franchise is not without some social hope as fans of the game can at least go onto the Plants vs. Zombies website and create a nifty Zombatar (a zombie avatar) for use on their various social networking accounts. Facebook, Twitter, and scaring your mother are what comes recommended.

Of course, the lack of Facebook Connect is hardly enough to keep us from playing Plants vs. Zombies. In fact, it’s hardly been enough to keep over 300,000 from playing. Just today, PopCap actually announced, that within the first nine days of availability, Plants vs. Zombies has sold over 300,000 units (at $2.99). The game reached #1 in the App Store within 24 hours and has since grossed over $1 million. This has made the launch the top-grossing iPhone launch ever in its history. To top it off, it is now #1 in over 20 countries, including Canada, China, Russia, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Norway.

In the end, Plants vs. Zombies is a very wise $3 investment for any iPhone or iPod Touch owner. That said, we look forward to seeing more from the folks over at PopCap Games, and hopefully, a Facebook Connect announcement in the future of this already excellent game.

The latest international company to delve into the social gaming world is a Japanese mobile service provider by the name of C.A. Mobile. Since the Tokyo-based company focuses mostly on mobile content in the country, it partnered with French-Canadian developer, Montreal-based ODD1 to help it get a foothold with a simple little social Facebook app called Bingo Derby.

With a history of casual and mobile games – most recently the iPhone title Catch Me! If You Can – under its belt, ODD1 seems like a good choice. However, how did their first social game attempt measure up?

Well, Bingo Derby is quite the simple app, and isn’t exactly something that’s going to enthrall the user with overwhelming game play. It’s bingo, for the most part. Essentially players sit in a game with eight standard bingo cards and every couple of seconds a new number is called and is automatically marked off on all eight cards (since it is automatic, multiple games can, in fact, be played at once).

The standard rules of the game apply, which is five numbers in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Here is the gimmick though: it is Bingo “Derby,” comparable to a horse race in that players do not buy a bingo card, but bet on one. As numbers are called, a rating on the card will increase or decrease depending on how many numbers it is getting. Users will then pick one of those cards and bet a virtual currency – Coins – on it. The higher the rating is, the higher the payout, but the less likely it will win, while the lower ratings are the exact inverse.

Bingo Derby is amusing, at best, with its bright colors and quirky sounds, but unless you’re a fan of bingo in general, it probably isn’t going to be all that exciting. Furthermore, there doesn’t look to be any way to get more coins other than actually buying them, so any additional games after you lose everything become a bit… difficult. Granted, it is simulated “gambling,” but it shouldn’t simulate a completely empty wallet like the horse track does too.

Frankly, this is a significant red flag as most games of a gambling nature (i.e. Texas Hold’Em Poker) will grant a daily set of coins as soon as you log in the first time. This allows players to always have a safety net if they lose everything. They can always “come back tomorrow” and try again. Of course, it’s more than just a player safety net when it does indeed get them to actually “come back tomorrow” as, usually, most developers want that anyway. If this exists for Bingo Derby, it certainly wasn’t noticeable.

On the upside, this is hardly a difficult issue to deal with, and is likely one of many additions the game will see. Already, C.A. Mobile and ODD1 have stated that they a “long-term exploitation plan for Bingo Derby,” and that “numerous updates are already planned.”

[Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by PayPal’s Peter Martin, who has managed the Risk consulting teams for the company’s Merchant Services, Debit Card and Credit business units, working with both large merchants and the digital goods merchant segments. Before joining PayPal, Peter managed risk for Wells Fargo Bank, Consumer Deposits Group and Barclays Global Investors.]

As a merchant, there’s a lot to like about the selling of virtual goods. The category is exploding, and projected to reach $1.6 billion this year in the US, according to the Inside Virtual Goods report. According to the research firm Forrester, 15 percent of U.S. consumers purchased software and games online to play on their PCs, and 8 percent purchased games to play on their mobile phones.

But while digital goods is a fast-growing business that is wide open to innovation, the reality of selling online is that – just like any business – there exists some level of risk. For digital goods, a faster sale/delivery cycle gives the bad guys a faster getaway, and a “borderless” customer base can attract a global community of fraudsters. In addition, digital goods merchants are often newer to the market and less experienced in combating fraud.

Digital goods vendors generally face three kinds of threats: account takeover, stolen financials and “not-so-friendly fraud.”

The good news is that many of the best practices used in curbing online fraud work well for digital goods merchants, too. The situations and economics are different, but the approach is similar: be aware of the vulnerabilities and act to prevent them.

Account Takeover

Account takeover tends to harm the user experience and reputation of your brand. Here, a customer’s user name and password are compromised, and their account is taken over. The perpetrator goes online and starts transacting, buying goods and selling on the open market. Other virtual currencies make it easy for third parties to facilitate the exchange. It all happens very fast, typically with the help of a scripting language.

The first bar of prevention is better password authentication. The higher bar entails a better understanding of a user’s behavior. If I only log into my account at home or work, a login from a different machine should attract some attention—and some challenge questions. The same is true if my IP address would indicate I live in North America but appear to be logging in from Iceland, or if my usual browser is set to American English but this one is set to Cyrillic. There are several of these identifiers, all of which can be used to better secure the login.

Stolen Financials

Compared with account takeover, which is restricted to your customers, stolen financial information casts a much wider net. Here, the fraudster sets up a “legitimate” account using stolen information, purchases virtual goods, then turns those purchases into real-world cash. This cycle also relies on scripting language, which in turn speeds up the process.

Typically after the legitimate cardholder reports the fraudulent transaction, the merchant will refund the money. But because the markup on digital goods is so high and the unit costs so low, digital goods vendors routinely tolerate a level of chargebacks that would sink a vendor selling jewelry or electronics.

The solution: be extra vigilant in verifying credit card information by using the Address Verification System, which matches the billing address provided by the customer with the one on file with the credit card company. Even better, require entry of the Card Security Code found on the back of the card. Most stolen card data on the Internet still doesn’t include that number. A third layer of protection is a NAP check: validating a customer’s name, address, and phone number, which can then be cross-checked with the customer’s IP location.

Not-So-Friendly Fraud

The industry calls the third threat “friendly fraud,” but for merchants, it doesn’t seem all that friendly. Not-so-friendly fraud is usually buyer’s remorse. A player gets wrapped up in a game, spends $200 and then wakes up the next day with a financial hangover. Instead of vowing to live a more sober online life, he denies making the charge. That’s the usual scenario. Variations include a child using a parent’s credit card, or a malicious player buying digital goods with the intent of later denying it. Because chargeback rules were designed for physical goods, people can abuse the system, knowing that most digital goods vendors won’t take the time to push back.

Whatever the form, not-so-friendly fraud is a growing threat for social networks. The best solution is a combination of fraud scoring and community negative files. Fraud scoring analyzes a merchants’s own internal data to try and determine the likelihood that any transaction will be fraudulent. For example, a game operator could determine from usage data the average velocity of a sword purchase, and then identify outliers—purchases that are well outside that norm. Community negative files are shared intelligence between vendors, so that a fraudster’s history begins to follow him or her from merchant to merchant.

Securing Your Site

Best practices only work if you implement them. Merchants we work with have reduced fraud by purchasing risk mitigation services from third-party vendors or developing their own in-house. Stamping out fraud is part of PayPal’s DNA, as well, and you will see more of safety measurements from us in the future.

PayPal maintains a microsite for digital goods vendors, including links to best practices guide and list of partners, as well as information on micropayments for digital goods.

Hi5 has been transitioning from being a social network to becoming more of a social gaming platform for more than a year now, and it’s taking a step further through a new acquisition. The company has purchased Big Six, a 3 month old social game developer based out of Austin, Texas — it hasn’t launched anything yet, but it raised funding, and it was founded by a number of experienced game entrepreneurs.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but here’s some more about what’s going on. Big Six’s founders include Kevin Gliner, Monty Kerr and Chad Hansing, all of whom have years of experience building a range of games and gaming services, and expect them to apply their expertise at Hi5, specifically in terms of payments, fraud and conversion for its virtual goods.

Some more background, via VentureBeat. Gliner has held leadership roles at Cinematronics, Knockabout Games, WildTangent, Activision and Maxis, and will be Hi5′s new senior vice president of production. Kerr founded casual multiplayer game developer Red 5 Games and Glass Eye Entertainment, which makes widely used online gambling software; he also worked at Compulsive Development and founded Knockabout with Gliner.  He’ll be vice president of commerce and advertising platforms at Hi5. Hansing has been an executive with Kerr at Red 5, Glass Eye and also with Gliner at Knockabout.

The common thread here, as game industry veterans will know, is that they all have worked with Hi5′s new chief technology officer, Alex St. John, at one point or another in their careers. St. John helped develop the DirectX game platform for Microsoft, which led to its Xbox console. He served as a company game evangelist for years, then founded game platform and game advertising company WildTangent in 1998. Although WildTangent developed virtual goods and other aspects of today’s social games much earlier than most in this country, it has only recently gotten into social gaming — moving into the advertising offers business, as it announced earlier this week.

While Big Six brings some technology with the purchase, the big point, as Big Six told us this afternoon, is to refine Hi5′s virtual goods systems as it continues to expand its games, and third-party gaming platform. You could probably guess as much from the founders’ new titles; Hi5 isn’t saying any more about its future plans, although it says to stay tuned for more announcements in the next few weeks.

April 20 | San Francisco

As we recently announced, Inside Social Apps 2010, our first conference on the future of monetization on social platforms, is happening April 20th in San Francisco, one day before Facebook’s official “f8″ event. We’re excited to see all of the developers and entrepreneurs from around the world that are planning to attend!

In addition to the 24 confirmed speakers at Inside Social Apps 2010, including executives from all the largest developers on the Facebook Platform, we’re very excited to announce three more speakers today: Season Xu, Co-founder and COO at Five Minutes (makers of Happy Farm), Dave Etling, VP Product Development at InComm, and Jeremy Liew, Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners. They will be joining our full list of speakers listed below.

• Atul Bagga, VP Equity Research, Games, ThinkEquity
• Adam Caplan, VP Virtual Currency, Super Rewards / Adknowledge
  
• Renata Dionello, Chief of Staff to the CEO, eBay, and former Director of Consumer Business Development, PayPal
• Eric Eldon, Editor, Inside Facebook & Inside Social Games
• Dave Etling, VP Product Development, InComm
  
• George Garrick, CEO, Offerpal Media
• Vikas Gupta, CEO, Jambool
• Sebastien de Halleux, Founder and COO, Playfish, and VP Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, EA Interactive
• Ron Hirson, Co-founder and SVP Product, Boku
• Nick Lawler, Managing Director, Maverick Capital
• Keith Lee, Co-founder and CEO, Booyah
• Jeremy Liew, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
  
• Vish Makhijani, COO, Zynga
• David Marcus, CEO, Zong
• Lisa Marino, CRO, RockYou
  
• Dave McClure, Investor, Founders Fund Angel and fbFund Incubator
• Rex Ng, Co-founder and CEO, 6waves
• Jason Oberfest, VP Social Applications, ngmoco
• Mark Pincus, Founder and CEO, Zynga
• Shervin Pishevar, Founder and Executive Chairman, SGN
• John Pleasants, CEO, Playdom
• Keith Rabois, VP Strategy and Business Development, Slide
• Peter Relan, Executive Chairman, CrowdStar
• Justin Smith, Founder, Inside Network
• Kavin Stewart, CEO, Lolapps
• Jay Weintraub, Founder, LeadsCon
• Season Xu, Co-founder and COO, Five Minutes

More speakers and a full agenda will be announced shortly.

Finally, a limited set of “early admission” tickets is now available through Friday at a special price of $299. This price will change after Friday, and space will be limited, so we encourage you to register now.

Inside Social Apps 2010 – April 20th in San Francisco

Three years after the Facebook Platform launched in 2007, what started out as sheep throwing and vampire biting has quickly become a profitable billion-dollar industry. Today, social games monetizing through virtual goods have quickly become one of the hottest sectors of technology and entertainment, both in the US and around the world. Where are social apps going, and who is leading the way?

Inside Network is proud to announce our first conference on the future of monetization on social platforms: Inside Social Apps 2010, happening April 20th in San Francisco, is bringing together the world’s leading entrepreneurs all in one place to discuss the future of social applications and games monetizing through virtual goods.

This will be an in-depth one day event geared toward developers on Facebook, MySpace, and the iPhone, senior executives, and investors. At Inside Social Apps 2010, founders and CEOs of the top social gaming, mobile social gaming, payments, and virtual goods infrastructure companies will be tackling the key issues facing the industry. We’re hosting it one day before Facebook’s “f8″ event in San Francisco, so this will be an excellent opportunity to learn about the key issues facing the future of the Facebook Platform and beyond before Facebook’s official event.

Register Now

A limited set of “early admission” tickets is available through Friday at a special price of $299. This price will change after Friday, and space will be very limited, so we encourage you to register early.

From all of us at Inside Network, we hope to see you on April 20th in San Francisco!

Here’s one for the ladies. Well, the little ladies anyway (or just anyone feeling nostalgic). Remember playing those silly prediction games as kids? Games where you pick a name, a number, or a color and it was supposed to tell you important life facts like where you’ll live, who you’ll marry and so on? Apparently, these games are back with a simple iPhone app called Emily’s Girl Talk from indie developer, Broken Thumb Apps.

The game is actually a compilation of four other smaller titles that are essentially digital remakes of games many girls probably played during their childhood: MASH, Lemon, Cootie Catcher, and Love.

Each game, more or less, plays the same way. Seeing as how it’s the first game on the list, MASH is probably the best place to start. All the game really does is take input information and composes it together into an amusing story. Users submit up to five picks for your crushes, cars, cities, jobs, wedding dress colors, and numbers. They can either type it in themselves, choose from a list, or simply touch “Emily’s Picks” for random choices in all. Then, you pick the “magic number” to start making the story, and after a few moments, an amusing tale of your future is displayed regarding who you’ll marry, where you’re honeymoon will be, and what you’ll drive.

As if that wasn’t amusing enough, the story can then be shared via email, Facebook, or Twitter. In fact, it also gets saved to an in-game journal and can be pulled up again at anytime, which means it can be shared again at anytime too.

As for the other games, Lemon focuses on names, body parts, cities, and things you can do with a lemon to make funny statements such as “Vanessa will heat Luis’s ankle in Budapest.” Cootie Catcher is a virtual version of those paper fortune telling toys that will answer a yes or no question based on what numbers and colors (typically written on the toy itself) are picked. And Love is a simple mini-game that asks for your name and your crush’s name and “calculates” your percent chance for love.

Visually, the game fits very well with its target demographic of young girls. It’s full of overly cute drawings saturated in an almost storybook color scheme (not to mention the palette is mostly pinks, violets, and soft yellows). To further the appeal to this audience, Emily’s Girl Talk even allows users to earn stickers (sort of like trophies) just by playing the game.

Frankly, for what it is, and for those it is made for, Emily’s Girl Talk is a great app to have at only $0.99. A lot more has been spent on a lot less. That said, however, it doesn’t come very recommended for girls that have nosy little brothers, as unlike a diary, this app doesn’t have a lock.