Social network hi5 buys app creator PixVerse to build out its own chat service
Social network hi5 has bought a social network application developer company called PixVerse for an undisclosed amount. While PixVerse’s applications, like Pix Chat and Pix Wall, run on multiple platforms on rival social networks, the reason for the purchase is that hi5 wants its technology.
PixVerse applications are based on what it considers a “breakthrough” implementation of Adobe’s Flash technology that it has built its various applications on. It also uses Google App Engine, which lets third parties use Google’s infrastructure for their own sites.
Hi5 will use PixVerse to build out its own chat features for its users, although details are still vague. From the company:
To answer your question, the PixVerse team and technology give us some great resources for enhancing real-time communication (IM, chat, etc.) between users of hi5. We won’t be announcing specific product plans till later this year, but we see this as a great add-on to our core service.
PixVerse raised previously unannounced funding from venture firm Venrock.
San Francisco-based hi5 is one of the larger social networks in the world, with more than 50 million unique visitors per month. It claims to be the number one social network in various Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, parts of Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.
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About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.