One Way to Monetize Apps? Get Acquired!

Techcrunch is reporting that hi5 has acquired one of the application developers that has built apps on their platform. This is the first time that any application developer has been acquired by a platform owner instead of a third-party company looking to expand their reach.

The company which got acquired, Pixverse, has appeared to develop an interesting chatroom which in addition to chat has the avatars of users moving around the screen. I have included a version of the chat room below. It’s an interesting way to interact. While it’s an interesting technology, I doubt that the company was acquired for that much.

Unfortunately I doubt we’ll ever know the exact number since it wasn’t announced. If you are looking for a fun way to chat while browsing through hi5, this looks like a pretty good solution. Based on this acquisition, I would doubt that we’ll see hi5 launching their own instant messaging solution anytime soon. Conversely, perhaps the acquisition was to expand upon the existing service.

Do you think the chat room below is useful? How much would you pay to acquire it?

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