|
BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
Freemium Pays for Teen Social Net The site gives teens access to games, online magazine content, interaction with charities, friend matching and video. MyYearbook tells minonline that it now has 20 million members for its free services. As part of the model, a virtual currency called Lunch Money is used to make donations, buy extra gaming levels and give gifts to others in the network. Users can buy Lunch Money with real cash or get some virtual currency as part of a new monthly subscription (VIP Club) that also provides additional features. The VIP Club has been seeing 55% month-on-month growth and is pulling in a greater share of new and existing members. The site offers three tiers of VIP Club membership at $6.99, $9.99 and $19.99 a month. Gifting, virtual currency and subscriptions now account for more than a third of overall revenue to the site, which also runs advertising. “The freemium model has been an important part of myYearbook’s monetization strategy, and we remain bullish on the additional revenue possibilities that this model will bring,” says Geoff Cook, CEO. MyYearbook says that the virtual currency system, rather than functioning as an alternative to advertising support, becomes a vehicle for advertisers to get more attention and interaction from users. Sponsors capitalize on the Lunch Money ecosystem by offering users credits for interacting with their brand, completing surveys, watching videos or giving premium gifts. MyYearbook started in the spring of 2005 in a single high school and soon opened up its model to all students everywhere. It spends no money on marketing, instead relying entirely on word-of-mouth viral distribution. The site has its own online magazine with professionally edited articles. It also partners with hulu for its video content, and the company tells us it is interested in further partnerships with third-party content providers. According to Compete analytics, myYearbook typically attracts more than 3 million unique users a month. If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com COMMENTS
|
App Central min's App Central (for min subscribers only): Stay on top of mobile app developments with exclusive app reviews, analysis and data.
Please enter the following information to have a link to The Skinny emailed to your iPhone:
White Papers
min Contests
EventsBest of the Web, April 3, 2012 min's Sales Executive of the Year Awards min Press
Events Calendar
min's Best of the Web Awards |
| Copyright © 2012 Access Intelligence, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Access Intelligence, LLC is prohibited. For more details please see Terms and Conditions. |