myYearbook Enhances its Social Networking Site with Games from
Arkadium
Founded in 2005 by Dave and Catherine Cook, a 17- and 16-year-old brother-sister
duo from Skillman, NJ, myYearbook is now the leading online community for teens
as measured by time spent and visits. The site is also the fastest growing U.S.
social networking site and is the third largest in the U.S. according to Hitwise,
a leading online competitive intelligence service.
With more than 11 million members to date and growing, myYearbook presents users
with one-of-a-kind, core applications that offer a number of unique and fun ways
they can interact with one another online. As an added bonus, the site allows users
to earn “lunch money,” a virtual currency that members can use to buy gifts, wager
various battles against one another, pimp out their profiles, flirt or even buy
and sell each other.
“We
created myYearbook to offer people a tool that could actually make their lives better,”
said Catherine Cook, founder of myYearbook. “We wanted to make it easier for people
to approach one another and determine shared likes, dislikes, favorite movies, music,
restaurants and such. myYearbook is the perfect platform for this type of interaction
and according to our users it just keeps getting better.”
The Word of the Day is “Growth”
Hitwise recently reported myYearbook has expanded its member base by 352% during
the past year and increased the average time each member visits the site to more
than 30 minutes. While this growth is staggering, myYearbook didn’t want to stop
there, deciding to look for even more solutions that would further enhance the member
experience. The company wanted to add a component to its site that would be unique
to its social network, entertain its users and seamlessly integrate with its existing
content.
myYearbook’s more than 11 million members is 60 percent female, which played a significant
role in the company’s recent decision to expand its interactive application portfolio
with casual games. With more than 200 million people playing casual games on the
Internet each month, and 51.7 percent of those being women, myYearbook knew it was
time to make a move.
Rising to the challenge to help myYearbook build out a custom game center integrated
with its existing “lunch money” currency was Arkadium (http://www.arkadium.com),
a game solutions development company for some of the world's leading brands and
largest online publishers. Now members have the opportunity to play games and earn
additional “lunch money,” while featured game specials offer members the chance
to earn bonus currency with repeat play.
If You Build It, They Will Come
By creating a games arena complete with 40+ casual games that integrated seamlessly
with myYearbook’s popular ‘lunch money’ currency, Arkadium was able to help increase
the number of unique monthly viewers by an impressive 15 percent in the first two
months alone.
While myYearbook initially anticipated users would play approximately one million
games per month, it was pleasantly surprised when it learned users were playing
more than one million game plays per day
in just the first month alone.
According to Geoff Cook, CEO of myYearbook, “Our users have been incredibly enthusiastic
about the games we’ve added to the site over the past several months. We look forward
to building on our current relationship with Arkadium as we continue to discover
new and exciting ways to keep our users connected and entertained.”
