CASE STUDY: hi5: Thinking Outside the Browser Box with Social Games

by Justin Garrett, Senior Product Manager, Internet Explorer

hi5 wants to their keep customers connected with friends and content at all times.  By taking advantage of a new set of tools with Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7, hi5 extended social gaming beyond the browser with new Pinned Site features:

• Favicon
• Jump Lists
• Notifications
• Thumbnail Toolbar

hi5 also saw some results that were a good indicator their customers are responding to the experience.  They found that:

• Overall, users viewed 15% more pages on-site, progressing deeper into the experience
• When user pinned the site, they responded to 200% more social requests (like new friends, game invites, and messages)

 

Summary & Next Steps

hi5 saw the opportunity to extend social gaming beyond the browser.  By designing their site and their social games with Pinned Sites, they customer engage more deeply and interact more socially.

Customer Value Results:

• Overall, users viewed 15% more pages on-site, progressing deeper into the experience
• When user pinned the site, they responded to 200% more social requests (like new friends, game invites, and messages)

 Site Experience Benefits:

• Pull users into the hi5 site directly through social events and updates
• Give web-based games their own personalized experience
• Make games more social by bringing the offline and online experiences together
• Increase how much time a user spends in the game

Ready to Develop?

VISIT Hi5 AND SEE IT IN ACTION

Check out hi5 in IE9 and see how Pinned Sites works with social games. For Developers, the MSDN DevCenter for Pinned Sites has code samples, technical docs, and APIs.

More Resources:

• Build My Pinned Site: Everything you need to know about pinning, in one place
• Exploring IE Blog: See examples of great site experiences and developer “how-to”
• IE Engineering Blog: Get more technical info directly from the source
• IE Test Drive: Demos, tests, and code samples
• @IE on Twitter: Follow us a get your questions answered
• Internet Explorer on Facebook: Follow community discussion and events
• Beauty of the Web:  Start Developing with the source for IE9 features and site experiences

 Mentioned in this Case Study:

• MSDN DevCenter
• IETestDrive
• Pinned Site APIs
• Favicons
• X-Icon Editor
• Declaring Pinned Site Metadata
• Detecting IE9 and Windows 7
• Prompting A User to Pin Site
• Creating Dynamic Jump Lists
• Custom Icon Overlay
• Toolbar Flash
• Thumbnail Toolbars

For More information

 

hi5

http://www.hi5.com 

hi5 is a social gaming and entertainment destination site that provides millions of users worldwide with engaging content designed to ignite social play. Their focus is on delivering a fun, interactive, and immersive social entertainment experience online to audiences around the world.

Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer 9

http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/#/startdeveloping/

Start Building for a More Beautiful Web.  You are the designers, architects, and visionaries of the web. Our goal is to give you the tools you need to build richer, more immersive websites. This Case Study is one of many that illustrates a great site experience optimized for IE9.  Discuss and engage more on this topic through the Exploring IE Blog or by @IE on Twitter

This article was reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation. This site does business with Microsoft Corporation.