During a down economy, things are looking up for hi5. Today hi5 was featured in Fortune.com, soon to arrive on news stands. The Fortune feature story highlighted a very colorful photo of Ramu and Akash, hi5's CEO and CTO in the lobby of hi5's offices in the SOMA district of San Francisco.

This comprehensive article includes information about the company's history, its current business model, OpenSocial, the Pixverse acquisition, translations and localization capabilities, and things that set hi5 apart from the competition. The reporter also captured a few anecdotes on some successful ad campaigns that hi5 has launched, such as the Ford Fiesta launch in Portugal.

A paragraph in the article that really made an impact on the hi5 team was when Jessi Hempel differentiated hi5 from MySpace and Facebook in a very positive, yet subtle manner: What's so special about Hi5? It has no special gimmicks. It doesn't sport record labels, nor does it boast a cult-of-Zuck atmosphere. Yalamanchi, 34, and Garg, 30, simply got into their markets early, built a lean business, and poured their energy into creating a Web site that users don't want to leave.

Check out the article by clicking on the link below:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/13/technology/hempel_hifive.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008101512

 

*photo courtesy of Fortune