APN Announces Key Customer Wins in the Social Gaming Space

NEW YORK, Feb. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- APN, LLC, the Ask Partner Network (APN), a leading provider of custom applications and search solutions and an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), today announced three key customer wins in the social gaming space — Booyah, Lolapps and Social Point. APN works closely with its partners to design and develop highly-targeted browser applications that integrate its partners' services into the browser and enhance end-user experiences across the Web.  

As part of its partnerships with Booyah, Lolapps and Social Point, APN has developed customized browser add-ons that enable users to play games, earn virtual currency and view current game levels and ranking — all from anywhere on the web. These wins add to APN's growing footprint in the social gaming space. Already an established leader with a strong foothold in a number of key industries including Internet security and utilities, media management and news and entertainment, APN has longstanding relationships with hundreds of software and media companies, including many of the Download.com top 50 companies.

"We're excited to announce our partnerships with these three leading social game companies and are looking forward to helping them bring value to their gamers," said Andrew Moers, president, APN. "With our advanced cross-browser platform, we make it very easy for our partners to extend game play into the browser so that players can play, earn points and access status no matter where they are on the Internet."  

Launched less than two years ago, the Barcelona-based company Social Point S.L. (www.socialpoint.es) has quickly emerged as one of Europe's largest social games developers with more than 15 million active monthly users on Facebook. Social Point is the mastermind behind the highly addictive online game 'Pool Master' and the recently launched 'Social Empires', a virtual world game where users build empires, create armies and conquer the world.

"The most important thing in our business is our users, which is why we partnered with APN," explained Andres Bou, chief executive officer, Social Point. "We turned to APN because of its proven track record in helping its partners increase user engagement and loyalty and better serve end users by providing quick access to key service features directly in the browser. We are excited about the partnership."

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Booyah, Inc. (www.booyah.com) and APN have partnered to develop a co-branded inline HTML toolbar to further enhance the experience for 'Nightclub City', Booyah's wildly-popular, music-centric social game and discovery platform for musicians that has amassed more than 16 million users on Facebook. The Nightclub City Toolbar allows players to monitor their Club's performance anytime--even when logged out of the application--ensuring that users will always be cognizant of their virtual nightclub's growth and progress. Booyah is also known for creating the most popular location-based game, 'MyTown', with more than 3.6 million mobile users.

Lolapps, Inc. (www.lolapps.com), which was founded in 2008, is one of the fastest growing social gaming companies with more than 300,000 user generated applications and 11 games in their portfolio, including the hit Facebook game 'Ravenwood Fair', which allows gamers to build and maintain a virtual fair ground.

"APN has proven itself to be an effective and reliable partner in increasing user engagement and retention amongst our gamers," said Arjun Sethi, chief executive officer, Lolapps. "We are currently working closely with APN to enhance the user experience in and out of Ravenwood Fair with a customized toolbar that will let players know when to return to their fair to clear their grounds and restock their games. The game bar will effectively reengage users so that they'll never miss a beat within Ravenwood."

"Social gaming companies need high-quality online tools that help them to better engage with their users. APN provides the necessary browser tools, effectively enabling these companies to embed any content or service directly into their browser and update these features dynamically," continued Moers. "Our multidimensional platform either hands the controls to our partners to embed any content or service into HTML browser windows, dropdown widget containers, RSS feeds or dynamic buttons, or we can build highly specialized applications that deeply tie web and other services into the framework of the browser. We're excited to open up our platform to more and more companies in the social gaming sector to enable them to better serve their customers."

About APN, LLC

APN, LLC, the Ask Partner Network (APN), part of the Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc. and an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), is a leading provider of custom applications and search solutions to software and media companies with browser add-ons currently installed in browsers on more than 100 million computers worldwide. The company works closely with its partners to design and develop highly-targeted applications that extend services into the browser and enhance end-user experiences across the Web. APN provides tremendous value to its partners via new revenue streams, increased customer engagement and ongoing brand promotion. Its growing roster of clients consists of hundreds of leading businesses, including Fortune 500 companies, across a number of industries such as Internet security and utilities, online gaming, media management, and news and entertainment.

SOURCE Ask Partner Network