WildTangent founder Alex St John joins hi5
Joins company as president and chief technology officer
The social entertainment site hi5 has announced the appointment of WildTangent founder Alex St John as president and chief technical officer.
In his new role, St John will be responsible for product development, technology, network operations and audience acquisition.
During his time at WildTangent, St John oversaw the creation of the virtual currency WildCoins, and ran a game studio that produced over 100 games. His technology innovations included instant messenger-based gaming for AOL and the WildTangent WebDriver.
Prior to that, he worked for Microsoft as group manager for Windows media strategy and marketing. There, he led the creation of the DirectX gaming platform and also the design and development of DirectPlay, which became the multiplayer architecture for Microsoft's casual game network.
He's been an outspoken advocate of online, community-based gaming in the past, predicting that microtransaction and ad-based games will dominate ten years from now and that the present generation of consoles will be the last.
"We are very excited to add a gaming visionary like Alex to the hi5 team as we continue our evolution into becoming a dominant, next-generation social entertainment platform," said hi5 CEO Bill Grossman.
"Alex's background is a perfect fit for moving the company forward. His extensive experience and leadership in gaming platforms, traffic optimisation, and game monetisation make him a vital addition to the hi5 team."
"The next wave of innovation and differentiation in gaming is happening in social gaming and hi5 is at the forefront of this sea change," added St John.
"I've long said the current generation of games consoles will be the last and that the future of the game business will be online. I'm thrilled to be joining a company that has the team, technology and vision to lead that transition."