The Virtual Goods Forum 2010 takes place June 23 – 24, 2010 at Le Méridien Piccadilly London and will give attendees the opportunity to gain and exchange knowledge on the current state of the virtual goods market and opportunities for the future. The Virtual Goods Forum is Europe’s first event focussing on the virtual goods marketplace. Virtualcurrencyplatforms.com is a media sponsor for the event.

The Virtual Goods Forum 2010 will provide many networking opportunities which can lead to growing business and new partnerships. This will be achieved through:
• A highly interactive round-table format that facilitates genuinely constructive discussion and networking
• Panel presentations and networking sessions
• The must-attend, late-night Networking Party

Attendance at the event is limited and anyone interested in participating is strongly encouraged to reserve their place now before the show is fully booked. To reserve your space online, please visit: www.virtualgoodsforum.co.uk or call +44 (0) 207 336 4600.

Contact:
Andrew Mowbray
Osney Media
+44 (0) 207 336 4692
andrew_mowbray@osneymedia.com
www.osneymedia.com

Commission Junction and SponsorPay focus on providing the highest payout for SponsorPay’s clients by combining the enormous reach of both partners with the advantages of performance marketing and SponsorPay’s innovative business model: Users get virtual currency in online games, social networks and social games for a certain action, e.g. participating in a survey or buying in a shop. To continue to guarantee high quality traffic and leads/sales, Berlin based SponsorPay does a quality check for every single user. A win-win-win situation for the advertiser, Commission Junction and SponsorPay’s publishers is the
result.

Last month SponsorPay took over GratisPay, one of its biggest competitors and is now European market leader in this sector reaching more than 100 million users in over 30 countries. The company is providing monetization channels for nearly all of the major gaming publishers in Europe, such as Gameforge, Bigpoint, Innogames or Café.com.

„Commission Junction is the perfect partner for our expansion in Europe and the USA. Due to our successful relationship in Germany and France it was an obvious choice for us to continue our international expansion in Affiliate Marketing with Commission Junction”, said Janis Zech, Co-founder/ Head of Business
Development, SponsorPay.

Albrecht Fischer, Client Development Director, Commission Junction Germany added: “We are very happy that SponsorPay chose CJ for their international
expansion. We can extend and support their strong position with our global
Affiliate network internationally.”

- Hi Andreas, Can you tell us something about the function you currently have at SponsorPay? What does your typical day at work look like?

As SponsorPay’s CEO I am in charge of the overall development of the company. I am also heading the account management team and keep an eye on our financials.

On a typical day I get in early, work through my inbox and check the stats from the previous day. After that I will sit down with the product & account management teams to discuss current tasks, priorities and their plans for the day or the week. In the afternoon it’s meeting time: MMO and social apps publishers, advertisers, other stakeholders. Not necessarily on a typical, but on a good day we go out with the team in the evening and have some fun.

- What is SponsorPays’ unique selling proposition? Why do you think people should pick SponsorPay as their main virtual currency platform?

SponsorPay stands for a sustainable approach towards offer-based monetization. Our service is highly localized, transparent to publishers and probably the most effective monetization platform in Europe. We even guarantee ‘no-spam, no-hidden’ cost to the users – not only since ‘Scamville’, but since inception of the company.

- What is the main difference between monetizing European users compared to those from the states? Is it harder to do?

I don’t think there is any such thing as ‘THE European user’. The European user base is fairly fragmented in terms of purchasing power, preferences for applications, language as well as individual user behavior when it comes to buying decisions, fraud. etc. Hence we chose to put strong emphasis on localization on a country-by-country basis with our native account management & sales team. The US market – from our perspective – is more homogenous to that end.

- Are European users familiar with using virtual currency? Do they pay more often or just the opposite?

European users are savvy gamers and familiar with virtual currency. MMOs have a long-standing tradition in Europe. Compared to the US however, the social media market – and with it the social apps and virtual goods market – in Europe is less developed and still emerging.

- Will SponsorPay launch new products or functions in the near future that could benefit users? If so, could you tell us something about them?

Of course there are things to come, but I won’t go into detail right now.

- What is SponsorPay’s ultimate goal down the line?

Our ultimate goal is to extend our position as the leading monetization platform in Europe for MMOs, social games and other segments where virtual currency comes into play.

- In the near future, will SponsorPay also offer services in other parts of the world?

SponsorPay already offers services around the globe, however our core market is Europe where we will follow European-based publishers and help them monetize their international traffic. We will also continue to monetize European traffic for international publishers of games and social apps.

- Can you give us your 3 best tips for monetizing games or content on social networks?

1. Integration – don’t consider offer-based monetization just another payment method added at the bottom of the list. It’s a powerful tool to direct the users’ attention towards advertising when the user is highly involved with the game and hence deserves an innovative way of integration in the publisher’s app.
2. Respect end-users – sustainability is the key for a long-term relation with your users, so resist the temptations of quick money at the end user’s expense.
3. Advertising tailored to your user’s needs – choose advertisers that offer things your users really want, so they will enjoy and can gain actual benefit from the offer as well as virtual currency.

- If there’s one thing you’d like to see different about the virtual goods industry; what would it be?

What I would want to see change is that this industry puts the benefit for the end-user in the center of its activity. That would mean that the leading players in the virtual goods sphere will push more and more towards establishing a long-term marketing channel rather than short-term monetization.

- Where do you see the industry going from here? What do you think will change (for the better or for the worse)?

This industry is only just beginning: many things are being tested – some of them work, others don’t. But if business models are developed with care, this industry will become one of the more powerful marketing channels in the social media space. As a precondition however, mutual benefits for publishers, advertisers and of course end-users have to be created. If this is given, the sector can be extremely attractive and also spawn a lot of innovation on the advertising side.

Visit: www.sponsorpay.com

Kwedit Promise enables consumers to receive goods immediately in exchange for Promises to “Play Now. Pay Later.” Kwedit Promises can be paid off using any of the mechanisms provided by Kwedit Direct.

Kwedit Direct allows consumers to make payments at participating retail stores— starting with 5,800 7-Eleven stores in the United States— or by mailing cash or asking a friend or family member to pay on their behalf through a unique social payment network called Pass the Duck.™

Kwedit is available today on more than 100 popular online destinations, including FooPets and PuzzlePirates, via partnerships with publishers and payment aggregators. Kwedit’s services allow consumers to participate in the rapidly growing market for digital content and virtual goods. U.S. virtual goods sales reached $1B in 2009 and are projected to grow to $1.6B in 2010, according to InsideVirtualGoods.com. These estimates do not include game subscriptions, music purchases, digital downloads, and other forms of digital content that can also be served by Kwedit.

Social Gold is the first platform to integrate kwedit. Will the rest follow?

Here’s a list of confirmed speakers:

* Atul Bagga, VP Equity Research, Games, ThinkEquity
* Adam Caplan, VP Virtual Currency, Super Rewards / Adknowledge
* Renata Dionello, Chief of Staff to the CEO, eBay, and former Director of Consumer Business Development, PayPal
* Eric Eldon, Editor, Inside Facebook & Inside Social Games
* George Garrick, CEO, Offerpal Media
* Vikas Gupta, CEO, Jambool

* Sebastien de Halleux, Founder and COO, Playfish
* Nick Lawler, Managing Director, Maverick Capital
* Vish Makhijani, COO, Zynga
* David Marcus, CEO, Zong
* Dave McClure, Investor, Founders Fund Angel and fbFund Incubator
* Rex Ng, Co-founder and CEO, 6waves
* Jason Oberfest, VP Social Applications, ngmoco
* Mark Pincus, Founder and CEO, Zynga
* Shervin Pishevar, Founder and Executive Chairman, SGN
* John Pleasants, CEO, Playdom
* Keith Rabois, VP Strategy and Business Development, Slide
* Peter Relan, Executive Chairman, CrowdStar
* Justin Smith, Founder, Inside Network
* Kavin Stewart, CEO, Lolapps
* Jay Weintraub, Founder, LeadsCon

For more information and registrations: http://insidesocialapps.eventbrite.com

Indirect payments, such as Offerpal Tasks, are playing a larger role in the growth of virtual currency. It’s been estimated that between 30-50% of virtual currency payments in social gaming come from indirect methods.

Sample tasks include rating search results, categorizing web sites or articles, and answering questions. Offerpal Tasks are now available throughout Offerpal’s network of more than 2,000 web sites and applications.

The new service will allow online gamers to select from thousands of ‘Human Intelligence Tasks,’ work whenever it’s convenient, and convert their earnings into virtual currency that can be spent in online games and virtual worlds. “We’re pleased that Offerpal has chosen to leverage Amazon Mechanical Turk for their ‘Tasks’ service,” said Steve Rabuchin, General Manager for Amazon Web Services.

SponsorPay is located in Berlin, Germany and offers fully localized monetization for more than 30 countries, reaching over 40 million active users in Europe alone.

Both brands and the staffs of SponsorPay and GratisPay will stay in place. Jan Beckers, SponsorPay’s Managing Director & Head of Publisher Relations, explains: “While the names as well as the product and service ranges of both companies will remain unchanged, we are now substantially extending our lead on the competition by combining the advertising offerings of the two brands.”

Competitors include TokenAds, Deal United and SupersonicAds.

At this moment, gWallet is already discussing potential investments with some major developers on Facebook and MySpace; speaking of the latter, they also agreed on a deal with MySpace which includes helping the funded companies gain distribution through MySpace’s extensive network. That’s actually a great idea to lure more developers to the MySpace Platform.

This is a nice move from the startup company, following its recent funding of $10.5M from Trinity Ventures. We wonder how much of that money goes to this fund and how many game developers eventually end up being endorsed by gWallet.

Will other players in the field launch similar ventures? Let’s hope so as we imagine it can only benefit the Social Gaming industry in the end.

For more info on the fund or to sign up: gWallet fund.

Aeria Games has developed more than 20 games to date, most of them being licensed from (primarily) Asian developers to suit a North American audience: Last Chaos, Twelve Sky, Project Torque, Shaiya, Dream of Mirror Online, Megaten, Cronous, Dreamlords, Stone Age 2, Pi Story, Turf Battles , Goldslam, LaTale ,WolfTeam, Luminary, Twelve Sky 2, Hello Kitty Online, DragonSky, Richman Online, and Grand Fantasia .

As of early 2010, there are more than 9 million users playing one or more of their titles.

Challenge Games creates casual, easy to play online games that take little or no time to keep active. They recently raised $10M and developed about 7 games to date, with Duels being the company’s’ flagship. Other games include Baseball Boss, Warstorm, Planetstorm, Mechduels, Gridiron Live and Ponzi, Inc.

The biggest player of the 3, IMVU, is one of the fastest growing 3D virtual worlds currently active, boosting more than 40M users.

We have reached out to Sometrics for more information on the partnerships; we’ll keep you updated.

- Hi Terry, Can you tell us something about the function you currently have at TrialPay? What does your typical day at work look like?

As the Chief Product Officer, I oversee TrialPay’s e-commerce platform including our social monetization platform and virtual currency solutions. Along with a fantastic product and engineering team, I help to develop our most innovative and disruptive ideas – many of them originating from our publisher and advertising partners. Since our “company DNA” is innovation centric, this usually involves rapid prototyping and fast release cycles to quickly test new concepts. If you were ask a TrialPay employee, they’d probably tell you that all I do is run from conference room to conference room all day long.

- What is TrialPay’s unique selling proposition? Why do you think people should pick TrialPay as their main virtual currency platform?

TrialPay continues to lead the industry with the deepest advertiser relationships and the most robust monetization platform and our track record working with the largest customers in social gaming industry proves it.

- I hope you don’t mind us asking, but did TrialPay ever consider buying smaller companies operating in the industry?

Ha! Since you’ve asked this question to every other company, I assume this is your “Lake Wobegon” question and everyone is above average :). If we found a company with complementary technology and direct advertiser relationships we might consider this.

- Will TrialPay launch new products or functions in the near future that could benefit users? If so, could you tell us something about them?

If you’ve followed the industry since inception, you will notice that TrialPay has been first-to-market with many important innovations, such as offer controls, direct payment solutions and user-level quality scores. For 2010, publishers can continue to expect innovation around advertising formats and payment types.

- Can you give us your 3 best tips for monetizing games or content on social networks?

1) Game Mechanics – There has to be a compelling reason why people want to pay real money for a game that is free-to-play. Allowing players to skip ahead or purchase rare items is often a great way to monetize and also improve the user-experience.

2) First Time Buyer – Focus on converting more first time buyers. Our analysis shows that first-time offer completions result in direct payments later on.

3) Repeat Purchases – Good social games are built for longevity. Keep players engaged through self-expression and more interesting tasks.

- If there’s one thing you’d like to see different about the virtual goods industry; what would it be?

Foresight. The criticism and skepticism that this industry has received is due to shortsighted goals and strategies. As an industry, more companies should understand that we serve the needs of consumers, publishers and advertisers and that we should focus on creating and preserving value for each party in this ecosystem.

- Where do you see the industry going from here? What do you think will change (for the better or for the worse)?

Facebook will play a significant role in game monetization and distribution through Game Dashboards and FB Credits.

Established game companies with existing IP will migrate to social platforms.

Advertisers will more closely scrutinize the quality of the customers and leads they receive from the industry.

Visit: http://www.trialpay.com