Mochi Media announced yesterday a partnership with Cyworld, an online social network, to offer a new gaming arcade to its users and as a secondary service- new advertising revenue streams. Mochi Media is one of the largest providers of game advertising solutions for flash games.

From the press release:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — 08/20/08 — Mochi Media, the world’s largest online games advertising network, announced today a partnership with Cyworld US, an online social network, to offer a new gaming arcade to its users while creating new advertising revenue streams. Cyworld, through its rich and engagement-focused environment, enables users to connect with friends, share photos, and participate in discussions, or talk with members about popular culture and topics of interest to the community. Mochi Media’s library of Flash games will help extend this social entertainment and communications focus by allowing members to compete against top scores of friends, as well as comment on game play. The service will also allow Cyworld to capture a share of the advertising revenue generated from all games played on the site.

Through Mochi Media’s MochiAds for Publishers platform, Cyworld receives a feed of constantly updated, well-integrated Flash gaming content through the new gaming section on its site. By incorporating Cyworld’s social graph with Mochi Media’s games, Cyworld members have a unique social gaming experience where they can compete with friends and other Cyworld members and share their thoughts about the games, players and game play. Mochi Media’s unobtrusive pre-game ads are displayed as the game is loading, and bring new revenue opportunities to Cyworld while allowing it to provide a superior, distraction-free user experience.

Cyworld’s focus on engaging and entertaining its audience has been bolstered by the introduction of gaming content and is a prominent feature in its recent site redesign. The games portion of the Cyworld site was launched in mid-July, and already ranks second among the top areas of its site, in terms of engagement as measured by time on site. Cyworld will look to build on its members’ appetite for online gaming through the integration of Mochi Media’s broad array of games and features allowing users to challenge their friends and further extend the social aspects of gaming.

Cyworld and MochiAds: A New Model for User-Sensitive Advertising

Despite the enormous popularity of social networking around the globe, advertising across this medium has struggled to keep pace. At the heart of this struggle is that consumers are seeking a clutter- and distraction-free social networking experience to engage with friends, and existing advertising models do not map well to these requirements. Recognizing this disconnect and building on its focus on user experience, Cyworld has ripped out all banner ads on the site and turned to Mochi Media because its pre- and inter-level game advertisements are integrated into natural breaks in game play, and thus less disruptive to the user experience.

“Cyworld offers a world-class online experience — its tremendous popularity across Korea and other countries is a testament to its focus on a great user experience,” said Jameson Hsu, Mochi Media CEO. “MochiAds for Publishers offers Cyworld a consistent stream of highly engaging gaming content that will give Cyworld users an increased number of options for entertainment and will provide the company with new revenue possibilities.”

“We are very excited about this partnership with Mochi Media. Their consistently updated, highly entertaining gaming content will aid us in engaging and retaining our members,” said Darian Patchin, Cyworld VP of product marketing. “Mochi Media provides a deep level of gaming integration, enabling our members to compete and engage with one another. We are constantly looking to increase the quality of our members’ experience and providing a social way to interact with Web games is a perfect fit. Mochi Media helps solve a revenue problem that many social networks are facing. Since we don’t allow banner advertising on the site and are the only major social network without it, we are very selective about our revenue generation partners.”

Mochi Media is an online gaming network that provides tools for game developers, publishers and advertisers. The company provides independent developers of Web games with analytics, distribution, and monetization tools — while supplying publishers with a wide array of games they can select to publish to their sites and offering advertisers a way to reach the one-in-three Internet users who play online games.

Flash Game ad provider Mochi Media has just closed a $10 million round of financing, adding to the war-chest of the San Francisco, CA based company. Their ad platform, MochiAds, is really tearing up the online gaming space and is assisting flash game developers in monetizing and distributing their work.

Jason Kincaid at Techcrunch outlines the largest threat facing Mochi’s efforts as “a constant threat from advertisers in the Flash movie space, who could easily shift their focus to gaming.” That said, Mochi Media chief executive Jameson Hsu will certainly be able to lead a stronger fight against those advertising rivals with the additional funding courtesy of Shasta Ventures and Accel Partners.

Game advertising is heating up on all fronts, not just on traditional console platforms.

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