hi5 is an American social networking service based in San Francisco, California.

[1][2] Users can create a profile and provide personal information including interests, age, photos, and hometown.

When a person receives a friend request, they may accept or decline it, or block the user altogether.

Other users exercise the option to make their profile viewable only to those people who are in their network.

[11][12] In 2008, comScore reported that hi5 was the third most popular social networking service in monthly unique visitors behind Facebook and MySpace.

[16] The company had gained significant market share in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and Mary Meeker had cited hi5 as the 10th largest site in the World in her 2007 Technology / Internet Trends report.

[24] In January 2011, Alex St. John joined the company as President and CTO.

Sociopay was intended to help hi5 to better monetize users, increasing revenues for themselves and developers.

Sociopay also helps monetize users less likely to purchase coins by instead serving them advertisements.