PlaySpan purchased Spare Change micro-payments system

PlaySpan, a social net e-commerce provider, is going to enlarge its business by acquiring rival Spare Change, a micro-payments system for social networks. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. PlaySpan business targets online communities, gamer sites and virtual worlds and offers Ultimate Wallet (an e-wallet for games and other applications), PayByCash (an online payment processor), and Ultimate Game Card (a pre-paid game card) and other products. The addition of Spare Change will extend the company’s product range. It was announced recently about the company’s partnership with social network hi5 to provide its 60-million-plus audience with virtual goods sales solutions through PayByCash and Ultimate Game Card. Companies that sell virtual goods (like social networks, video games, or virtual worlds) continue to perform very well in spite of the economic recession. Tencent recently reported it had sold nearly $1 billion in virtual goods in 2008. hi5 announced that it would give a preference on deriving revenue to the sale of virtual goods rather than advertising. Meanwhile Chinese gaming company Changyou, which also makes money from selling virtual goods, went public in a highly successful IPO.