All the VoIP and IM apps developed for social networks have been freebies so far. I think Nimbuzz is the first one that will be making money out of such an arrangement. The mobile VoIP startup had teamed with StudiVZ, Germany’s largest social network with over 12 million members. StudiVZ will exclusively market Nimbuzz. Not just that. Nimbuzz is the first and the only third party application that StudiVZ has integrated.
Nimbuzz should be able to drive increased user interaction and activity on the StudiVZ site thus driving more advertising revenues. Those revenues will not be shared with Nimbuzz just yet and the sharing arrangement applies from 2009 onwards when Nimbuzz stands to get 50% of the advertising revenues resulting from the usage of its application.
StudiVZ started in Facebook style catering to students and later opening up the network for general public in Germany. It has since developed into three distinct social networking sites. StudiVZ is the parent company.
This is one of the first social networking deals Nimbuzz has put in place. There are some more to come according to the startup. The company is developing a sophisticated ad server that will allow it to strike more deals.
Nimbuzz is abuzz with around 2 million users right now. With these social networking deals it expects to end the year with over 3 million users. Right now it is growing at 10k new subs a day.