Virtual Goods News

Last week the Facebook social game YoVille hit 7.8 million monthly active users, an extremely significant milestone for what is essentially a virtual world that runs on the Facebook and MySpace platforms. The 5 million MUA that YoVille draws from Facebook alone puts YoVille in roughly the same usage class as Gaia Online, which has roughly 7 million MUA, and Habbo, which has nearly 10 million. Factor in the extra 2.8 million MUA YoVille gets on MySpace and the app is actually drawing more users than Gaia.

YoVille is one of the social games publisher's Zynga many projects and its massive MUAs are growing at an unprecedented rate. Just earlier this month, YoVille stood at only 4.4 million MUA on Facebook and 2.2 million on MySpace, which means the service has acquired an extra 1.2 million MUA across both platforms in less than a month. Like both Gaia and Habbo, YoVille monetizes largely through microtransaction sales of the YoCash and YoVille Coins virtual currencies. YoVille also uses ad banners and lead generation to generate revenue.

Players can buy currency in YoVille at a rate of roughly $5.00 for 25 YoCash and $10 for 5000 YoVille Coins with the usual discounts for large quantity purchases. YoVille Coins may be earned by engaging in game activities but YoCash may only be purchased. The two currencies are both used to purchase the game's virtual goods, which allow users to customizing their avatars and apartments.

In terms of content, YoVille is similar to a virtual world but has lots of features designed to exploit the fact that it runs within an already-extant social network. A YoVille player can invite other users off their friendslist into the game and create in-game friends lists, too. When F