Social discovery service Tagged has announced it will be shifting its business efforts to be mobile-first. After five years of profitability, the company says that it is seeing more visitors come from mobile devices and wishes to capitalize on that. It is also sharing news that it ended 2012 with more than $51 million in revenue, with its virtual currency revenue up 30 percent year over year.
Known for being a website that allows users to browse other people’s profiles, play games, share tags and virtual gifts, Tagged has grown since it founded in 2004. Last year, it tripled the number of registered users to over 330 million and doubled the active users to nearly 20 million — all through acquisitions of companies like Urbantag and hi5.
With this new business strategy, Tagged says it will be revamping its mobile apps and concentrate on finding ways to make social discovery easier on mobile devices. Its mobile traffic increased 56.5 percent in 2012 and ended the year with its mobile users making up 37 percent of all daily active users.
Tagged’s first foray into mobile came when it launched its iPhone application back in July 2010, which was downloaded more than 100,000 times in the first week. It followed that up with an Android version less than a year later and a month after that version’s launch, the company says that more users were on Android than the iPhone app. In April 2011, Tagged launched a mobile browser version of its site.
As the service was born around the same time as Facebook, it’s rather interesting to see it dive into mobile at this stage and make a commitment to mobile, while Facebook has slowly released various apps, but hasn’t fully embraced the mobile space. Originally, it was a teen-only social network, but pivoted to its current mission as a social discovery service.
In addition to its profitable year and revamped strategy, Tagged has also expanded its San Francisco headquarters from 15,000 to 40,000 square feet, bringing the entire company together all on the same floor.
Tagged has raised $23.7 million from investors such as Reid Hoffman, Mayfield Fund, Lighthouse Capital Partners, and Comerica Bank.
Photo credit: Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images
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