The company launched Yoo-Mee to create a community of players from social networks, where users can play and compete in games via their handset. Hooked Media is hoping to engage users who enjoy playing games.

“Yoo-Mee is a community of players who play the games they love wherever they want to play – via Web sites, mobile devices and social networks,” Prita Uppal, CEO of Hooked Media, San Francisco. “When a mobile game developer joins Yoo-Mee, they are given solutions to their two primary issues – they gain distribution to an existing and growing base of players and monetize through additional revenue streams.

“On the former, when a player plays a game on Yoo-Mee, they are interacting through tournaments and challenges with the entire community wherever they are – not just on mobile,” he said. “For instance, a player on an iPhone can play a game against someone on a Web site or Facebook.

“On the latter, through Yoo-Mee, players not only play to compete with friends and top scorers, but they also win money.” 

Hooked Media Group is a social gaming company that provides a community experience for players no matter what game they play.

Yoo-Mee allows gamers to compete one-on-one with each other or participate in tournaments. Users can also keep track of high-scores, virtual currency and social media connections so that they are able to connect with friends and top players.

Users can join the Yoo-Mee community for free.

Yoo-Mee offers two types of currency. The first is tokens, a loyalty currency that users get by simply playing games, inviting friends and playing with one another. The second is gold,  which is bought and used in one-on-one challenges to earn real money.

Game developers work together with Yoo-Mee to provide a full tournament experience for each game.

“The biggest two issues today for a game developer is gaining distribution in an increasingly cluttered marketplace and monetizing outside of installs and ads especially considering a large number of game plays are unmonetized since they occur on unlocked phones,” Ms. Uppal said.

“For game developers, this means a connection to a large base of users, who must install their game application, to interact and win through Yoo-Mee, and additional revenue through cash tournaments and virtual currency wherever the game is played,” he said.

Yoo-Mee is looking to enhance the game experience for players and is working with top game developers such as Oberon Media, Mumbo Jumbo and PopCap Games to engage users with tournaments and challenges.

 “Our goal is to make everyone have the best social experience and not all users want to pay to join,” Ms. Uppal said. “For users who want to earn money, Yoo-Mee provides them a fun, cross-platform environment to challenge friends and play tournaments.

“For all other users, Yoo-Mee is the place to play, discuss, compete and earn prizes on the games they love,” he said. “As Yoo-Mee is cross-platform, we work with a variety of brand advertisers looking to engage specific audiences; an example of which is Media Contacts. 

“Currently we engage those audiences’ through a variety of means, including video advertising and sponsorship, and will look to leverage those partnerships on the mobile devices.”