IQ News: Pogo Inks IWon Distribution Deal

Online gaming destination pogo.com bounced into the spotlight today, announcing that its card, word, trivia and other games are now available on search engine iWon’s featured game area.
Users who click on pogo.com’s games on the Irvington, N.Y.-based iWon’s site will get credit toward iWon’s sweepstakes, which award $10,000 daily, $30,000 weekly, $1 million monthly and $10 million on April 15. Visiting the site awards users five points, and playing at pogo.com nets four.
The partnership with iWon broadens the reach of pogo.com’s network, bringing it up to 4.5 million unique visitors per month. The network has 17 distribution partners, which include Excite, Netscape, Snap and most recently, iWon.
Erik Lundberg, vice president of sales at pogo.com, said that the site inks the majority of the advertising and sponsorship deals for its distribution partners. Advertisers include Pepsi One and Toyota.
Not your average shoot-’em-up gaming site, pogo.com features games such as the ever-popular Solitaire. Perhaps for this reason, half of pogo.com’s users are female, and 75 percent are between the age of 18 and 49.
Advertising includes traditional banners and some creative alternatives, including placing company logos on the backs of cards in games such as Hearts, Spades and Euchre.
Lundberg says of the partnership: “We’ve seen a lot of traffic from their site just during the soft launch. A lot of our games offer prizes to winners, so we think it’s a great psychographic fit.”
Jonas Steinman, co-CEO of iWon.com, said, “So far the feedback on the pogo.com games has been very positive. Games are an important element of our site. We’re obviously a full service portal, and games are always an important element for portals. We have a mainstream audience and pogo.com’s games have a mainstream appeal.”