Social media and networking sites are one of the building blocks of the internet as we know it today. Since the early 2000s, these sites have been gaining popularity, helping users meet people, form online communities, and catch up with friends and family.
With the rise to fame of Myspace, venture funding poured rapidly into the social media space, resulting in the growth of giants like Facebook as well as several other networking platforms. Capable mobile phones were also becoming a thing, and the mobile sector got some venture capital love as well.
One enterprise that was correctly set up to ride this wave is Mocospace, a social networking site designed specifically for mobile users to build a social community around games and other special features.
Consequently, after its launch in 2005, the platform received venture funding of $7 million in three years, helping it develop into one of the top social media sites with over 2 million users and up to a billion page views per month by 2008.
The Mocospace Platform Overview
Since Mocospace was founded in 2005, the platform brought a similar setup to the other popular social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook, albeit with an added twist.
Founders Jamie Hall and Justin Siegel went by the logic that the best way to meet people online was around a shared interest, in this case, gaming. The company was one of the first to create simple, trendy web-based games, and the social component of the platform aided its quick rise to stardom.
Mocospace quickly became one of the most popular gaming locations for mobile users on the internet, and by March 2009, its mobile visitor count had surpassed social media giant Myspace.
More recently, however, the platform has leaned more into its social components, emphasizing its viability as a tool for meeting friends and facilitating online dating. Nevertheless, the platform still maintains its mobile games like Street Wars as the center of attraction.
Side-by-side with the gaming features, the platform adds public chat rooms that let you interact with other games, as well as the ability to chat up users in private conversations. Alternatively, you can ignore the gaming component entirely and focus on meeting people.
While the growth of the site has slowed over the years, the platform is still a force to be reckoned with, boasting over 100 million members worldwide and over 20 million downloads across the various mobile platforms.
Mocospace Games
While Mocospace has moved beyond just gaming and is now a full-feature dating site with a private chat feature, photo sharing, and public group chats, the games on the platform are still trendy among its users.
Hit games like Street Wars and Daily Spin provide an avenue to meet like-minded people and get to know other users. Furthermore, many platform members still log in daily solely for the games.
Street Wars
Mocospace's biggest game, Street Wars, is a social game modeled after mob games like Mafia Wars that lets you play out the missions as an individual or as a team with other platform members. The key to the game is managing your resources and gaining strategic advantage over rivals.
When playing as a crew, that is with other Mocospace members; you have to communicate with and work together with your team to gather resources and plan out battles with other crews.
Street Wars offers a complete social sphere that includes chat rooms, messaging groups, forums, and blogs that are run by the games community members. Now with instant messaging, chatting, and photo sharing features of the site, you can easily switch between gaming mode and dating mode whenever you want.
Other games on Mocospace follow a similar setup to Street Wars. Other popular titles include America Town, Stage Hero, Masters of Element, and World of Shadows.
Mocospace games are all free to play, and you can play them for as long as you want without limits.
Mocospace Site Review
Site Design
Once you get past the catchy homepage of the platform, you quickly realize that the Mocospace website is a lightweight, pretty bland interface that looks like it could use a design overhaul. However, when it comes to getting you around and on to the games, the interface gets the job done.
The website is clean, easy to use, and intuitive. Furthermore, you also get a handy tutorial bot as well as video tutorials on there to help you out if you encounter any issues.
From the members' dashboard, the main top navigation bar gives you direct access to Street Wars, the meet people platform, the message center, as well as groups and chat rooms.
Furthermore, the platform features a timeline feature, which is quite unlike what you will find on social media sites like Facebook. The Mocospace includes posts from all members of the site, instead of just those of your friends. Consequently, it is quite apparent that privacy can quickly become an issue here, and it is best if you do not share any personal information on the platform.
App
Mocospace is heavily focused on mobile users, and as a result, their apps offer a somewhat similar experience to their web interface. Once you launch their app, you land on the “Meet People” section that lets you search for and reach out to other members.
However, the search functionality, like on the website, is profoundly limited. You are restricted to filtering members by age, gender, location, and last login date. This setup makes no sense as the profile section of the site lets you enter a lot more information like your ethnicity, relationship status, sexual orientation, and who you are interested in.
Compared to other social media apps like Facebook and Twitter, the Mocospace is surprisingly slow as several app functions over a second to load.
While the app is free to use, free users will get ad popups every few minutes, which significantly detract from the user experience. To escape from the ads, you can pay for the premium version of the app, which costs $1.99 on the Google Play Store. However, if you are on iOS, you are stuck with the freemium version, as the premium app is available for Android only.
Pricing
If you want to accentuate your Mocospace experience further, your options are to buy gold or to pay for a premium Mocospace plan.
Mocospace gold is the platform currency that can be used in games or for activating other features of the site. The standard exchange rate from the site is $0.01 per credit. Hence, $4.99 will get you 500 gold credits, $9.99 will get you 1250 credits, $19.99 will get you 2750 credits, and $99.99 will give you 15,500 credits. You can also earn free gold on the platform by participating in selected games and offers.
Alternatively, you can opt instead for a Mocospace membership that gives you access to a host of unique features. The premium plan retails at $7.99 for a month, $20.97 for three months, and $35.94 for the 6-month offer.
With premium membership, you get an entirely ad-free experience. You also get the ability to see who viewed your profile, mask your online status with stealth mode, rank first in Meet People searches, get a VIP label on your profile photo, and get priority support from Mocospace.
Special Site Features
Friendshop: Friendshop is a playful Mocospace feature that lets you “trade” friend from your friends' list with other users of the platform.
Stickers: The platform's chats and forums allow you to use unique stickers that are significantly larger than those you will find on other platforms. While many of the site's labels are free to use, some require a purchase first with Mocospace gold. Purchased stickers are unlocked immediately and available for lifetime use.
Membership Profile
Based on their publications, Mocospace is quite proud of its diverse database of members with Hispanic and African-American users making up two-thirds of their user base. Of their 100+ million users, 62 million are from the United States, with the rest spread out across the world in other major locations like Brazil, India, the UK, and Australia.
Furthermore, the Mocospace crowd is pretty young, with 40% of site members falling in the 18-45 years age bracket, 24% between 25 and 30, and only 30% being 31 or older.
According to data from Mocospace, the site's readership is quite mobile-heavy, with 66% of its users accessing the platform from smartphones.
Getting Started with Mocospace
Signing Up
Getting started with a Mocospace account is straightforward, quick, and accessible. You can get an account instantly using Facebook or Google integration, or choose to go the long route via email, which only takes a couple of minutes.
With email signup, you have to enter a username and password, your email address, gender, and birthday. However, Mocospace does not require any verification, so you can proceed to fill out your profile immediately after hitting the signup button.
Profile Setup
The profile section of the site lets you enter a lot more information like your ethnicity, relationship status, sexual orientation, and who you are interested in. Furthermore, you can upload your profile photos and headers here, too, which can be any photo or GIF.
You can set your Mocospace profiles to either private or public. Public profiles are visible to all site users, while protected user profiles only become visible when the user accepts your friend request.
Making Contact
On Mocospace, there are no limits on making contact. Messaging is free for all users. However, the platform uses a weird setup where all initial messaging happens via the public chat rooms. To start a conversation with a site user, you can create a new chat room or join an existing one.
Mocospace Pros
- Huge database with over 100 million members from around the globe
- Free messaging function for all members
- Profile photo and header supports both static images and GIFS
- Simple, lightweight design
- Engaging gaming features
Mocospace Cons
- Unregulated accounts and content
- No user verification, with an abundance of fake profiles
- Explanation of platform economy is convoluted
- A poor site structure for meeting new people
- No truly private chat
- Cluttered forums
- Excessive ads in mobile apps
- Premium app version only available on Android
Mocospace User Reviews
There is a wealth of negative reviews about Mocospace online, with most of the reports focusing on the site's poor organization and function.
