Polish, Russian and Afrikaans - all part of the SkillPod gaming world

SkillPod supplies Beeld.com

Afrikaans-speaking gamers can head over to the Beeld.com website, where Afrikaans versions of some of SkillPod's most popular games are now available. Not only does this benefit players who want to play games like Battleships, Sudoku, Tetris and Poker Solitaire in their home language - it's also an excellent opportunity for Afrikaans-medium advertisers to reach their target market using one of the most effective forms of online advertising.

There are currently seven games available, with more in development.

Moving into Poland and Russia

Eastern Europe is a substantial and vibrant Internet market and the hottest thing on the web at the moment is social networking. Poland's biggest social networking website, Gadu Gadu, has just launched its games portal (www.pykam.pl), with games supplied by SkillPod.

“We're really thrilled to be involved with Gadu Gadu,” says Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media. “Not only is it an important expansion into the Eastern European market for us, but it was also a really enjoyable challenge. We translated 100 games into Polish, and will be adding 10 new games each month,” he explains.

In a similar vein, SkillPod will be launching its first Russian games shortly - 100 games are being translated into Russian, and the idea is once again to add 10 new games each month.

Eastern Europe has traditionally been one of the earliest Internet adopters, often leading the way in software and online platform development, so this deal is a major endorsement of SkillPod's game development and service capabilities.

Greater functionality for publishers

SkillPod is also busy developing a new version of its online games solution, which will offer publishers greater functionality when it comes to integrating games into their websites.

Along with this will come 80 new premium-quality games, and a number of brand new multiplayer games. With the ongoing popularity of online poker, combined with certain legal issues around this, one of the important new multiplayer games that SkillPod is about to launch is SkillPod Poker (http://www.skillpodpoker.com) - a complete free and legal way to play this hugely popular game. Coming at the same time will be one of the other games with millions of devotees: SkillPod Bingo.

Facebook, Google and Mobile Games

SkillPod has enjoyed substantial success with its Facebook and Google Gadget games, and more games are set to be launched on these platforms.

Following on this will be the launch of SkillPod's first suite of mobile games on the Flash Lite platform. With mobile marketing another red-hot marketing arena, advertisers will be given the ability to brand these games.

All of this will culminate in the launch of a fresh new SkillPod platform and identity in early 2009.