Surprise! Which Hot New Game Zoomed Up the Facebook Chart This Month?

If you’re in the Travel Industry and considering launching a Social Media app, read on. The Travel Channel’s Kidnap blazed onto Facebook’s gaming charts with over 2 million monthly active users only a few months after launch. New users are growing at an astonishingly viral 50,000 a day, many in that industry sweet spot: the travel-hungry late twenties. Travel Channel and Rapp Collins worked with social marketing app wizards Context Optional to build a social game where users kidnap their friends to far off places. In order to escape, the hostage must answer a question –and (natch) the answer can only be found on the Travel Channel. This clever segue leads to an impressive conversion rate: 50,000-80,000 players get turfed over to TC’s rich content. Jeff Feldman, Director of Business Development at Context Optional, tells me that while “there was some marketing spend initially, primarily on Facebook, the growth is almost entirely viral.”

San Francisco based Context has been on a roll lately, launching applications for major brands including: Kraft One Minute Mogul; Absolut Top Bartender; Miller Today I’m Toasting; and Microsoft Got Pies (for IE8).

For more Facebook gaming news, check out InsideSocialGames. A teaser: Friends For Sale takes a big drop while Facebook platform leader Lil Green Patch extended its lead by nearly half a million monthly active users to 6.5 million total.