Palringo

The World’s Online Festival was founded as Palringo in Newcastle in 2006 by 21-year-old engineering student, Martin Rosinski, who developed it as a communications tool for his father's engineering company to help engineers resolve problems in the field. When problems were detected it enabled affected parties to communicate with each other. In August 2006, Northstar Ventures invested, a seed of £650,000 being raised to help build a user base.[1][3]

In 2010, Palringo launched an enterprise version of the app, offering companies private group communication networks, with notable clients including Smartlogic and 3M.

Previously, Palringo was also available on now-legacy platforms including Windows Mobile, Symbian OS, and BlackBerry OS.[8]

Re-brand from Palringo to The World’s Online Festival

In February, 2020, Palringo officially re-branded to The World’s Online Festival (WOLF)[9], with the release of version 10.1 for iOS and Android platforms. The catalyst for this re-brand was the burgeoning user-base creating audio-focused shows within the app. The app realigned itself in the digital space to brand itself as an “entertainment” application, positing its new direction as “an incredible user-created world filled with Group Chat, Live Audio Shows, Friendship and Entertainment.”

In August 2012, Palringo began a shift away from the B2B market towards the consumer community, where users were forming groups with particular interests, with a specific focus on games. The business model entails selling virtual products such decorative profile stickers, Bots and functional utilities.[10][11][12]

In May 2014, Palringo acquired Swedish games developer Free Lunch Design (FLD), who previously worked with Disney, Paramount and Marvel, with a view to integrating Palringo's instant messaging technology into community-orientated games.[13] In September 2014, the company reiterated its strategy on combining games and instant messaging by focusing on adding gaming capabilities on top of an already existing messaging platform.[4]

In May 2015, Palringo continued to expand by acquiring Finnish chat games developer Tribe Studios, best known for its patented Dramagame technology, which it uses to develop multiplayer role-playing games.[14]

In late 2019, Palringo introduces Stages, a platform within its app that allowed up to five users to broadcast live audio within their chat group.[15]

In 2013, the company launched a charitable initiative aimed at their users in the Gulf region during the month of Ramadan, which enabled users to donate Palringo credits through a special charity Bot. They raised over US $230,000 for Charity Right and Islamic Relief.[2]

In 2014, they ran the campaign again but this time opened it up their entire user base by adding Child's Play, a charity aimed at providing video game entertainment to sick children in hospital. In total, more than $235,000 was raised. [16]

During Ramadan in 2015, Palringo raised more than $300,000 from its gaming community to be split between Action Against Hunger and Islamic Relief Worldwide. [17]

For 2016, the company’s Ramadan charity campaign was ‘Heroes Against Hunger’, in which they released a new game bot to raise funds to protect against various disasters. The total raised was $207,000. [18]

There was a fishing game theme for Palringo’s 2017 charity event, wherein users donated in order to try to catch limited edition ‘freaks of nature fish’. The charities continued to be Action Against Hunger and Islamic Relief Worldwide, and the total raised was around $160,000. [19]

In 2018, the theme was ‘Hunt For Hunger’. The company created a brand-new bot based on a hunting game with limited-edition ‘desert birds’ just for the Ramadan period. The amount raised was around $150,000. [20]

In 2019, the company worked directly with Action Against Hunger to create unique items for one of their most popular collection bots–Fish. Users could collect and learn about items that help those most affected by malnutrition and poverty in some of the most impoverished areas in the world. For the event, Palringo raised $179,000 for Islamic Relief and Action Against Hunger.[21]