Leverages Demand for Access to Web 2.0 & Social Media Sites from Mobile Handsets
SAN FRANCISCO, CA–September 12, 2007 – ShoZu Inc., the leading provider of mobile social networking services enabling easy content exchange between mobile phones and social media sites, and StarHub, Singapore’s second largest info-communication company, have partnered to offer the first flat-rate ShoZu access service. The service entitles StarHub users to unlimited ShoZu usage for a low promotional fixed monthly fee of US$3.50 (S$5.35).
StarHub subscribers who elect the new ShoZu service can upload any number of photos and video clips from their camera phones to 25 top Web destinations ranging from YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Kodak EasyShare to Vox and WordPress with a click without paying separately for each file transfer. This strategy is expected to encourage broad ShoZu adoption by enabling mobile users to interact with their favorite social networking and Web 2.0 sites from the handset without incurring high data charges.
The partnership also marks the debut of a new, first-of-its-kind program that gives carriers the option to use ShoZu’s software on a royalty-free basis in conjunction with a revenue sharing arrangement. The program is designed to help mobile operators generate maximum incremental revenues by capitalizing on the booming social media movement.
New Business Driver for Carriers
“StarHub is helping us pioneer a new flat-rate data package strategy for mobile social networking that is highly beneficial to both service providers and users,” said Dean Wood, Senior Vice President, Commercial, for ShoZu. “Carriers get a turnkey system with virtually no upfront costs, and consumers get fast and easy mobile access to Web 2.0 and social media sites with predictable data fees. Users don’t need to worry about being charged for each file they upload each month, and that gives them an incentive to add the package to their monthly mobile service. Everyone benefits.”
The demand for Mobile 2.0 functionality has been documented by industry analysts. A report released last month by Juniper Research forecast that mobile operator revenues from user-generated content will soar from $576 million in 2007 to $5.74 billion in 2012, with half of those revenues driven by mobile social networking alone. The same report predicted that the number of mobile users accessing social networking sites via their phones will skyrocket from 14 million to nearly 600 million over the next five years.
“The ShoZu service will further enhance our subscribers’ lifestyles by enabling them to connect to their social networks, personal blogs and photo communities from their handsets with one click and an attractive pricing structure,” said Anil Nihalani, Vice President, Mobile Services, StarHub. “StarHub is pleased to partner with ShoZu as they share our vision for bringing innovative mobile services to market quickly and with affordable, simple-to-understand pricing.”
Key Usability & Deployment Advantages
ShoZu’s mobile social networking service, called Share-It, is the industry’s fastest, easiest and most versatile platform for uploading photos and videos captured on the handset to social networking sites and other online communities. The platform delivers key benefits for end users and carriers alike, based on proprietary ShoZu technology that enables true one-click uploads as well as an open gateway that currently supports far more Web 2.0 destinations than any other solution to serve the largest number of users.
Benefits for consumers include one-click media transfer that eliminates the complexity of other solutions, a constantly expanding choice of Web destinations that now includes 25 sites as well as any email or FTP address, two-way mobile-to-Web messaging, and support for full-resolution 10MB uploads enabling transfer of 10-minute video clips compared to just 30 seconds for other methods. Users can also select blog-quality uploads to reduce traditional file size-based data fees when blogging or vlogging, add text and descriptions before or after uploading, and automatically attach location tags when GPS-enabled handsets are used.
Benefits for carriers include the market’s best user experience, turnkey deployment enabling rapid time to market with minimal upfront investment, and the ability to deliver user-friendly mobile social networking even on 2G data networks. In addition, ShoZu’s pre-integration with over two dozen well-known Web 2.0 sites and ongoing addition of other destinations maximizes potential market penetration for carriers. In contrast, carrier partnerships with individual social media sites limit adoption of upload services to a small subset of users.
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