Agreement Strengthens Amp’d Mobile’s Existing Social Networking Offerings
3GSM World Congress, Barcelona, Spain, 12 Feb 07 - ShoZu Inc. today announced a distribution agreement that will make its effortless Share-It uploading service available on phones sold by Amp’d Mobile, America’s leading mobile entertainment company targeted at youth and young professionals. The Share-It service will expand Amp’d Mobile’s social networking feature set by enabling subscribers to easily transmit photos and video clips to nearly two dozen media sharing, blogging and community sites using a single ShoZu application on the handset.
Amp’d Mobile is ShoZu’s first mobile operator partner in the U.S. and the second to be announced in a month, following a similar agreement with Austrian carrier Hutchison 3G Austria. Both contracts mark important building blocks in ShoZu’s plan to bring its handset-based multimedia services to the mass market through carrier affiliations.
The Amp’d Mobile pact also extends ShoZu’s support to the BREW platform for the first time, adding to ShoZu’s established support for Windows Mobile, Symbian and Java environments. The handset software that powers the ShoZu service will be distributed through Amp’d Live.
With the Share-It service, Amp’d Mobile subscribers will be able to upload images to online communities ranging from Flickr and YouTube to Buzznet, Kodak EasyShare Gallery, MSN’s Windows Live Spaces, Textamerica, Webshots, Pikeo and/or Moblog.uk. Other choices include personal blogging sites Blogger, TypePad and WordPress; citizen-contributed photojournalism sites CNN, the BBC and Scoopt; and any FTP or email address. ShoZu continues to add new sites on a regular basis.
The ShoZu application will be available from the Amp’d Live catalog on the carrier’s website for a flat monthly fee early in the second quarter. Airtime required for image transfers will be free because Amp’d Mobile’s service packages include unlimited data plans, allowing users to upload as many images as desired without incurring additional charges.
“ShoZu’s Share-It service enables easy entry to all social networks through their intuitive, single access gateway. Most important to users is the ability to set their own preferences,” said Brian Mullen, Director of Content Business Development for Amp’d Mobile.
“Amp’d clearly understands what its target audience wants and has put a high priority on offering the best possible social networking experience,” said Bob Morgan, Vice President, North America, for ShoZu. “Their choice of ShoZu to provide social networking and media sharing services again highlights the value of our open gateway strategy, support for a wide spectrum of Web destinations, and ease of navigation for end users.”
ShoZu’s Share-It service enables users to upload photos and video clips captured on their camera phones with fewer clicks, at higher resolution and to more Web destinations than any other method. Users also have the unique ability to add titles or tags after uploading, exchange comments between Web and phone, and upload any image to multiple destinations for a single data fee in cases where carrier charges apply. Uploads automatically resume from the point of failure in the event of a dropped connection, eliminating user frustration.
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