Thumbplay News

Team Recognized For "Business Leadership & Innovation"

NEW YORK – October 29, 2008 – At the sixth annual New York Ten Awards™ Gala held yesterday by the Executive Council of New York, the premier business forum for leaders and innovators, Thumbplay® (www.thumbplay.com) received the award for "Best Executive Team." Are Traasdahl, Founder & CEO of Thumbplay, the #1 mobile entertainment service in the U.S.*, had the honor of receiving the award along with Evan Schwartz, co-founder and CMO; Scott Marshall, COO and CFO; Markus Thorstvedt, CTO; Joe Bilman, chief product officer; and Lasse Hamre, EVP/Technology. The Ten Awards is a selection of ten companies and individuals in the greater New York business community that display extraordinary innovation and leadership in their industries and beyond.

The Executive Council of New York selected the Thumbplay team as "Best Executive Team" from hundreds of entrants. Other finalists for the award included teams from The Blackstone Group and iSeatz. This is the third Ten Award given to Thumbplay by the Executive Council of New York. In 2006, the company received the "Best New Product or Service" award; and in 2007, for his innovation and leadership as CEO of Thumbplay, Traasdahl received the honor of "Best Emerging CEO."

"We have achieved our success by concentrating on three key areas: customer satisfaction, product innovation and building strategic partnerships," said Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder of Thumbplay. "This focus requires a dynamic, committed leadership team, and I could not be more proud of the executives who have brought us to such extraordinary heights. We’re extremely honored to have their daily guidance and thank the Executive Council for its recognition."

The Ten Awards winners were chosen from open nominations submitted to the Executive Council of New York. Hundreds of nominations were screened and evaluated by a panel of judges comprised of prominent journalists from New York-based local and national business media outlets, and evaluated based on the individual’s contributions to his or her organization’s objectives and leadership; the organization’s impact on business innovation, both in New York and nationally; and the individual’s industry leadership beyond his or her organization.

Featuring music, videos, games and more, Thumbplay’s extensive and ever-growing entertainment library currently consists of more than 100,000 pieces of licensed content. Their award-winning direct-to-consumer service is accessible on more than 2,000 devices among every major carrier in the U.S.

The company has maintained and grown its leadership position in the industry by providing its consumers with the best possible customer experience, including live, "24/7/365" customer service and a commitment to delivering the largest catalog of entertainment possible. Thumbplay’s "locker" service also allows users to automatically back-up and store purchased items.

Thumbplay features licensed music, video and gaming content from some of the world’s largest entertainment companies, including EMI, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Pictures Television, as well as several independent labels and artists and video game companies. Thumbplay’s mobile entertainment catalog is integrated into Clear Channel Radio, AOL and MSN Mobile sites, as well as iLike.com, one of the Web’s leading social music discovery services. Moreover, based on Thumbplay’s reputation for exceptional customer care and technological innovation, MTV recently tapped the company to power personalization content for the music giant’s mobile content site.

Each month, Thumbplay.com gets more than five million unique visitors and its mobile (WAP) site (m.thumbplay.com) receives more than 12 million page views, making it one of the most popular mobile Web sites.

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