Thumbplay News

THUMBPLAY WINS A “BEST MOBILE INFOTAINMENT PORTAL” AWARD
FOR NEWS/ENTERTAINMENT IN VISIONGAIN’S
2008 MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT AWARDS AND CONFERENCE

NEW YORK – December 23, 2008 – Thumbplay® (http://www.thumbplay.com/), the #1 mobile entertainment provider and destination in the U.S.*, has won an award for “Best Mobile Infotainment Portal” for News/Entertainment in Visiongain’s 2008 Mobile Entertainment Awards and Conference. Hosted in central London, the Mobile Entertainment Awards recognizes the technologies, companies, innovations and campaigns that have enabled the industry to move forward over the years. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges, not affiliated with either Visiongain or any other participating company, who reviewed all of the submissions and sent in their votes for the winners without conferring with each other.

“Thumbplay’s ongoing commitment to technological innovation, exceptional customer service and strategic partnerships continues to pay off,” said Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder of Thumbplay. “This approach has placed us firmly at the forefront of what is happening in mobile entertainment, and it has allowed us to enjoy the accelerated growth recognized today by Visiongain.”

Thumbplay, Inc. is defining the mobile entertainment experience for U.S. consumers. As the largest and fastest growing mobile entertainment content destination, Thumbplay gives consumers access to the broadest and deepest catalog in the industry, spanning audio, video and gaming content from the leading music labels and artists, game publishers and media companies. Its innovative delivery and marketing platform makes it easy for users to discover, manage, store and share mobile content online and on their mobile phones.

Thumbplay’s extensive and ever-growing entertainment library features music, videos, games and more. Their award-winning direct-to-consumer service is accessible on more than 2,000 mobile 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.


ABOUT THUMBPLAY
Thumbplay’s award-winning, direct-to-consumer service features licensed content from some of the world’s largest entertainment companies, including EMI Music, Sony 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. The recently-launched Thumbplay Open provides independent music and visual artists, application developers and Web site publishers the opportunity to package and sell their own digital media to millions of mobile customers. 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.

Headquartered in New York City, Thumbplay was founded in September 2004 by Are Traasdahl and Evan Schwartz. It is backed by Bain Capital Ventures, SoftBank Capital, i-Hatch Ventures, Redwood Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Meritech, Brookside Capital Partners and Cross Creek Capital. More information can be found at http://www.thumbplay.com/ or at m.thumbplay.com from a mobile phone.

###