Thumbplay News

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

THUMBPLAY’S ARE TRAASDAHL APPOINTED CHAIRMAN; EVAN SCHWARTZ ELEVATED TO CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

-- Traasdahl Concentrating on Corporate Development as

Schwartz Takes Day-to-Day Reins and Drives Consumer Launch of Thumbplay Music App –

NEW YORK 16 -- December 2009 -- Following five years of growth, innovation and setting new standards for customer service, Thumbplay’s Founder and CEO Are Traasdahl will now serve as Chairman. Traasdahl will concentrate on Thumbplay’s long-term corporate development, a role he has been transitioning to over the past few months.

Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer Evan Schwartz has been promoted to CEO, effective immediately. Schwartz will oversee all day-to-day operations for the company, including the launch of the new Thumbplay Music application. The company has achieved sustained profitability, with sales of full track music and other advanced content driving the growth.

Thumbplay Board Member Eric Hippeau commented, “We are extremely pleased to elevate Are to Chairman and Evan to CEO. Both have demonstrated tremendous leadership skills as they’ve grown Thumbplay into the leading mobile entertainment service in the U.S. Evan’s 14-plus years of online music experience and his deft marketing prowess make him ideally suited to continue to grow the business and steer the company through the launch of the company’s exciting new music and video products for Smartphones.”

Traasdahl said, “Having seen Thumbplay through its inception and its incredible growth to-date, I’m looking forward to concentrating on big picture development from the perspective of a board member and Chairman. With a focus on long-range growth opportunities, I will continue to help Thumbplay achieve its rightful place as the leading mobile entertainment company. The terrific successes we’ve achieved so far give us a great foundation and I have every confidence that with the extraordinary stewardship of Evan and the talented team at Thumbplay, we will achieve all we’ve set out to do and more.”

Remarked Schwartz: “I’m honored to assume the leadership role at Thumbplay, particularly at such a pivotal time for the entertainment industry. Are and I set out with some pretty ambitious goals, and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished so far. With the advent of Smartphones, the music and video services we have been dreaming about for the last 10 years are finally possible and consumers are ready for them. Moving forward with Scott Marshall, our COO/CFO at my side, and the rest of our great team, we are well-positioned for the future.”

The company launches Thumbplay Music, an application which provides anytime-anywhere access to digital music via Smartphones and computers, to a wide consumer audience early in 2010.

Thumbplay is the leading mobile entertainment service in the U.S., offering personalization content for more than 250 million mobile customers. Its direct-to-consumer service is accessible on more than 2,500 mobile devices among every major carrier in the U.S.

Headquartered in New York City, Thumbplay, Inc. was founded in September 2004 by Are Traasdahl and Evan Schwartz. Investors include Bain Capital Ventures, SoftBank Capital, i-Hatch Ventures, Redwood Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Meritech, Brookside Capital Partners and Cross Creek Capital.

ABOUT THUMBPLAY

Thumbplay’s award-winning, direct-to-consumer mobile entertainment service features licensed content from some of the world’s largest entertainment companies, including EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, 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. 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. More information can be found at www.thumbplay.com or at m.thumbplay.com from a mobile phone.