Thumbplay News

 

Phenner’s Participation Comes on the Heels of the Launch of Thumbplay Music

NEW YORK – February 9, 2010 – Chris Phenner, EVP of Business Development for Thumbplay®, will speak on the future of mobile music at Digital Music Forum East (www.digitalmusicforum.com/east/) on February 24th, 2010 in New York City. Thumbplay, the leading mobile entertainment company in the U.S., recently launched Thumbplay MusicTM, a cloud-based music service that provides unlimited, on-demand access to millions of songs and is now offered in Beta by invitation-only (request at http://music.thumbplay.com). Thumbplay Music is a next generation music service, built by experts in mobile content delivery to serve the rapidly growing market of U.S. smartphone users which is forecasted to grow to 160 million people by 2013.**

PANEL TOPIC - MOBILE APPS: What's Next?

Music apps for smart phones and social networks are the hot new way for artists to keep fans updated with new information, exclusive videos, chat rooms, and Twitter-style news feeds. This panel will discuss the opportunities around music apps with a focus on how artists and labels and using apps to promote and even distribute music. How is Apple's App Store evolving? What can we expect with the launch of the RIM/BlackBerry and Android app stores? What kind of innovation are we seeing with apps in overseas markets? What is the next frontier of mobile apps and the music industry?

About Chris Phenner

Phenner has nearly 15 years experience in software, digital media and online subscription services. Prior to Thumbplay, Phenner was director of business development at Audible, Inc., business development manager at CNET Networks' Download.com; and, prior to that, served as director of business development at Napster (1.0). He was also business development manager at RollingStone.com and in marketing with Spyglass, Mosaic's original licensor. Phenner has a B.A. in Political Science from Miami University and an MBA from a dual-degree program with U.C. Berkeley and Columbia University.

Panelists:

Chris Phenner, EVP, Business Development, Thumbplay

Syd Schwartz, SVP Global Digital Marketing, EMI North America
Mike Scogin, VP, Wireless, MTV Mobile at MTV Networks
Pete Watson, Sr. Bus. Dev. Manager, Research in Motion Limited (RIM) / BlackBerry
Jim Rondinelli, SVP, Strategic Development, Slacker
Moderator
:
Aydin Caginalp, Partner, Ent. & Media Group, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP

Media interested in attending the panel can register at http://www.dmwmedia.com/form/press-registration-2010.

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 The Echo Nest, a music intelligence platform that helps developers make online music smarter, announced today that it is enabling advanced music discovery for the new Thumbplay Music service.  The Echo Nest is powered by the world's first machine learning system for music that actually reads about music and listens to music everywhere on the web. At http://developer.echonest.com/  developers can easily tap into this deep musical understanding to create more intelligent, engaging and interactive music applications.  cloud-based Thumbplay Music provides unlimited, on-demand access to millions of songs and is now offered in Beta in the U.S. by invitation-only (request at http://www.thumbplay.com/) Thumbplay and The Echo Nest are working together to offer users a wide range of music discovery and interactive playlisting experiences.  Notably, the new service includes AutoPlaylist, the first mobile application of its kind in the U.S., which allows users to instantly-generate playlists based on a single, selected track.

Thumbplay Music is currently available on select BlackBerry® smartphones and its companion app for PCs/Macs® is available through a downloadable Adobe®AIR® version. Thumbplay Music is a next generation service, built by experts in mobile content delivery and will be widely available on BlackBerry, Android and iPhone® smartphones within the first quarter of 2010. Today, the service has more than 8 million tracks under license from all major labels and more than 25,000 independent labels.

AutoPlaylist applies The Echo Nest’s combined understanding of a song’s musical attributes, such as tempo, instrumentation, key, time signature, energy, harmonic and timbral structures along with cultural attributes such as an artist’s popularity and fan base, resulting in the most comprehensive and intuitive mobile playlisting experience available anywhere. All Thumbplay Music playlists are fully interactive and users can add to, delete or change playlists at any time. In addition, after discovering a new artist, users can listen to full albums on demand. Playlists are also available for offline playback when a network connection is unavailable.

Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest said: “We are having a great time collaborating with Thumbplay. Both companies share an obsession with giving fans more immersive, interactive music discovery experiences around Thumbplay’s huge music catalog. We’ve been very impressed with the speed of product development and the incredible growth in their catalog over a very short period of time.”

Added Evan Schwartz, CEO and Co-Founder of Thumbplay: “The brilliant team at The Echo Nest has delivered functionality to Thumbplay Music that has not been realized before on any other mobile service. Now music fans have all of their favorite functions on one service -- unlimited, on-demand music on their smartphones and PCs/Macs, online and offline play, wireless syncing between devices and notably, the incredibly intuitive, dynamic music discovery tools that we built with The Echo Nest. People are very impressed when they see AutoPlaylist in action; and, of course, this is just the beginning of our work together.”

Thumbplay, which enjoys sustained profitability, has built an award-winning service centered on delivering millions of pieces of mobile content to 95 percent of U.S. devices among every major carrier. Thumbplay will leverage its existing network of more than 8,000 distribution partners to promote Thumbplay Music.

ABOUT THE ECHO NEST

The Echo Nest is a music intelligence company co-founded by two MIT Media Lab PhDs, Brian Whitman Tristan Jehan. Powered by the world’s first machine learning platform for music, The Echo Nest makes it easy for developers to build more intelligent, engaging and interactive music applications. The Echo Nest’s customers and partners include leading online music services, record labels and a growing army of the smartest independent application developers in the world. The company is a three-time National Science Foundation SBIR grant winner and is funded by Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Argos Management and angel investors, including two co-founders of the MIT Media Lab.

ABOUT THUMBPLAY

Thumbplay, Inc. is defining the mobile entertainment experience for U.S. consumers. Thumbplay.com features licensed music, video and games from some of the world’s largest entertainment companies, including: EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, as well as several independent labels and artists and video game companies. Headquartered in New York City, Thumbplay 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. More information can be found at www.thumbplay.com or at m.thumbplay.com from a mobile phone.

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All trademarks property of their respective owners. No partnerships implied. The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited.


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-- Beggars Group, Merge Records, Redeye Distribution, Tunecore and Others Join All Major Labels

to Deliver Unlimited Music for Smartphones/PCs --

NEW YORK – 3 February 2010 – Thumbplay (www.thumbplay.com), the leading mobile entertainment company in the U.S., has forged agreements with 20 new content partners for its new Thumbplay Music application. The number of tracks currently under license for the service now exceeds 8 million. Included in the latest round of content deals for the app are: Beggars Group, Merge Records, Redeye Distribution and Tunecore. The announcement comes just weeks after Thumbplay announced the service’s Private Beta launch with content from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music as well as CD Baby, INgrooves, IODA and The Orchard. Thumbplay Music is a cloud-based, subscription music service that provides unlimited, on-demand access to millions of songs. It is a next generation music service, built by experts in mobile content delivery, to serve the rapidly growing market of U.S. smartphone users, which is forecasted to grow to 160 million people by 2013.**

Thumbplay also announced today that it has closed deals with: AWAL; BFM Digital; DashGo; Dig Dis; E1 Music; Finetunes; IRIS; Nettwerk; Nu Urban; Oseao; Rebeat Digital; Record Union; RouteNote; Sundesire Records, Symphonic Distribution and The state51Conspiracy. As of today, Thumbplay includes more than 25,000 independent labels and more than 75,000 do-it-yourself artists.

Currently, Thumbplay Music is available by invitation-only (request at http://music.thumbplay.com) on select BlackBerry® Smartphones* and on PCs/Macs® through a downloadable Adobe®AIR® desktop version. The app is scheduled to launch widely to consumers within the first quarter of 2010 and will be available on Android, iPhone and additional BlackBerry smartphones.

Evan Schwartz, Thumbplay CEO and Co-Founder said, “Our goal is to offer music fans the widest selection possible – spanning every genre out there – and to provide an effortless way to discover new artists. I believe the speed with which we’ve been able to close deals for Thumbplay Music speaks to the strength of the app and the great need for a full service, on-demand and portable music experience.”

According to Simon Wheeler, Director of Digital at Beggars Group, “We are extremely proud to include our artists and labels in the new Thumbplay Music service. It delivers on its promise of a great experience for music fans wherever they listen to music. Whether on their smartphones or at their computers, fans of our artists and labels, including 4AD, Matador, Rough Trade and XL Recordings, can listen to new releases the minute they are available. This includes the recent USA number one album from Vampire Weekend as well as Cat Power, The National, The xx and Jarvis Cocker and more great artists from our catalogue like The Pixies, The Cult, Interpol and The Prodigy. Thumbplay Music is a great music service for fans of our original, creative music.”

Redeye Marketing Director, Josh Wittman, added, “Thumbplay Music is a big win for music fans–‘must-have’ tunes are always at hand, and it is a great music discovery tool. You’ll soon be able to find and play music from all of our artists including Liam Finn, Nick Lowe, Robyn Hitchcock, Elliott Smith, The Decemberists, Gossip, DeVotchKa, The Black Keys, Laura Veirs, The Annuals and Pelican–and all right on your phone and PC. We’re delivering content from all of the Redeye labels, including Yep Roc, Luaka Bop, Kill Rock Stars, Ace Fu, Hydra Head, Bomp/Alive and Sargent House. We’re thrilled to be on board with a next generation music service that is worthy of the fans of our great music.”

Thumbplay Music includes its own in-app media player and boasts several compelling features, including:

· Unlimited, on-demand access to any artist or album; includes millions of high-quality songs

· Online and offline smartphone access, listen to music without Wi-Fi® or network connection. Whether underground or mid-flight, playlists are available for listening offline–delivering true portability

· Effortless playlist creation; add songs or albums to playlists which automatically, wirelessly synchronize across PC, Mac and Smartphone devices

· AutoPlaylist Instantly generate expert recommendations based on favorite songs; a great way to discover new music

· iTunes® playlist re-creation within Thumbplay Music’s desktop app. With a few clicks, recreate iTunes playlists and have them available on your PC and smartphone.

· Search – Find music by artist, song, album or genre; includes free previews of all songs

· Favorites – a quick, intuitive way to build a personal music collection that automatically synchronizes between smartphones and the desktop app

The Thumbplay Music service will include a free, three-day trial of its unlimited, on-demand service. Following the trial period, subscriptions are $9.99 per month.
Thumbplay, which enjoys sustained profitability, has built an award-winning service centered on delivering millions of pieces of mobile content to 95 percent of U.S. devices among every major carrier. Thumbplay will leverage its existing network of more than 8,000 distribution partners to promote Thumbplay Music.

ABOUT THUMBPLAY

Thumbplay, Inc. is defining the mobile entertainment experience for U.S. consumers. Thumbplay.com features licensed music, video and games from some of the world’s largest entertainment companies, including: EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, as well as several independent labels and artists and video game companies. Headquartered in New York City, Thumbplay 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. More information can be found at www.thumbplay.com or at m.thumbplay.com from a mobile phone.

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All trademarks property of their respective owners. No partnerships implied. The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited.

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