Thumbplay News

LAS VEGAS – 24 March 2010 – Thumbplay has announced that it will leverage Amazon Mobile Payments Service in its new cloud-based Thumbplay Music service. The new payment option for Thumbplay Music customers will be available on smartphones and PCs/Macs within the first half of 2010.

By utilizing Amazon Payments technology, Thumbplay now offers anyone with an Amazon.com account a convenient, secure way to pay for Thumbplay Music using the login credentials and payment information stored in their Amazon.com accounts. Customers can upgrade their Thumbplay Music accounts and purchase music a la carte (starting at 69 cents).

Said Evan Schwartz, CEO and Co-Founder of Thumbplay: “Our top priority is delivering a great customer experience and that includes everything from making our apps intuitive to delivering a deep catalog of on-demand music to giving consumers effortless payment options that they trust. We are excited to leverage Amazon Payments to make it simple for anyone with an Amazon.com account to subscribe to Thumbplay Music and get access to 8 million tracks on demand from Thumbplay.”

Mark Stabingas, GM, Amazon Payments, said: “We are pleased that Thumbplay is leveraging Amazon Payments to offer a quick, convenient way for Thumbplay customers to pay through their mobile devices and on their computers. Amazon Payments’ goal is to provide a great customer experience for Amazon.com account holders as they check out and pay for a wide variety of products and services, including digital goods such as 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; millions of songs to choose from
• Online and offline access. No connection? No problem! Listen to music on the subway or in-flight. Available anytime, anywhere.
• Effortless playlist creation; auto-syncs between smartphone and PC/Mac
• Playlist Genie for music discovery: instantly generate customized recommendations from favorite songs
• Build a personal music collection with Favorites; auto-sync between smartphone and PC/Mac
• Search: Find music by artist, song, album or genre; includes free previews of all songs
• Import existing iTunes^® playlists within Thumbplay Music’s companion desktop app. With a few clicks, recreate iTunes playlists and have them available on smartphone and PC/Mac.

The Thumbplay Music service includes a free, three-day trial of its unlimited, on-demand service. 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.

Forward Looking Statement
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

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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.

Contact:

Susan Lietz, Thumbplay

Susan.Lietz@thumbplay.com

(+1) 917.499.5053

# # #

Labels: press, press-release

posted by BusTed Love at 7:14 AM

-- New Cloud-Based, On-Demand Music Service for Smartphones and PC/Macs

^{to be Showcased at CTIA on the BlackBerry® Booth}

NEW YORK – 18 March 2010 – Thumbplay (www.thumbplay.com), the leading provider of mobile entertainment in the U.S., today announced that the cloud-based Thumbplay Music service is now available in Public Beta. The service was previously available by invitation-only. In addition, the free application is now on BlackBerry App World^™, providing BlackBerry^® smartphone users in the U.S. unlimited, on-demand access to millions of songs. Thumbplay Music (www.thumbplaymusic.com) 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.*

At the upcoming CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas (March 23-25, 2010), Thumbplay Music will be demonstrated at the BlackBerry booth (Booth #3506 – Central Hall). The service is currently available on select BlackBerry smartphones** and PCs/Macs^®. Just weeks after its initial launch, Thumbplay has added support for three additional BlackBerry smartphones to the service, including the popular BlackBerry^® Bold^™ 9700, the BlackBerry^® Storm^™ 9530 and the BlackBerry^® Storm2^™ 9550 smartphones.

Said Evan Schwartz, CEO and Co-Founder of Thumbplay: “We’re pleased to be building on our great relationship with RIM, particularly as we embark on our public launch. Our Private Beta customers gave us extremely positive feedback, and countless smartphone users have requested access to the service, enabling us to now ‘push play’ and make Thumbplay Music widely available. Our experience in this space has proven to be a tremendous advantage -- I don’t believe there is another company in the U.S. today that can offer a service built with mobile as its centerpiece that is this feature-rich, and with a catalog this deep. We are off to a great start.”

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

• Unlimited, on-demand access to any artist or album; millions of songs to choose from
• Build a personal music collection with Favorites; auto-sync between smartphone and PC/Mac
• Online and offline access. No connection? No problem! Listen to music on the subway or in-flight. Available anytime, anywhere.
• Effortless playlist creation; auto-sync’s between smartphone and PC/Mac
• Playlist Genie for music discovery: Instantly generate customized recommendations from favorite songs
• Search – Find music by artist, song, album or genre; includes free previews of all songs
• Import existing iTunes^® playlists within Thumbplay Music’s companion desktop app. With a few clicks, recreate iTunes playlists and have them available on smartphone and PC/Mac.

Thumbplay Music has more than eight million tracks under license from all major labels and more than 25,000 independent labels. The unlimited, on-demand service includes a free, three-day trial and subscriptions are then available for $9.99/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.

# # #

*Yankee Group (2009)

**Thumbplay Music supports the following BlackBerry smartphones: BlackBerry^® Tour™, BlackBerry^® Bold^™ 9000, BlackBerry^® Bold^™ 9700, BlackBerry^® Storm^™ 9530 and the BlackBerry^® Storm2^™ 9550, and BlackBerry^® Curve^™ 8900. Support for additional devices coming soon.

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.

Contact:

Susan Lietz

Susan.Lietz@thumplay.com

917.499.5053

Labels: press, press-release

posted by BusTed Love at 7:10 AM

-- Pablo Calamera Named Chief Technology Officer at Thumbplay --

NEW YORK – 1 March 2010– Pablo Calamera has been appointed to the newly-created role of Chief Technology Officer for Thumbplay, the leading mobile entertainment company in the U.S. Calamera joins Thumbplay from Apple^® Inc where he oversaw technology development for MobileMe^SM, a pioneering, cloud-based data-syncing product for iPhones^®, PCs and Macs^®. As of March 8, 2010, Calamera will be based in New York, reporting to Evan Schwartz, Thumbplay CEO and Co-Founder.

Calamera brings with him more than 25 years experience in PC, Mobile, set-top box and cloud-computing–this includes a total of 10 years at Apple, six years at Danger (acquired by Microsoft) and two with WebTV (also acquired by Microsoft). Calamera will have oversight of all technology initiatives for the company, including its recently launched Thumbplay Music. Thumbplay Music is a cloud-based service that provides unlimited, on-demand access to millions of songs and is now offered in the U.S. in Private Beta by invitation-only (http://music.thumbplay.com).

Commented Schwartz: “We are thrilled to have Pablo join our team. He has unique experience with Apple, Danger and WebTV in delivering and syncing content across multiple platforms for a scaled customer base. He has also managed major integrations with U.S. and international carriers; an area of ongoing strategic importance for us. Over the course of his career, he has done an extraordinary job of building state-of-the-art consumer products and services from concept to completion. Technological innovation is paramount to Thumbplay, and Pablo’s talent, experience and commitment to excellence will play a vital role in keeping us at the forefront of mobile entertainment offerings.”

Remarked Calamera: “Thumbplay has an incredible talent pool, and they have done a remarkable job in building robust, feature-rich services that deliver beautifully across multiple platforms. This is a very difficult thing to do, and I have been consistently impressed with the energy, smarts and creativity on display. I am greatly looking forward to working with Evan and the entire Thumbplay team to deliver against our very ambitious goals for the future.”

Calamera most recently served as Director of Apple’s MobileMe, a mass scale premium consumer service providing client/server solutions that are integrated into devices, operating systems and desktop applications. MobileMe supports millions of worldwide active users on a daily basis. Prior to Apple, from 2001–2006, he was the Senior Director of Service Engineering and Support for Danger Inc., where he lead the service engineering team for the first real consumer smartphone - the Sidekick. Before that, he was at NotifyMe Networks as CTO and Vice President of Engineering for a trailblazing voice alerting application service provider (ASP) which, for the first time, brought the dynamic/interactive power of the Internet to every telephone. He has also served in critical roles at AT&T Labs, WebTV Networks and also held previous positions at Apple early in his career.

Thumbplay’s latest offering, 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 available for BlackBerry, Android^™ and iPhone smartphones within the first quarter of 2010. Today, the service has more than 8 million tracks under license from EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group and more than 25,000 independent labels.

Thumbplay Inc., which enjoys sustained profitability, has 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. 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.

Labels: press, press-release

posted by BusTed Love at 7:28 AM