PITTSBURGH, PA – JUNE 10, 2009 - Wizzard Media (NYSE Amex: WZE), the world’s largest podcasting network announced today the acquisition of a new iPhone App and the marketing launch of its recently acquired Apps via podcasts and the internet.
Adding to its fast growing roster of premier iPhone Apps, Wizzard Media acquired the distribution rights to Super Mastermind, a high quality App poised for sales growth through Wizzard’s podcast marketing and distribution network targeting iPhone and iPod Touch users. Wizzard has focused its recent App acquisition efforts on high quality, timeless Apps that cross a wide spectrum of consumer interests and match up well with targeted podcast audiences.
Wizzard plans to market these Apps in highly targeted podcasts, earning App developers and podcasters money for the sale and promotion of the products. To kick-off Phase I of its marketing efforts Wizzard plans to price all of the Apps at 99 cents for one week only in honor of Apple’s new $99.00 price for the iPhone. Wizzard believes this new price point for the iPhone will cause people to flock to the platform, increasing audiences for the podcasts on the Wizzard Media Network and adding potential consumers for new Apps.
In addition to podcast marketing and the introductory discounted pricing, Wizzard plans to promote the Apps to a wide variety of App directories, review sites, video portals, through targeted search terms on popular search engines and through podcast contests and giveaways.
“The Wizzard Media podcast network reaches an audience of over 18 million unique consumers a month and approximately 50 million a year,” says Chris Spencer, CEO of Wizzard Media. “The podcasters we work with have proven that they do an excellent job promoting their sponsors and advertisers and we believe that with the influence and rapport they have developed with their audience, they will do a great job marketing these Apps. The simplicity of a consumer hearing about a high quality App from their favorite podcast and being able to pause the podcast, click to the App Store and buy, all on their iPhone or iPod Touch, make this a compelling monetization opportunity for podcasters and App developers alike.”
“With 50,000 Apps in the App Store, it is hard to consistently find the best Apps,” said Laurie Simms, President of Wizzard Media. “Hearing about a new App from a trusted, valued source like your favorite podcast will go a long way in solving that problem. It helps the App developers we work with as we have a built-in, highly targeted marketing network and don’t rely solely on the iTunes App Store traffic to sell these Apps. We can align specific Apps with specific podcast shows, matching the demographics through our proprietary Alchemy ad serving system. I don’t know of any other company that can make that claim.”
Super Mastermind – User Review – “Simple, addictive fun!” http://wizzardsoftware.com/featured_apps.php
About Wizzard Software
Founded in 1996, Wizzard Software has become a leader in the speech technology application development market. Wizzard architects solutions to business problems using its expertise in consulting, speech development tools and building speech based applications for the Desktop and Internet. For more information, please visit www.wizzardsoftware.com. Wizzard Media (a division of Wizzard Software), is the industry's leading podcast hosting network. Podcasts are a means for independent and professional content creators to publish audio and video shows for the world to enjoy over the Internet or on mp3 players, such as the Apple iPod. Podcasting is a relatively new phenomenon, but Wizzard Media broadcasted one billion downloads in 2007 through media aggregators like Apple's iTunes and other podcast directories. For more information, please visit www.wizzard.tv.
Apple today introduced Podcast Producer 2, part of Snow Leopard Server. Podcast Producer 2 is designed to be an end-to-end solution for encoding, publishing, and distributing podcasts.
Wizzard Media (NYSE Amex: WZE), the world’s largest podcasting network announced today the acquisition of the exclusive distribution rights to six iPhone Apps. These Apps are currently for sale through Apple’s App Store for use on iPhones and the iPod Touch including: Blue Attack, OmNomNom, Sudoku Unlimited, TouchScan, Blue Defense and Sudoku Classic.
Based on current sales figures, Wizzard estimates these Apps will generate over $228,000 in annual revenues, after the standard deduction of Apple’s 30%, for the Company before any increased sales from marketing the Apps via the Wizzard Podcast Network to iPhone and iPod Touch users. Through advertising and marketing by Wizzard’s thousands of podcast producers to their highly engaged audience of iPhone and iPod users, Wizzard believes sales could be significantly higher on an annual basis. The Company plans to continue to acquire the rights for up to 100 already launched and approved iPhone Apps to provide podcast producers with a continuous stream of fresh, paid advertising for their episodic shows, app developers with increased sales revenues and provide for profitable App sales for Wizzard. Piper Jaffray’s Financial Analyst, Gene Munster, is projecting total App Store revenue of $780 million in 2009 for Apple.
“The Apple App Store has been an incredible success since its launch last year and we believe iTunes is the greatest digital media sales channel in the world. We know through our podcast distribution statistics that they attract a tremendous amount of media consumers,” says Chris Spencer, Wizzard Media CEO. “The simplicity of a consumer hearing about a great App from their favorite podcast and being able to pause the podcast, click to the App store and buy, all on their iPhone, makes us believe that this could be a great success for podcasters app developers and for Wizzard. The fact that they don’t have to enter credit card information and the low cost price of the Apps make this a compelling offer to consumers.”
This announcement is the first step in Wizzard’s expanded monetization plan for its podcasting network of 20,000 producers and their 18 million viewers and listeners, approximately 70% of whom use iTunes to subscribe to and download their favorite podcasts. The plan, launched in mid-March, has already resulted in the closing of the afore mentioned Apps and Wizzard is in negotiation with 20 Apps for acquisition with a growing pipeline of interested App developers who see the value of marketing Apps via podcasts. Wizzard believes this step will put it closer to its goal of profitability and will be announcing the next step in its network monetization plan in approximately 30 days.
“As more people move towards the mobile consumption of podcasts on the iPhone and iPod Touch, Wizzard sees new revenue opportunities opening up for its podcasting business using Apple’s App Store micropayment system,” says Dave Mansueto, co- founder of podcasting goliath Liberated Syndication (a Wizzard Media company). “By creating a continuous revenue stream for podcast producers and App developers through the marketing of iPhone Apps via podcasts, we believe Wizzard is strengthening its market leading position in the podcast industry and will continue to be the service of choice for monetizing podcast inventory for media companies, large and small.”
To learn more or purchase the Apps discussed above please visit: http://www.wizzardsoftware.com/featured_apps.php
About Wizzard Media (a division of Wizzard Software):
Wizzard Media provides publishing and distribution services to podcasters and monetization services for podcasters. Wizzard Media is the industry's leading podcasting network with an unprecedented 1.2 billion download requests in 2008. Podcasts are a means for independent and professional content creators to publish audio and video shows for the world to enjoy over the Internet or on mp3 players, such as the Apple iPod®, iPhone® and the Microsoft Zune®. Podcasting is a relatively new phenomenon, but Wizzard Media collectively broadcasts millions of podcast downloads per day through media aggregators like Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune Marketplace. For more information, please visit www.wizzardsoftware.com/media_v2.php. Wizzard Media is a division of Wizzard Software, a leader in speech technology distribution and development.
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Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: "Forward-looking Statements" as defined in the Private Securities litigation Reform Act of 1995 may be included in this news release. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance. These statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future results or events. We disclaim any intention or obligation to revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. There are important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to risks associated with changes in general economic and business conditions, actions of our competitors, the extent to which we are able to develop new services and markets for our services, the time and expense involved in such development activities, the level of demand and market acceptance of our services, changes in our business strategies and acts of terror against the United States.
iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone and iTunes are all registered marks of Apple, Inc.
The Obama administration is reviewing the government procurement process to better position innovative startup companies to compete for technology contracts, said Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, on Tuesday.
Kundra made the announcement at a business conference in Washington hosted by the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association, which represents professionals from private equity and venture capital firms that together manage more than $100 billion in capital.
"We're looking at the procurement process to make sure we're able to tap into some of the best ideas. We cannot continue to spend billions of dollars on IT projects that haven't produced the dividends we've been looking for," Kundra said in his speech. "The federal government can lead when it comes to innovation."
Read the full article here (CLick Here - NextGOV)
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