ShoZu Inc. today announced an agreement with Azteca Interactive,
the mobile and interactive arm of TV Azteca, that will bring ShoZu's
mobile media services to the Latin American market for the first time
through Tvazteca.com, one of the most popular websites in Mexico.
TV Azteca, one of the two largest producers of Spanish-language TV
programming in the world, is part of Grupo Salinas, the $5 billion
Mexican group that also owns two of the country's four mobile service
operators, Mexico's fastest-growing bank and Latin America's largest
white-goods retailer.
The TV Azteca network of websites offer photo and video sharing,
blogging, and a variety of other community services to more than 1.5
million active registered users in Mexico as well as Spanish speakers
in the U.S. and other Latin American countries. The new partnership
will enable community members to upload photos and video clips
captured on their mobile phones to the Azteca sites with a click,
embed any image in a blog and exchange two-way messages with other
site users directly from the handset, and subscribe to multimedia
'ZuCasts' delivered to the phone automatically.
As part of the agreement, Azteca Interactive also plans to develop
ZuCast channels based on media content from other Grupo Salinas
properties such as TV Azteca. Users will be able to sign up for
Azteca-sponsored ZuCasts in certain categories such as news, sports or
telenovellas, potentially including related items such as ringtones or
wallpaper. This strategy will help the conglomerate's interactive
division further build its presence in the mobile channel.
When the services go live in May 2007 users will be able to
download the ShoZu client software to supported phone models at no
charge from either www.shozu.com or www.tvazteca.com.
"Every online community today is searching for ways to connect
with their members through the mobile phone. ShoZu offers a
combination of user-friendly navigation, innovative services and easy
deployment that we were unable to find from any other provider, as
well as a mobile advertising platform that provides the opportunity to
increase impressions and even generate revenue," said Tim Parsa, Chief
Executive of Azteca Interactive. "We believe this partnership will
help strengthen our brand and give us a significant competitive
advantage."
"This agreement not only extends our reach into Latin America but
also opens the door to a wide variety of opportunities even beyond the
TV Azteca community, including introductions to the mobile operators
in Mexico through Grupo Salinas' connections and the possibility of
doing business elsewhere in the Americas through other Grupo Salinas
properties," said Dean Wood, Senior Vice President, Commercial for
ShoZu. "At the same time, it increases our overall market traction and
again demonstrates the power of the ShoZu platform for enhancing Web
2.0 services such as photo sharing and social networking."
ShoZu's Share-It service enables users to upload photos and video
clips captured on their camera phones with fewer clicks, at higher
resolution and to more Web destinations than any other method. Users
also have the unique ability to add titles or tags after uploading,
exchange comments between Web and phone, and upload any image to
multiple destinations for a single data fee. Current destination
options include online communities such as YouTube, Buzznet, Flickr,
Kodak EasyShare Gallery, MSN's Windows Live Spaces, Textamerica,
Webshots, Pikeo and Moblog.uk; personal blogging sites Blogger,
TypePad and WordPress; citizen-contributed photojournalism sites such
as CNN, the BBC and Scoopt; and any FTP or email address.
The company's ZuCast media delivery service provides automated,
zero-click delivery of videos, photos, music, games, news and other
user-selected content directly to the mobile phone. ShoZu's
proprietary data replication technology allows files to be downloaded
invisibly in the background without the need for users to open a
mobile phone browser, perform complex multi-click navigation
sequences, wait for pages to load, interrupt phone calls, start over
in the event of a dropped connection, or sync to a PC.
ShoZu currently supports 137 handsets, including Symbian, Java,
Microsoft Windows Mobile and BREW devices available from multiple
manufacturers.
About ShoZu
ShoZu is a mobile media service that enables consumer and media
companies to interact with customers on their mobile phones through
fast, easy exchange of multimedia content and web-based services. The
company's patented technology allows consumers to download and upload
photos, videos, music, text and other digital content to and from the
handset without the need to open a mobile browser, wait for pages to
load, interrupt phone calls, start over in the event of a dropped
connection, or sync to a PC. Services include innovative ZuCasts that
deliver content to the handset automatically, one-click uploading of
camera phone images and video clips to community websites and other
destinations, and two-way mobile-to-web messaging and interactivity.
For more information, visit www.shozu.com/aboutus.
About Grupo Salinas
Grupo Salinas (www.gruposalinas.com) is a group of dynamic,
fast-growing, and technologically advanced companies focused on
creating shareholder value, building the Mexican middle class, and
improving society through excellence. Grupo Salinas Companies include
TV Azteca (www.tvazteca.com; www.irtvazteca.com), Azteca America
(www.aztecaamerica.com), Grupo Elektra (www.grupoelektra.com.mx),
Banco Azteca (www.bancoazteca.com.mx), Afore Azteca
(www.aforeazteca.com.mx), Seguros Azteca (www.segurosazteca.com.mx),
Iusacell (www.iusacell.com) and Unefon (www.unefon.com.mx).
