Mpowerplayer and Movaya Partner to Drive Mobile Game Sales

RESTON, Va. and SEATTLE ─ May 12, 2008 ─ Mpowerplayer (www.mpowerplayer.com), the leading provider of online mobile game trial and merchandising for the wireless industry, and Movaya (www.movaya.com), the complete web-based, e-commerce software platform for mobile-content transactions, today announced a partnership to integrate Movaya’s PlugNPlay purchasing solution into Mpowerplayer’s desktop arcade.

“Mpowerplayer's user base of consumers wanting to test drive mobile games from their PC continues to grow,” said Joe Ariganello, vice president of business development at Mpowerplayer. “Movaya’s plug and play has clearly emerged as a perfect complimentary platform to integrate purchasing into our desktop mobile arcade, making the purchase process seamless and easy for seasoned or new mobile game consumers.”

"Mpowerplayer’s offering to consumers interested in mobile games is a natural fit for our PlugNPlay platform," said Phil Yerkes, CEO of Movaya. "Our technologies complement each other and give publishers more options to help drive sales and deliver mobile games to more and more consumers."

Aces Texas Hold’em No Limit and Aces Blackjack by Concrete Software (www.concretesoftware.com) will be the first titles enabled with Movaya’s PlugNPlay technology at the Mpowerplayer arcade, with several new titles planned to be added soon.

About Mpowerplayer
Mpowerplayer is the number-one consumer destination in the world for online demos of mobile games. The company’s proprietary software solutions enable mobile content providers to better merchandise, market, and interact with a targeted user audience of mobile consumers. To promote your content to a growing audience of enthusiastic mobile consumers, or for more information, visit www.mpowerplayer.com or email info@mpowerplayer.com.

About Movaya
Movaya (www.movaya.com) is a Seattle-based technology company, whose mobile content management and distribution software system allows mobile content publishers and online retailers to effortlessly extend their businesses to the growing off-deck mobile content marketplace. Movaya PlugNPlay is the company's flagship product, which brings together Mobile Game and Application Publishers, Online Retailers and consumers in one marketplace for Mobile goods. Movaya is powering the off-deck, mobile industry.

# # #
Press Contacts:
Mpowerplayer
info@mpowerplayer.com
Joe Ariganello
(703) 880 6556 x805

Movaya
john.calian @ movaya.com
John Calian
(206) 527-2920

Shozu Adds New Destinations

ShoZu, a leading provider of mobile social media services that connect mobile consumers with their online social networks announced today that they have added 8 more destinations to their service: Photobucket, Dailymotion, Friendster, Twitter, Twitpic, Cellfish, Seesmic and Ipernity.

With these 8 new integrations, ShoZu now enables mobile users to interact with their choice of 36 social networks from a single screen on their handsets — reducing the time, effort and money required to upload images, update social profiles and check friends’ latest posts from the phone.

Previous ShoZu-supported sites include Facebook; photo/video communities YouTube, Flickr, Google Picasa, Buzznet, Hyves Kodak EasyShare Gallery, Webshots, Windows Live Spaces, Moblog.uk, Dada.net, Pikeo, Netlog Samsung Fun Club, HotSMS and blip.tv; personal blogging sites Google Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Vox, WordPress and MetaWeblog; online storage site Box.net and Qipit; citizen-contributed news desks at CNN, the BBC, ITV and Scoopt; and any email and FTP addresses — all from one ShoZu interface.

If you are not familiar with Shozu but you are an active user of any of these online services, it's certainly worth a look.

ShoZu’s service extends today’s burgeoning social media movement from the Web to the mobile world where users spend the majority of their time. Users can send photos or videos to their favorite community with a click, or mass-publish any photo or video to multiple communities and/or email addresses simultaneously, without opening a mobile browser, creating for multiple messages, and paying multiple data upload fees from their wireless carrier.

The service is very well done and I use it to upload pictures and other stuff to my Facebook account.

To check out some of the key features, click here. Among other things, you'll learn about one-click uploading of camera phone videos and pictures.

“People today often belong to more than one online social media site including social networking sites, personal blogs and media storage and sharing sites. In addition, different social media sites are popular in different parts of the world,” said Mark Bole, ShoZu CEO. “Our goal is to provide mobile access to the broadest possible range of communities from the ShoZu service so that users need only one tool to stay connected on the go. This latest batch of additional sites to our service gives users more choice than ever before. Also, be on the look out for another batch of new destinations added in the upcoming weeks.”

ShoZu’s free mobile client is currently pre-installed on newer Motorola and Samsung phones and downloadable to nearly 340 additional handset models. A complete list of compatible phones can be found here, or to download it to your phone, click here.

RealNetworks to Spin Off Games Business

RealNetworks announced today during their quarterly report that it plans to spin of its games business into a separate company, with the possibility of an initial public offering.

RealNetworks is a leader in the casual games industry worldwide, with a vertically integrated development, publishing, licensing, distribution and retail business. Their games business started on the PC but over the years has expanded into mobile as well, where they are now a top 10 mobile game publisher in the US.

In the first quarter of 2008, RealNetworks' (NASDAQ:RNWK) games business revenue rose 33% from the first quarter of 2007 to $31.8 million. For 2007, games revenue was $108.5 million, up 26% over 2006.

"RealNetworks was a pioneer and has been a leader in the casual games industry since we introduced RealArcade in 2001," said RealNetworks Chief Executive Rob Glaser in a news release. "We believe that spinning off our casual games business will give it the best opportunity to continue to flourish and lead."

The company anticipates that spinning off its casual games business will result in two more flexible and focused companies. In addition, the separation will provide the games business an "industry-specific currency" for future acquisitions and enhance its ability to attract and retain the best talent in the industry.

Watch the Instinct Defeat the iPhone

Back in April, Sprint announced they would be selling one of the first iPhone killers - the Samsung Instinct. The device is supposed to hit the market in June and it looks like Sprint is taking the gloves off and going to head to head against AT&T and the iPhone with their marketing campaign.

Click here to go to www.nowisgood.com and you can watch 5 videos that show how the Instinct performs better than the iPhone for GPS, Live TV, downloading music, surfing the Internet and shooting video.

"Finally, an amazing touch screen phone with a network to back it up"

Mpowerplayer Wins Award at JavaOne Conference

This week at the 2008 JavaOne Conference, Mpowerplayer received the Duke's Choice Award from Sun Microsystems in the mobile gaming category.

Using Java technology, Mpowerplayer expands the audience for mobile games to include casual online gamers, letting them easily find, try, and buy mobile games and applications. Consumers discover and sample a wide range of content on their PC and then transfer their purchases to their mobile phone.

"Mpowerplayer is honored to receive this award and to be recognized as a leader in innovation for the mobile games industry," said Michael Powers, CEO of Mpowerplayer. "Our technology platform continues to expand with new features and solutions designed to convert online consumers into mobile gamers."

The Duke's Choice Awards program recognizes the year's most influential Java technology-based applications submitted by developers and companies around the world. Winners are selected by Java inventor James Gosling and Sun's Java technology leadership team with judging based on the innovation and creativity of the Java technology-based applications and service.

Congrats to Michael and the rest of the Mpowerplayer team for winning this award!

VideoGameCentral to Bring Mobile Games to Mainstream

The Movaya team is excited to announce that popular gaming site, VideoGameCentral.com has added mobile games to their online destination at videogamecentral.mobi.

VideoGameCentral Mobile will be offering a platform chock full of mobile content from new & classic games to fan based items such as phone game wallpapers and video game ringtones.

"We acknowledge that gaming is a global platform & that there are many casual on-the-go gamers. Not everyone has the need to purchase portable game systems or home units to enjoy casual gaming. We are in a day & age that our cell-phones, blackberries & mobile communication devices have the robust ability to provide quality entertainment easily at a low price" said Dave Scarpitta, Marketing Director at VGC.

Just another example of the growing trend towards off-deck sales of mobile content here in the US. Look for other big online merchants to follow suit.

AT&T and Microsoft Holding Mobile Game Developer Contest

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), HTC Corp., and I-Play are hoping to discover the next breakthrough mobile game with a newly-launched AT&T Game Development Contest for Windows Mobile. Starting this week, independent game developers can submit their homemade Windows Mobile games to AT&T for a chance to win a large cash prize and a publishing contract with I-Play. The contest is designed to bring new talent and ideas into mobile gaming and also increase consumer awareness about the mobile gaming market.

AT&T claimed in a press release that Windows Mobile games are the fastest growing segment of the AT&T gaming business. "AT&T has a strong commitment to deliver more wireless choices to our customers -- in terms of products, services and applications," said Mark Collins, vice president, Consumer Data, for AT&T's wireless unit. "One way we reinforce this commitment and demonstrate that we are open to innovation is by working closely with the developer community so that we can bring visibility to their creativity, while ensuring that our customers have access to the most advanced, compelling and fun products and services -- now and in the future."

To submit your game, click here to access the online entry form.

The winner will receive a mobile game developer contract with I-play, prime placement of the finished game on AT&T MEdia Mall's game portal and a cash prize of $25,000. Prizes will also be awarded to three finalists and ten semi-finalists. Games will be judged on the basis of gameplay value and quality, uniqueness and creativity, and marketplace potential. The deadline to enter is July 31, 2008, and the winner will be announced at this year's CTIA mobile conference in September.