RockYou ! Rocks Out to New Partnerships with SNOCAP, Fliptrack, Nettwerk Records and Pump Audio
San Mateo, Calif. — May 21, 2007 — RockYou!, the leading provider of widgets on the web, today announced that the company has partnered with several of the most cutting edge music companies including SNOCAP, Fliptrack, Pump Audio and Nettwerk Records. RockYou! provides a unique way to showcase and experience online music. The company serves over 360M free music plays a month on existing widgets such as slideshows. These musical widgets can be added to most personal blogs and social networks. RockYou!’s partnerships will expand the music choices and artists that users can choose from to personalize their RockYou! widgets. It also gives RockYou! music partners an outlet to promote and expand their artist fan-base.
“RockYou!’s user base is a young audience, who is open to exploring new music and cool ways to share it with their friends,” said Jia Shen CTO and co-founder of RockYou!. “Artists have realized that giving users access to tracks as background music for their sites, slideshows among other widgets, only enhances the user experience, but more importantly, truly offers them an incredible outlet to be discovered and retain new fans. RockYou! currently showcases hundreds of artists music for people to sample and insert into their widget of choice. ”
To start, RockYou! has partnered with SNOCAP, the premier music technology company for direct artist-to-fan online distribution, to promote select hot bands and artists selling through SNOCAP. Allowing RockYou! users to discover and use songs from cutting-edge, emerging talent in their widgets, is great for both artists and fans – creating yet another channel for breaking new talent. RockYou! will also enable SNOCAP MyStores on RockYou! to sell music on the RockYou! Site offering fans an immediate opportunity to purchase music that strikes a chord with them.
“RockYou! has a deep involvement with music and we strive to give our users legally available tracks that they can use to enhance their widgets on their personal sites,” said Lance Tokuda, CEO and co-founder of RockYou!. “We are committed to working with the music labels and bands as well as the companies who enable them to have an online presence, to offer new ways in which music and their brand can be accessed, enjoyed and represented. Creating partnerships with companies like SNOCAP, Fliptrack, Nettwerk Records and Pump Audio only strengthens the notion that these companies are forward thinking and looking for cutting edge ways to better serve their artists and reach fans.”
RockYou! has also entered a partnership with Fliptrack, a leader in user-generated musical slideshows and videos. The partnership gives RockYou! access to Fliptrack’s catalog of more than 240,000 songs for use in music slideshows and videos. In addition, RockYou! will introduce Fliptrack music synchronization technology to slideshows as well. Music tracks offered by Fliptrack will also be available for RockYou to leverage in other widgets, providing additional distribution for Fliptrack’s music partners. The companies have also agreed to jointly collaborate on future music contests and promotions.
“We look forward to working with RockYou! and providing added functionality to their users, expanded distribution of our technology and new promotional opportunities for our music partners. Fliptrack has quickly emerged as a leader in the world of user-generated content,” said Stewart Putney, CEO of Fliptrack. “Our technology provides a unique way for consumers to easily and legally create and distribute their own media.”
RockYou! continues to leverage existing partnerships with Nettwerk Records, one of the leading and most forward thinking music labels and publishers, and Pump Audio, a top, cutting edge agent for independent musicians, digitally connecting them with buyers in the mainstream media. Nettwerk has made available some of their top artists from their library for RockYou! users to download for free and embed into their favorite widgets. Similarly, Pump Audio has made available over 300 independent artists on the RockYou! site and are exploring new ways to promote and market their music library to RockYou!’s community.
“Working with RockYou! has given our artists an incredible new way to reach a vast audience across the web,” said Brent Muhle, General Manager of Nettwerk Music Group, “The artists that we work with understand the value of providing their music for people to use and experience it in ways that haven’t been done before. The opportunity for Nettwerk to promote and leverage new bands by allowing RockYou! users to implement music on their widgets, really shows how dedicated we are to exploring alternative distribution formats.”
About RockYou!
RockYou! is the leading provider of widgets on the web. RockYou! widgets include photo slideshows, glitter text and voicemail accessories that are simple to use and enable people to frequently refresh their online style. Founded in 2006, RockYou! serves over 150 million widgets viewed per day to over 200 countries on social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Wordpress. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, RockYou! is funded by Sequoia Capital, Partech International and Lightspeed Venture Partners. For more information and to access RockYou! widgets please visit http://www.rockyou.com
About Fliptrack
Fliptrack, based in Mountain View, California, uses a patent-pending technology that enables users to create their own music videos by combining and synchronizing personal photos, text and effects with Fliptrack’s catalog of licensed music. Users can view their music videos at www.fliptrack.com or upload them to other social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook or Friendster. Fliptrack’s service is free to users. Founded in 2006, Fliptrack is funded by Angels and Mohr, Davidow Ventures. To learn more visit http://www.fliptrack.com.
About Nettwerk
Nettwerk Music Group is Canada's leading privately owned record label and artist management company, responsible for managing some of North America's biggest artists like Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies and many others. Nettwerk has several offices located around the world including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Nashville and London; with the main office in Vancouver, B.C.
About Pump Audio
Founded in 2001, Pump Audio is a new kind of agent for independent musicians, digitally connecting them with buyers in the mainstream media. With Pump Audio, artists can license their music into productions without giving up any ownership, while TV and advertising producers, independent filmmakers, web designers, UGC and other content creators can discover new music ready for use. Pump has a growing catalog of tens of thousands of songs, all by independent artists from around the world, which customers access through Pump’s innovative Soundtrack Tool. With the Soundtrack Tool, users from the largest advertising agencies to independent filmmakers to bloggers and everyone in between can add legally licensed music to their video content. Users can browse the Pump catalog online and purchase licenses for those the songs instantly. To date, Pump has paid millions of dollars to independent artists and placed hundreds of thousands of tracks in television and advertising, making Pump Audio the #1 licensor of independent music in the world.
About SNOCAP
SNOCAP's unique digital registry provides real-time management of online licensing, rights and distribution of digital music, making it easy for artists and labels to sell music directly to their fans over the Internet and helping to power a more vibrant digital music marketplace. Using SNOCAP's MyStores, independent artists can sell their music on any website and via online retailers anywhere, anytime, while remaining fully in control of the licensing and rights. SNOCAP's exclusive partnership with MySpace powers the MySpace Music Service.
In addition to MySpace, SNOCAP provides digital music and technology services to iMeem, ReverbNation, ADA, Warner Music Group, the Universal Music Group, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, EMI, The Orchard, CD Baby, TVT Records, Artemis Records/Sheridan Square Entertainment, Beggars Group, InRadio, Koch Records, Nettwerk Records, Matador Records, Merlin, One Little Indian Records, Ryko Group and an extensive roster of leading independent labels. Founded by Shawn Fanning, Jordan Mendelson and Ron Conway in 2002, SNOCAP aims to be the trusted solution powering the global marketplace for digital media. The company is based in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit http://www.snocap.com.
