Yamgo partners with Tom Horn to launch pioneering mobile video sharing service and the worlds first free-to-view mobile TV network

23 May 2007, Oxford, UK – Yamgo, a leading extreme sports mobile TV company has signed a technology partnership with Tom Horn, a software development company enabling Yamgo to launch a global cross-platform mobile video sharing service and the world’s first free-to-view mobile TV network.

The new service offers users a fully interactive video, music and entertainment community on the Internet via www.yamgo.tv and on any video-enabled mobile device, on any mobile phone network with WAP access, anywhere in the world via http://yamgo.mobi Yamgo’s pioneering service brings the web 2.0 phenomenon to mobile phones. Yamgo’s new service features video sharing directly from a mobile device as well as the ability to watch high-quality mobile TV channels, live broadcasts, and user-generated content over both 2.5G (GPRS) and 3G networks (EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA).

Through the new service, Yamgo customers can create their own mobile video page and upload videos directly from their mobile phone or via the www.yamgo.tv website and then share them with friends regardless of what phone or network they are using. Yamgo takes care of all the complex encoding and device optimisation resulting in a powerful cross platform social networking application. User-generated content is free to view and there are no end-user charges to use the service, except data charges users may incur from their network operator. In addition to ad-funded free-to-view channels and user-generated videos, premium content including live broadcasts, mobisodes (mobile TV series) and downloads will be distributed on a time-based subscription, pay-per-view, or pay-per-download basis. Up to now the service has been tested in 25 countries worldwide and is currently available in English, Slovak, and Czech languages.

“Yamgo.tv is initially focused on extreme sports content, due to Yamgo’s extensive catalogue of high-quality extreme sports content covering 26 extreme sports and exclusive world-first stunts, but also because extreme sports videos appeal to a global audience, cross language and cultural barriers and the short, sharp burst nature of the videos makes them an ideal category for mobile video consumption. Users can upload any genre of content and the selection of mobile TV channels will be broadened into complementary categories” stated Yamgo Operations Director Shaun Ellison.

Ian Mullins, Yamgo CEO stated “Yamgo’s pioneering cross-platform video sharing service will enable users to upload, watch and broadcast content across any video-enabled phone, anywhere in the world. Web-based social networking has been accepted by consumers worldwide as the ultimate next-generation form of entertainment. Yamgo.tv offers a similar feature set on mobile devices as today’s web-based social networks, plus additional functionality and a high-quality interactive mobile TV service. Our partnership with Tom Horn enables Yamgo to deliver a pioneering service offering and provides the technology infrastructure to create a global community of web and mobile content consumers. Tom Horn have developed a superior automated encoding engine called FRIEZE and have the technical expertise to develop a leading edge bespoke technology solution for Yamgo.”

Igor Rintel, Managing Director of Tom Horn stated, “Yamgo’s content can be effectively monetised through mobile TV premium downloads and looped streaming channels. Yamgo has an early-mover advantage in mobile social networking and has identified a significant gap for high-quality niche market and localised content.”

The yamgo.tv service will run alongside Yamgo’s existing extreme sports production, publishing and advertiser-funded mobile content service enabling Yamgo to offer advertising agencies and brands an end-to-end solution for the production and distribution of adverts.

About Yamgo

Yamgo Ltd is a market-leading global mobile entertainment company providing consumers with innovative video sharing services and ad-funded free-to-view mobile TV channels. Yamgo provides advertising agencies and brands with compelling low-cost content production services and mobile advertising campaigns across Yamgo’s mobile TV platform and through 75 different distribution channels globally. Yamgo repurposes traditional TV programmes and DVDs into made-for-mobile programming and optimises encoding for video-on-demand and streaming to any video-enabled phone on any mobile phone network worldwide. The Yamgo mobile TV platform also supports cross platform live broadcast and personalised TV.

Based in Oxford, UK, Yamgo Ltd was founded by Ian Mullins, a mobile technology professional and extreme sports athlete. Yamgo works with leading network operators and brands to develop and deliver high-quality content and provides content providers with a new revenue stream to profit from mobile and broadband video distribution. Yamgo produces up to 30 new extreme sports videos per week and publishes them on Yamgo’s dedicated mobile TV channels and through network operators globally. Through a pioneering mobile social networking platform Yamgo is building a community of opted-in, receptive and demographically profiled users, which will enable brands to own their own mobile TV channel and deploy innovative mobile marketing campaigns. For more information visit www.yamgo.com and www.yamgo.tv

About Tom Horn

Tom Horn Enterprise, Inc. is a privately held software development company based in Slovakia (Bratislava) with subsidiaries in the Czech Republic (Prague, Brno). Tom Horn Enterprise, member of the Meracrest Group, prides itself on being a flexible and dynamic company with a team of highly educated and skilled people. Tom Horn Enterprise develops solutions for creating web-based information systems, online portals, corporate websites, interactive presentations, intranets and extranets. Tom Horn Enterprise also develops technologies for creating, managing, billing and delivering audio-visual content to mobile phones, web and TV sets over the IP networks. Tom Horn Enterprise has developed a robust, scalable and customizable end-to-end solution FRIEZE, that allows customers to deliver real-time (live) or pre-recorded (on-demand) content directly to electronic devices.

FRIEZE is an integrated, modular end-to-end system for mobile TV, IP multimedia and IPTV which includes on-demand, streaming and Subscriber based content available over mobile and broadband IP connections. It represents a complex solution from the processing of source file or TV signal up to the delivery to mobile device, PC or Set-Top Box / TV.