ShoZu Enters Latin American Market with Azteca Interactive, Bringing Mobile Media Service to TV Azteca's Web Community

Agreement Includes One-Click Image Uploading & ZuCast Media Delivery

3GSM World Congress, Barcelona, Spain, 14 Feb 07 - 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).

Source: ShoZu