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WirelessDevNet.com Press Release
Cosmopolitan and CosmoGIRL! Magazines Connect with Tira Wireless
NEW YORK and TORONTO--November 20, 2003--Recognizing the importance of mobile phones in its reader’s lives, Cosmopolitan and CosmoGIRL! today announced the debut of Cosmo Mobile and CosmoGIRL! Mobile. Developed in collaboration with Tira Wireless, a premier wireless application publisher and technology provider, these two premium wireless services extend Hearst’s Cosmopolitan and CosmoGIRL! brands to the mobile phones carried by the magazine’s target audiences - young women between 12 and 34 years of age.
The Cosmo Mobile (mobile.cosmopolitan.com) and CosmoGIRL! Mobile
(mobile.cosmogirl.com) services are immediately available to AT&T Wireless mMode™ customers.
“Our Cosmopolitan and CosmoGIRL! readers are always on the go, and nearly 70 percent of them own a cell phone. We wanted to give them a way to stay connected with their favorite brand,” said Glen Ellen Brown, vice president of Hearst brand development. “We can take full advantage of the highly visual, interactive capabilities of today’s cell phones to promote an ongoing dialogue with young women, and keep them engaged in the Cosmopolitan and CosmoGIRL! communities.”
The mobile phone, now with large color screens, wireless Internet capabilities and the ability to run interactive applications, is quickly being recognized as the newest channel for innovative marketers. For Cosmopolitan and CosmoGIRL!, the mobile phone is an ideal platform to extend their existing brands by connecting with the youthful, tech savvy, upscale female mobile phone user to deliver existing and exciting new content. In the U.S., there are an estimated 44 million young women aged 12-34, of which
2.8 million read Cosmopolitan and 1.25 million read CosmoGIRL! each month.
“Innovation in the mobile services market enables magazines like Cosmopolitan and CosmoGIRL! to turn a simple communication device into a powerful medium for building their brands,” said Chris Erickson, president and CEO of Tira Wireless. “These magazines can extend their globally recognizable brands by placing content where readers can see and interact with it while on the go.” Tira Wireless has utilized its technology to power the interactive components of these two new services, and has also developed a selection of downloadable Java applications.
“Tira has been an invaluable partner through every phase of this project,”
Brown continued. “Their wireless application publishing expertise and experience working with a wide variety of wireless technologies made them our top choice.”
Cosmo Mobile and CosmoGIRL! Mobile will offer a wide range of content,
including:
**Interactive Features: A US$2.49 per month subscription fee provides access to regularly updated interactive features and entertaining content created by the editors of Cosmopolitan and CosmoGIRL!, including quizzes, horoscopes and daily polls. Cosmo Mobile users also get relationship advice from guys, while the CosmoGIRL! subscribers receive up to date fashion and beauty tips. Along with daily horoscopes, and other content such as the ‘daily love temperature’, these features promote continued interaction between the publications and their readers.
**Ring tones: Music from renowned artists such as Justin Timberlake’s Rock Your Body and Beyonce’s Crazy in Love are just two examples of featured ring tones that can be easily downloaded onto subscriber’s phones.
** Wallpapers and Magazine Covers: Subscribers can download images from a selection of ‘Cosmo Hunks’ and magazine covers to personalize their phone screens.
** Downloadable Games: A provocative Cosmo Blackjack game enables players to uncover tiles revealing a ‘Cosmo hunk’; while CosmoGIRL! Mobile features CosmoGIRL! Truth or Dare, a game that can be played amongst a group of friends.
The launch of Cosmo Mobile and CosmoGIRL! Mobile is timed with the unveiling of the enhanced mMode service from AT&T Wireless. mMode brings together email, Internet-based content, games, and more all in one place on the wireless phone. The enhanced version of mMode features a more user-friendly design and interface, powerful personalization tools, exclusive navigation features, and a host of new applications for daily use in a mobile environment.
“With the launch of our enhanced mMode service, we made a conscious decision to establish relationships with lifestyle brands such as Cosmo, who would allow us to take advantage of the benefits of the new service to effectively attract interest from women - one of the fastest growing segments for our service,” said Sam Hall, VP of mMode Services at AT&T Wireless.
Cosmo Mobile and CosmoGIRL! Mobile utilize a number of wireless technologies including downloadable Java-based games and applications, SMS, X-HTML and WAP to deliver an interactive experience to subscribers.
About Tira Wireless
Tira Wireless is a premier wireless application publisher and technology provider for the Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) marketplace. Tira’s products and services aid mobile operators and wireless portals in the creation and delivery of world class Java download programs. From its experience as a leading wireless Java application publisher, Tira has developed proprietary J2ME technologies and services to enable the speedy and secure delivery of J2ME applications to market. These technologies include the Tira Jump platform and service for generating builds of J2ME applications for multiple devices from a single reference build, and Mobile Assure wireless application certification software and services. Tira also publishes a broad selection of wireless applications under the Tira Studios brand. Tira’s customers and partners include AT&T Wireless, Nextel, mmO2, mobilkom Austria, Telefonica Moviles España, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Nokia, Motorola, and the NHL. Tira Wireless is a privately held company funded by Brightspark Ventures of Toronto and Flagship Ventures of Cambridge. For more information visit www.tirawireless.com.
About Hearst Magazines
Hearst Magazines is a unit of The Hearst Corporation (www.hearst.com) and one of the world’s largest publishers of monthly magazines, with a total of
18 U.S. titles and 133 international editions. Hearst’s magazines are also read by more U.S. adult women than any other monthly magazine publisher. The company also publishes 18 magazines in the United Kingdom through its wholly owned subsidiary, The National Magazine Company Limited.
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