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WirelessDevNet.com Press Release
CONVERGENT MEDIA HITS THE MOBILE PHONE
Santa Monica, CA May 13, 2004 - The Spot, an original drama series produced for both wireless phones and the Internet launched today on Sprint PCS Vision Phones marking a breakthrough in full multimedia interactive content. The Spot is the first convergent media experience available today for Internet, Mobile Phones and all media. The Spot follows the daily lives of six twenty-something’s living in a seven-bedroom beach house in Santa Monica. California. The shows can now be accessed on select Sprint PCS Vision Phones nationwide as well as at the website wwwthespot.com.
The Spot was unveiled today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles by Roberta Jean Smith, president of Cyber Oasys Corp., the Santa Monica based Internet and wireless content provider. “Now, cell phone users can interact with the show that made history when it introduced a new paradigm of entertainment almost a decade ago as the world’s first episodic website,” said Smith. Sprint PCS Vision users can now interact with The Spot wireless show and The Spotmates and directly influence the flow and plot of the series.
The new series is delivered in a rich TV like multimedia format to cell phones using groundbreaking 1KTV technology developed by Los Angeles based technology and content conversion company V-Star.
“Sprint has always prided itself on putting pop culture in the palms of its customers’ hands via PCS Vision,” said Jeff Hallock, vice president of consumer product marketing for Sprint. “Reality series have developed an avid following and Sprint is excited to deliver the first reality series to the mobile world.”
Produced by StewdioMedia Entertainment Group, The Spot is the first convergence based drama series for wireless and web to use writers, actors and photographers the same way a television show would. However award winning Executive Producer of The Spot, Stewart St. John, whose writing and producing credits include television series for Warner Brothers Television, The Disney Channel and Fox said today, “creating original content for wireless brings its own set of production rules. You can’t think in terms of the way you would create for television or a website and just re-purpose it and throw it up on mobile phones. Storytelling on wireless and the Web by the very nature of the platforms has to be fully interactive to succeed.”
The Spot first launched on the World Wide Web on June 7, 1995 and created a global sensation quickly becoming one of the most visited sites on the Web. Engrossed by the twists and turns in the lives of The Spot housemates the audience from more than 35 countries logged on every day, seven days a week and the media dubbed the site as an icon of its time. In its first year The Spot walked off with the Webby Award for Cool Site of the Year from InfiNet and was hailed by Daily Variety as “Making the efforts of communications giants to produce interactive content look like Edsels on the infopike.
At the end of first quarter 2004, Sprint announced nearly 4.2 million Sprint PCS Vision customers and leads the industry in adoption of advanced wireless-data services. Sprint PCS Vision includes services that allow customers to take and receive pictures from select Sprint PCS Phones; browse the Internet at speeds faster than most dial-up connections; check personal and corporate e-mail; watch clips and stream audio for news and music; and download polyphonic, animated and voice ringers and full-color, graphically-rich games and screen savers, anywhere on the enhanced Sprint nationwide PCS network.
About Cyber Oasys
Cyber Oasys Corp., located in Santa Monica, CA is the owner of internet-based creative properties including dramatic series and games. The company has re-launched www.thespot.com, the first episodic interactive drama on the Internet, and has joined with V-Star and Stewdio Media Entertainment, LLC, to integrate a wireless component to “The Spot.” By implementing its strategy to explore interactivity between multi-media platforms, Cyber Oasys has created another first as the content provider for wireless applications.
About V-Star
V-Star (www.1ktv.com) is a Los Angeles based technology and content conversion company that enables the delivery of consumer preferred high quality television like programming, to the emerging wireless infotainment industry. V-Star’s breakthrough 1KTV technology delivers instant, on-demand television quality news, information and entertainment programming to new Java enabled wireless phones.
About StewdioMedia
StewdioMedia Entertainment Group (www.stewdiomedia.com) is a Los Angeles based production company responsible for producing The Spot Wireless. StewdioMedia is an independent production company formed by writer/producer/director Stewart St. John and producer/artist Todd Fisher. StewdioMedia creates original content for film, television, animation and new media, including Internet and wireless entertainment.
About Sprint
Sprint is a global integrated communications provider serving more than 26 million customers in more than 100 countries. With approximately 67,000 employees worldwide and more than $26 billion in annual revenues in 2003, Sprint is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying state-of-the-art network technologies, including the United States’ first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and an award-winning Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint provides local communications services in 39 states and the District of Columbia and operates the largest 100-percent digital, nationwide PCS wireless network in the United States. For more information, visit www.sprint.com
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