PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wizzard Media (NYSE Amex: WZE), the world’s leading podcasting network, today announced the availability of their popular Podcast Apps in the new Amazon online App marketplace: Android Appstore.
Amazon, (NASDAQ:AMZN), a leading global Internet company, is one of the most trafficked Internet retail destinations worldwide with approximately 100 million visitors annually. The marketing and sales reach of Amazon will boost opportunities for discovery and sales of Wizzard Apps by extending the proven Amazon model to Android Apps for smartphones and tablets.
In addition to the 1,100 Apps Wizzard currently offers through Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Marketplace, over 300 Apps have already been submitted to the Amazon Appstore for inclusion in the initial rollout over the next several weeks. The standard list price for the Podcast App for Android will be $1.99.
“We are honored to have been selected to have our Apps sold on Amazon.com, the world’s largest internet only e-commerce website, and to be a part of their launch of the Amazon Android Appstore,” says Chris Spencer, Wizzard Media CEO. “Google allows for multiple App stores to exist for the Android operating system and we believe that by adding more high quality, high profile distribution outlets for our Android Apps, we will reach more customers and ultimately, increase App revenues.”
There are now over 72 million activated Android phones, growing at over 200,000 new activations each day, and mobile Apps revenues are predicted to surge to $29.5 billion by 2013 (Google, Gartner and Canalys). With the addition of Amazon, one of the strongest brands on the Internet, Wizzard Apps will gain significant exposure to a new consumer base. Management believes this will lead to increased App sales, network downloads and growth in unique audiences.
Among the first of Wizzard’s podcast Apps now live in the Amazon Appstore include: archiCADmonkey, AllThingsThatFly.com - ATTF, Driving Sports TV, Art of the Drink-Bartending TV, Pod F. Tompkast, Photography Tips, Dave's Lounge - Downtempo Music App, Eagle Heights, GamerTag Radio App.
Amazon plans to increase daily traffic to the Appstore, quickly ramping downloads for Apps and leverage its powerful online sales and marketing platform to compete with Google Marketplace. Apps can be previewed online prior to download and a free App-of-the-day will highlight Premium Apps. Utilizing Amazon’s strength for cross-marketing, Apps will also be recommended to users within the Appstore and when browsing other online stores within Amazon.
The Amazon Android Appstore currently offers several thousand Android apps and is accessible from both Amazon.com and through a mobile App. Amazon states that it offers the “Earth’s Biggest Selection”, where customers can find anything they might want to purchase online including books, music, videos, consumer electronics, clothing, household products and now, Android Apps. Amazon already sells a vast amount of digital content ranging from e-books to movies-on-demand. Their online music store rivals Apple’s iTunes music store and sells music for most mobile devices. According to comScore, Amazon’s U.S. monthly unique audience was 76.7 million in September 2010.
About Wizzard Media:
Wizzard Media provides publishing and distribution services to podcasters and monetization services for podcasters. Wizzard Media is the industry's leading podcasting network with an unprecedented 1.64 billion download requests in 2010. Podcasts are a means for independent and professional content creators to publish audio and video shows for the world to enjoy over the Internet or on mp3 players, such as the Apple iPod®, iPhone® and the Microsoft Zune®. Podcasting is a relatively new phenomenon, but Wizzard Media collectively broadcasts millions of podcast downloads per day through media aggregators like Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune Marketplace. For more information, please visit www.wizzardsoftware.com/media.
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