Mybeat rolls out to 5FM

Johannesburg, 03 Apr 2003

The Mybeat music service, which was launched with funds from Mark Shuttleworth`s venture capital company a year ago, has rolled out to music station 5FM.

The roll-out follows successful trial implementations in the past few months, with pilot implementations nationally on Metro FM and regionally on Classic FM and other stations.

Mybeat marketing director Rodney Kuhn says to date, thousands of users have tested Mybeat ahead of the imminent full-scale launches on these stations. "The results from our pilots have been extremely positive and we anticipate that Mybeat will be a huge hit with consumers and advertisers."

Mybeat Interactive Technologies was recently funded by Shuttleworth`s innovation fund, HBD Venture Capital, and aims to revolutionise the way consumers discover music by allowing a new level of interactivity between the station, listeners and advertisers.

Mybeat`s patented technology enables radio listeners to use their mobile phones to get more information about songs played on their favourite radio station. Information is received instantly via SMS and is also logged on the Mybeat Web site.

"The partnership between 5FM and Mybeat is truly symbiotic," says John Langford, acting station manager at 5FM. "Listeners win with a value-added service, 5FM wins through the natural way by which our music offering is extended into new technology, and Mybeat made it all possible in a simple, seamless manner."

"Mybeat`s technology has been specifically designed with today`s consumer psychology in mind," says Jarrod Hermer, Mybeat`s technology director. "We wanted to keep it simple, fun and slick for the consumer and concurrently build a strong value offering for the radio, music and advertising industries."