NeoMedia Technologies, Inc (NEOM)

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DD Hearst Magazines Teams with Volantis to Launch Mobile Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, and CosmoGIRL!; New Mobile Brands for Young Women Extends Hearst Magazines' Multimedia Strategy

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060328005...


SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 28, 2006--Volantis, the world's leading supplier of Intelligent Content Adaptation(TM) solutions for the Mobile Information Age, and Hearst Corporation, one of the largest diversified communications companies, today announced the launch of Hearst Magazines' Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, and CosmoGIRL! for mobile devices. The three leading publications, targeting young women aged 12 - 34, will be mobilized utilizing Volantis' Mobile Content Framework(TM) and will be available on both the Cingular Wireless and Sprint-Nextel networks.


These newest mobile offerings represent Hearst's drive to further develop new distribution channels for its brands, increase readership and build brand support for its unique publications. For initial launch, the downloadable content includes ringtones, "hot" wallpapers, daily horoscopes and a variety of editorial content.

"We are thrilled to provide women with the opportunity to have even easier, always-on access to their favorite information sources for fashion, fun and other lifestyle trends," said Glen Ellen Brown, Vice President of Hearst Brand Development. "This partnership enables us to lead the publishing industry by utilizing Volantis' technology as a platform to establish new media markets and overcome the complexity and daunting diversity of device platforms to fully extend our branded content into the wireless world.""

"We are particularly pleased to have Hearst move to the Volantis platform as a strategic decision to build on Hearst's previous success in wireless," said Matthew Harris, Chief Executive Officer of Volantis. "Hearst's drive to innovate further in wireless matches well with our goal to extend the reach of Hearst Magazine titles to the broadest possible base of mobile consumers."

Hearst Magazines, a unit of The Hearst Corporation, is one of the world's largest publishers of monthly magazines, with 19 U.S. titles and more than 100 international editions. Cosmopolitan, one of the oldest Hearst titles, is the largest-selling young women's magazine and magazine franchise in the world. Since its founding in 1886 the magazine has been famous for its upbeat style and reporting on modern social trends.

Seventeen has been a leading magazine for women since its debut in 1944 by helping to define, socialize, and empower young women. Over the past 62 years Seventeen has helped shape teenage life, reaching 14.45 million readers per month nationwide.

CosmoGIRL!, a publication launched in 1999 which targets young women between 12 and 34 years of age, has received several industry accolades for its success in consumer publishing and has more than 1.25 million readers.

Notes to editors:

Images of the site are available on http://www.volantis.com/story.jsp?story=media_main&tnav=news

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 19 U.S. titles and 145 international editions. Hearst reaches more adults than any other publisher of monthly magazines (76.3 million according to MRI, spring 2005). The company also publishes 19 magazines in the United Kingdom through its wholly owned subsidiary, The National Magazine Company Limited.

About Volantis

Volantis (www.volantis.com) is the world's leading supplier of Intelligent Content Adaptation(TM) solutions for the mobile Internet, providing applications, tools and platforms that solve the complexity of delivering optimized services to any mobile device.

Volantis' extensive experience of serving content providers, mobile network operators, and enterprises, along with its standards leadership, enable a unique position for Volantis to create innovative technology for the Mobile Information Age that is more useful and more useable than the PC Internet of today.

Volantis is used around the world by organizations such as 3, Accenture, Channel 4, Cingular, CSC, Discovery, eBay.co.uk, FT.com, HP, IBM, lastminute.com, MobileOne, Orange Poland, Reuters, Telefonica Moviles, Telecom Italia Mobile and Telenor Mobil. Volantis also Chairs the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Device Independence Working Group and is a Founding Member of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative.

Volantis global headquarters are in Seattle, USA, with international offices in London, UK, Hong Kong, China, Madrid, Spain and Krakow, Poland. Volantis is privately held with investors Accel Partners, Kennet Venture Partners, and SOFTBANK Europe Ventures.

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