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London 25th July 2007: ROK Entertainment Group, the UK-based mobile
technologies and applications development company, today announced the
launch of ROK Media Store, following a 4 month trial and testing
process.
ROK Media Store - www.rokmediastore.com - is a web-based application, available
for free, which now enables the user to upload their music collection to their
PC and to sideload it to the memory card on their mobile phone. In addition, further
music and video content is available for purchase online and is delivered to
the buyer using ROK's proprietory content-compression and
copy-protection technologies.
"More than 100 million iPods have been sold worldwide in the past five years,
which clearly shows the enormous demand for music on the move" said Laurence Alexander,
CEO of ROK . "Mobile entertainment is a proven market which stretches back more
than 25 years from the days of the Sony Walkman, but when you look at the far
bigger scale of the mobile phone market, with 3 billion handsets in use, being
upgraded at the rate of 1 billion new handsets
every year, ROK Media Store is designed to allow millions more people the opportunity,
right now, to upload, manage and listen to music on their mobiles, in the same
way those with an iPod have been able to do."
"Most handsets are now sold with a removable memory card and while the cost of
memory cards has fallen considerably in the past year or so, their capacity is
increasing all the time" added Alexander "so we see people building a library
of memory cards containing their favourite music, managed via Media Store."
ROK believes Media Store offers people an alternative to buying an iPod. It offers
a real and viable alternative designed for a device you already own - your mobile
phone.
"We're not aiming to kill the iPod by simply offering yet another iPod-type device"
said Alexander "we're offering an easy-to-use and free-to-use, mass-market alternative
to having to buy an iPod."
ROK intend to monetise Media Store through a combination of online advertising
and through offering people the chance to purchase additional content via the
website for side-loading to their mobile phones, in a similar manner as iTunes.
"It's about time someone offered an alternative to iTunes in the mobile music
space." Said Alexander.
ROK will also be adding video functionality to the service later this year.
"In addition to simply uploading their own music to their mobile phones, which
is entirely free to use, we will be offering an ever-increasing portfolio of music
and video content for people to buy online to augment their collections in the
same way as iTunes sells music" continued Alexander "and we'll be adding more
video content, going-forward, to include everything from full-length movies to
music videos."
According to M:Metrics, 12% of people in the UK already download music to their
mobile phones.
Commenting on the launch, Jonathan Kendrick, Chairman of ROK said "We are very
confident Media Store will prove a big success as it's a fantastic and timely
addition to our portfolio of mobile entertainment technologies."
ROK Entertainment Group is currently deploying its mobile TV service streamed
over 2.5G via GPRS, 3G and WiFi networks to more than 30 operators worldwide as
well as direct to consumers via Nokia Eseries devices. In May this year, ROK announced
it had agreed to be acquired by US publicly-listed company CyberFund (OTC: CYFD)
in a Share Exchange Agreement.
About ROK: www.rokcorp.com
Formed by Jonathan Kendrick and John Paul DeJoria in 2003 with a mandate to develop
innovative technologies for the delivery of entertainment services to mobile phones,
ROK has been privately financed to date.
With 150 staff and offices in the UK, US and China, ROK has filed more than 40
international patent applications for it's suite of mobile technologies and applications.
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