Internet Music Pioneer TheDJ.com Morphs Into Spinner.com

Business Wire, July 15, 1998

BURLINGAME, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 15, 1998--

New Brand, Enhanced Internet Products, National Partners and Further Investment Paves Spinner.com's Way in the Hot Internet Music Space

TheDJ.com, the premier Internet music service, announced it has renamed and rebuilt itself, from the ground up, as Spinner.com. The new name reflects the company's ambitious move to define and lead the new "Internet music service" category.

The new Spinner.com will leverage TheDJ.com's two years of category development, rapid audience growth and consumer loyalty. The new service will continue to provide consumers with multiple channels (music genres) of continuous-music programming, while providing a host of new features, new content and services, name-brand partners, and a new streamlined look.

With this announcement, the TheDJ.com's pare the millions soon to be exposed to our productis where visitors will first encounter the new of the Web-based Spinner player that can be laurchief engineer, Dave Bill, has developed and r."

The personalization technology, tenta 2 -- are reserved on the Spinner and Spinner Pthat time, the company quadrupled in size from said Josh Felser, president of Spinner.com, an designed -- and destined -- for mass-acceptance," Felser said.

Spinner.com Launches With A-list Partners

Spinner.com has assembled a network of leading partners to support its new brand focus. National advertisers like Intel and record labels like Warner Bros. Records Inc. have all stepped forward to collaborate with Spinner.com. In addition, Spinner.com has teamed up with Amazon.com by joining its Associates program. A prominent "Buy This CD at Amazon.com" link will appear above the album art on the Spinner.com music players.

"Spinner.com's comprehensive playlist of over 100,000 complete songs has something to offer virtually every type of music lover," said Shawn Haynes, group product manager, Amazon.com. "For the first time you can buy the music you like as you are listening to it -- even if you don't know the artist or title of the song you just heard. Gone are the days of attempting to identify a song by humming it to a store clerk."

Spinner.com Positioned as an Everyday Product ... and Not "Radio"

Consumer testing during the months prior to launch determined the specific features to include, as well as clear direction on what consumers were looking for in an Internet music service. "Consumers told us, in no uncertain terms, they want a product that is simple to use, offers complete control over their listening experience, and has a wide variety of music. In other words, the complete antithesis of what they know as 'radio'," said Scott Epstein, vice president of marketing, Spinner.com.

Epstein continued, "The term 'radio' is loaded with baggage. Consistently consumers told us that radio 'doesn't offer the music I want,' 'has too many interruptions,' and 'has too much talk'," Epstein said. Consumers also complained that most of the current streaming-audio options don't offer whole songs, played one after another.

"Others in our space make consumers work too hard. What consistraction." The launch of Spinner.com is inner.com (formerly TheDJ.com) is the premier Internet music service, delivering more than 100,000 digitized to raise entertainment to a new octave. The Spie online purchases and real-time listener feedba(UBL), as well as more than 100 record labels. obtained. The main

page is also home to a those channels, genre-specific news and cstened-to channels; link to artist information a and feel of the Spinner.com and Spinner player Spinner player, which can be operated as

ahich is incorporated into the application. No additional software or plug -ins are needed. Spinner Plus "drag and drop" presets allows the user to personalize their interface, and quickly return to their favorite music channels whenever they initiate the player.

r player and

have it launch from their ownn their own site and brand "environment," whether or not users are on their Web sites. Partners also have the opportunity to add specific features and functionaRD: CALIFORNIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: ENTERTAINur home page. URL: http://www.businesswire.com