AirMedia Debuts Business-to-Business Marketplace for Wireless Content - Brief Article

Wireless Internet, May, 2001

AirMedia unveiled its wireless hub, a new service that brings together content providers and distributors in a unique business-to-business on-line marketplace.

Using the AirMedia hub, content providers of all sizes -- from the largest commercial news services to the smallest local content providers -- can publish and sell information. In turn, wireless content distributors -- including large corporations, telecom carriers, and content aggregators, among others -- can select and buy content from the AirMedia hub and then market and distribute it to their end users under their own brand names. Already more then 50 content providers, including AccuWeather.com, The Guardian in the UK, and Nando Media, have signed on to license their content through the AirMedia. In addition, the company is in negotiations with several global media companies to both license and distribute content.

AirMedia's hub serves a variety of different wireless business models, including advertiser-supported and subscriber-supported content, as well as corporate content that is distributed wirelessly for internal use. The AirMedia hub handles all infrastructure and back-end services associated with both publishing and marketing content, including content transcoding for multiple devices and delivery -- as well as financial clearing and settlement between all parties.

The company's patented platform has been tested for more than two years, and offers its users flexibility with regard to content (more than 2,500 channels currently available), networks (connections in place to over 98 percent of the carriers, operators, and wireless resellers in North America and the UK) and mobile devices (seven classes currently supported, including WAP, SMS, Palm, paging, Pocket PC, iMode, and voice). Among the content available are many local and niche market services that are difficult to find elsewhere. The AirMedia hub currently offers automated financial clearing for retail, wholesale, ad-supported, and subsidized wireless offerings, and will automatically track and clear payments between all parties whether by credit card, operator billing, or transfers between banks.