Linkin Park's Enhanced Music CD Developer is to Speak at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 26th

Direct band2fan television, behind the scenes video, website toolkits, secret sneakers and VIP shows. What happened to the days of buying a CD for the music?

Music is still the most important reason to buy a CD, but thanks to enhanced CD features developed by SF interactive agency Sparkart, fans are purchasing more albums of their favorite bands rather than solely burning such content of the internet.

"This marks a major positive shift in the recording industry. Sparkart has created innovative concepts for our clients that are allowing them to offer the ultimate fan experience on a compact disc," states Sparkart CEO Naveen Jain.

The proof is in the numbers. Even though Linkin Park's Meteora was leaked on the internet a week before its release, the album sold 810,000 copies in its first week making it the #1 album on the Billboard charts and Sparkart's enhanced CD project a breakthrough for the recording industry.

Even though the concept of enhanced CDs was introduced in the early 1990s, fans found a majority of its exclusive content to be kitsch.

"I can't explain how important it was for a band like Linkin Park who care so much about their fans to work with Naveen. Sparkart's core values are consistent with LP and it is reflected in everything from the design of our website & enhanced CDs to our online fan club. In the world of interactive technology, we consider Naveen to be the top of his industry," states Rob McDermott, manager of Linkin Park.

Within 10 weeks of the debut of the album, Linkin Park's online fan club and exclusive media/toolkit via the enhanced CD was visited over 125,000 times.

On Thursday, June 26th at 10:30 AM in San Francisco's Moscone Center, Jain will address how enhanced CDs can help fight music piracy and develop stronger bonds between bands and fans, and the Sparkart "BandBuilder" suite of products called FanRM (Fan Relationship Management).

FanRM was launched unofficially with the debut of Linkin Park's latest album Meteora. Since Meteora chart-topping success in the face of music piracy, the industry has learned that effective fan relationship management will actually enable the internet to help boost record sales instead of hurting them.

About Apple's World Wide Developer Conference:

The five-day event, which runs from June 23rd-27th in San Francisco CA, will feature more than 170 scheduled in-depth technical sessions with new content designed to serve a wider range of Mac developers, including a dedicated track for QuickTime developers and content creators.

About Sparkart:

Sparkart has helped its clients achieve record results in brand awareness, incremental revenue streams, nationwide tracking, and award-winning design and production.

Sparkart's clients consistently appear in the Billboard Music Chart's Top 5 such as 50 Cent, Michelle Branch, Korn, Mariah Carey, Kylie Minogue, Tupac, Limp Bizkit, Zwan, and Rob Zombie to name a few.

Sparkart also manages major brand campaigns for Pony and Heineken. www.sparkart.com.

Contact: Vijay Chattha Company: VSC Consulting Title: Media Contact Voice: 415-305-6041 Email: vijay@vscconsulting.com