PimpMyNews Users: Please Speak Up!

Our goal is to make PimpMyNews a "user-driven" application that makes it easy for you to get current on the blogs you love, by listening to them, anytime, anywhere.

And, that can only happen if you "join the Conversation."

Since we launched in December, we've received lots of great feedback from our valued users. And, we've used this feedback as the basis for the many enhancements we've made to date.

If you haven't shared your ideas to improve PimpMyNews, Now is Your Chance!

• Are we missing an awesome blog that you'd love to listen to?
• Got an idea for a "killer feature" you'd like to see?
• Or, perhaps you'd just like to tell us what you like, and what you don't like?

Please shoot us an email now at: Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com

Thanks for listening with PimpMyNews!

The PimpMyNews Team

>Don't Keep PimpMyNews All To Yourself - Spread The Word

Do YOU have a blog or a website? If so, we'd love it if you'd write about us, or, simply link to us at: www.PimpMyNews.com/

PimpMyNews Gets Listeners From 149 Countries, and New Features

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

[Original release 2/27/08, numbers updated 3/18/08]

New Media Startup Enables Users Around the Globe To Get Current

By Listening To Their Favorite News & Blog Sources On-The-Go

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. - March 18, 2008 - Web 2.0 startup PimpMyNews.com today announced new product features for its user base, which has grown to include users from 149 countries since its mid December launch.

PimpMyNews is a new media application that allows consumers to stay current on breaking stories from their favorite text news and blog sources by listening to them wherever they happen to be. The free service continuously scans the web’s top 1,000+ news and blog sites for breaking text stories, based on user preferences, and instantly converts them to near-human sounding audio. Users can listen online on computers, or on the go on iPhones, iPods, Zunes and other MP3 players and mobile devices. The service also allows users to create playlists and personalized news podcasts, rate and share “talking stories” with friends, and post them to Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx, and other social sites.

The company has rolled out a series of enhancements based on user feedback since the December launch of its full site at www.PimpMyNews.com. In mid January at Macworld, the company released its iPhone-optimized mobile application at www.PimpMyNews.com/m, which received Apple’s coveted “Staff Pick” designation.

Today, the company announced new mobile personalization features, integration with MySpace, and enhancements to its home screens. The new release allows mobile users to access their PimpMyNews favorites playlists from any location, delivering the same personalized news experience of the full site on mobile devices. Users can also now post audio versions of their favorite stories to MySpace to share them with their MySpace network. Additionally, the application home screens have been enhanced to load audio versions of the latest stories from the web’s top thirty blogs.

“Today, with our busy lifestyles, and the vast amount of news released each day, it’s difficult to stay current through traditional methods. PimpMyNews saves time by finding stories that you care about, and lets you get current by listening while you do other things like drive, work out, ride the train and more. It’s like TiVo for news and blogs,” said PimpMyNews Co-Founder & CEO John Atkinson.

Anyone with Internet access can sign up for the free service at www.PimpMyNews.com

About PimpMyNews

PimpMyNews scours the web 24/7 for text news and blog posts that you like, and converts them to audio that you listen to [vs. R-E-A-D] on your iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC, anytime, anywhere!

- Listen online or on-the-go, in the car, at the gym - anywhere
- Stay current on the news and blogs you care about
- Save time - your favorite stories come to you
- Express Yourself - share and rate stories, create playlists and more

###

Media Contact: Press@PimpMyNews.com

Blind Ambition, An Unexpected Blessing For Us

A few days after going live in mid December, we received a very "special" email saying: "Thank you for creating this service, it has opened up a whole new world of content to me."

A few days later, we received a similar email. - Then, they began to pour in.

>You Ask, ...What's so "special" about someone liking the service?

>The Answer? The senders of these emails are blind.

Close your eyes for 60 seconds, and think about all of the blogs and websites you enjoy reading.. Now, imagine if you could never see again.

Learning that our technology might make sightless people's lives a little more enjoyable has spurred us to take this on as a "corporate cause."

We're now in talks with charity orgs to figure out ways to help more of the visually impaired. (There are 10 million visually impaired people in the US).

We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on helping the visually impaired. Just comment on this post, or send your suggestions to Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com

Please stay tuned!

The Enquirer States: "Market Poised For PimpMyNews"

Writer Jeff Huggins contacted us about a week ago for a story he was working on for The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Jeff immediately grasped "the concept," and the consumer and publisher benefits that our personalized talking news solution provides. The story, titled "It's News to Me," recently ran in The Enquirer's print and online edition.

[You can read the full story on the Enquirer's website here: http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008802170394]

Below are a few excerpts from the story:

"Integrating several Web 2.0 technologies, PimpMyNews continuously scours more than 1,000 Internet sources for text news and blog posts, converting approximately 5,000 stories to a digital audio format each day. The service features about 315,000 archived talking news stories from 1,000-plus news and blog publishers.

'PimpMyNews is like TiVo for news and blogs,' explains co-founder and CEO, John Atkinson of Mason. 'Today, we have access to so many different news sources, but still everyone struggles to stay current. Our service puts consumers in control, letting them listen to breaking news on their own terms.'

Huggins then goes on to say:

"The market appears to be poised for PimpMyNews. According to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, nearly one in three Americans regularly get news online, and 39 percent of Internet users, or about 57 million adults, read blogs.

Additionally, a significant number of young people (13 percent), say they now get news via a cell phone, a personal digital assistant, such as a PalmPilot or Blackberry, or an iPod or other portable music player.

In the short time it has been live, PimpMyNews has enjoyed considerable critical acclaim."

>Anyone with Internet access can sign up for a free PimpMyNews Account at: http://www.pimpmynews.com/

>iPhone & iPod Touch users can access the mobile web application at: www.PimpMyNews.com/m

PimpMyNews Update and New iPhone Features!

We're excited that PimpMyNews is taking off around the world thanks to YOU (our valued users), the press and fellow bloggers, who are spreading the word about the instant benefit it provides to anyone looking for an easy way to stay current on their news and blogs.

We're now up to users from 114 countries, 1,000+ news and blog sources and 300,000+ talking stories online - and, we're adding new sources and more than 5,000 new stories every day.

When we started "this thing", we pledged that PimpMyNews would be "user-driven", and we're excited to announce that, based on your feedback, we've added even more time-saving features to PimpMyNews.

But first, for those of you who may not be familiar with PimpMyNews, here's the obligatory "elevator speech"...

Simply put, PimpMyNews makes your favorite news and blogs TALK. It scours the web's top 1,000 news and blog sites for breaking stories and instantly converts them to near-human sounding audio that you can listen to anytime, anywhere. You can listen on your Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod, or any ol' MP3 player.

With PimpMyNews, instead of being tied to a computer searching and reading, you can kick back at your computer and listen, or, you can take your content on-the-go and make the most out of your time while you drive, workout, cook and more.

We're Continually Enhancing PimpMyNews Based on Your Feedback:

>In mid December, we launched the full PimpMyNews site at PimpMyNews.com, which allows anyone to choose from the web's top news and blog sites to create a free "personalized talking newspaper."

>In mid January, we followed up with an iPhone-optimized version of PimpMyNews at Macworld, that allows you to listen to breaking stories from the web's top 30 News and Blog sites on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

>And now, we're pleased to announce a brand spankin' new "personalization" feature for iPhone and iPod Touch users... You can now log in and access your "PimpMyNews favorites playlist" on your iPhone or iPod Touch from anywhere!

To use this cool new feature, sign up on your Mac or PC at PimpMyNews.com and complete the brief Account Setup Wizard... then, login from your iPhone or iPod Touch at PimpMyNews.com/m

Plus, you can now save a PimpMyNews icon to your iPhone homescreen, so you'll be able to get to it with a single "tap" - to do this, while on PimpMyNews, just click the "plus" sign and click "Add to Home Screen."

Keep the great feedback coming to Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com, and remember to tell your friends about us!

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What They're Saying About PimpMyNews:

"It's like magic... PimpMyNews is ideal for productivity junkies who can satisfy their news and blog cravings while doing other things," says Touchtip.com. [http://tinyurl.com/3ajbkc]

"A great service for listening to your favorite news and blog sites... and sharing them," says Just Another iPhone Blog. [http://tinyurl.com/29jwol]

[About iPhone personalization] "It’s a great inclusion, and shows that the iPhone site is developing at a swift pace," says PocketPicks. [http://tinyurl.com/2sd4uu]

Talking iPhone Web Application Unveiled at Macworld, Receives Apple's Prestigious "Staff Pick" Designation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 16, 2008

New iPhone Web App Instantly Converts the Web’s Top Text News and Blogs to Audio -Allowing Users to Get Current & Multitask While Listening On-the-go

San Francisco, Calif. – January 16, 2008 – Web 2.0 startup PimpMyNews.com announced today at Macworld the debut of the world’s first “talking social news application” designed specifically for iPhones and iPod touch devices.

The application has received Apple’s prestigious “Staff Pick” designation and can now be accessed from any iPhone or iPod touch at www.PimpMyNews.com/m or through Apple’s web app directory.

The PimpMyNews web app features key functionality from the PimpMyNews full site, which launched in December at http://www.pimpmynews.com/. The web app scours the Internet for breaking text stories from the most popular news and blog sites and converts them to near-human sounding audio that users of iPhones, iPod touch devices and other mobile devices can listen to wherever they happen to be. Users can also share audio versions of stories with friends, or post them to other social sites including Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx and more.

Since the December launch of the core PimpMyNews offering, the company reports that visitors from 99 countries have flocked to http://www.pimpmynews.com/ to listen to audio versions of breaking news stories from the web’s top 1,000 text news and blog sites on their computers, iPhones, iPods, Zunes and other devices.

PimpMyNews users who sign up for the free service on the main site can create a “personalized talking newspaper” by selecting their favorite text news and blog sources from 59 unique categories, including Technology, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Colleges, Business and more. Users can listen online or on-the-go by creating a personalized news podcast that is continuously updated with fresh content from their favorite sources. The site has over 200,000 talking stories online, adds more than 4,000 new stories per day and was recently selected as “The Cool Site of the Day”.

“We’re excited to provide yet another option that empowers people to get current on their favorite news and blogs by listening to them anytime, anywhere. Being selected as a “Staff Pick” by Apple is further validation that PimpMyNews provides meaningful value to users everywhere,” said PimpMyNews Co-Founder & CEO John Atkinson

PimpMyNews will be demonstrating the new iPhone web app at Macworld in San Francisco this week. Members of the press can schedule a demo by emailing Press@PimpMyNews.com

About PimpMyNews
PimpMyNews scours the web 24/7 for text news and blog posts that you like and converts them to MP3’s that you listen to (vs. R-E-A-D) on your iPod, iPhone or PC – anytime, anywhere!

- Stay current on the news and blogs you care about
- Save time – your favorite stories come to you
- Listen online or on-the-go – in the car, at the gym – anywhere
- Express Yourself – share and rate stories, create playlists and more

###

Media Contact: Press@PimpMyNews.com

PimpMyNews Picked as Today's "Cool Site Of The Day"

We love it when others help us spread the news about PimpMyNews, and we're very thankful for the press, fellow bloggers, "Twitterers" and "Diggers" who have been spreading the word since we launched a few weeks ago.

Last week, the folks over at "Cool Site of the Day" contacted us to let us know that PimpMyNews had been chosen as their "Cool Site of the Day" for today (Monday, January 7th, 2008). After Googling them and seeing praise about them from Yahoo and New York times, our excitement grew.

- Yahoo says they're "the original and still the best."

- New York Times calls them "the arbiter of good taste on the Internet."

Then Panic Set in...
We asked ourselves, "What if 'Cool Site' brought an avalanche of millions of people with click-happy fingers to our site today? Could our tireless, "near-human sounding robots" fetch and read the news fast enough?

As I write this blog post at 7:36 pm eastern, I'm happy to say that our traffic has more than tripled, and we haven't heard a single complaint from our "robo news team."

I suppose as long as we continue to treat them humanely and provide a rewarding upward career path for them, the "PimpMyNews machine" will continue to run like a top. (Fingers crossed, of course ;)

Please cast your vote for PimpMyNews at "Cool Site of the Day"

On a side note - keep sending your feedback to Suggestions@PimpMyNews.com - and share a talking PimpMyNews story to your mother-in-law.