MUZU.TV FOUNDERS WIN OVERALL NET VISIONARY AWARD
Dublin – MAY 22, 2009 – Music TV website MUZU.TV (www.muzu.tv), got a major accolade last night when its founders were named Overall Net Visionaries at the annual IIA & Enterprise Ireland Net Visionary Awards. MUZU.TV has built one of the largest music video offerings on the web, where music lovers can watch and discover tens of thousand of music videos for free, covering everything from live concerts and documentaries to official music videos and rare, archive footage. Site visitors can create and watch their own personal video playlists and share them with their friends by embedding them on their social networking pages like Bebo, Facebook and MySpace. MUZU.TV is a global business with a 100% focus on music video, with an emphasis on high quality, license cleared content.

Following a three-stage process of nominations from the public, judging by a panel of their peers and voting by the public, 15 winners were announced from amongst 71 shortlisted business people. The IIA Board choose the Overall Net Visionary, awarding this accolade to MUZU.TV founders Mark French and Ciaran Bollard for having developed a visionary online product or service. The award follows MUZU.TV’s 2008 designation as ‘New Company of the Year’ by the Irish Software Industry.

“We’re really honoured to have received such a prestigious award,” said Ciaran Bollard, CEO and co-founder of MUZU.TV. “It’s truly the icing on the cake in what has been an amazing year for us so far, with a host of new deals with major and independent record labels and accelerated growth in consumers using the site, particularly in the U.K. and Ireland. MUZU.TV continues to receive incredible support from the music industry and advertisers alike and we look forward to building upon these relationships and making the site a global success.”

Announcing this year’s winner, Maeve Kneafsey, IIA Chair, pointed out that the only limit to Irish companies’ reach worldwide is their imagination: “This year’s Overall Net Visionaries, Ciarán Bollard and Mark French of MUZU.TV, have developed a TV website and distribution platform that shows that world beating businesses can be founded and funded here in Ireland. MUZU is an inspiration to the current and future generations of Internet entrepreneurs who know that the Internet means that there are no boundaries on what we can do in Ireland, the only limit being our imagination.”

Developing this theme, Fergal O’Byrne, IIA CEO, commented, “This is the third year that the visionary behind a niche application with global appeal has been presented with this award. In 2007 it was Fergus Burns of Nooked.com, and in 2008 Pat Phelan of MaxROAM. Now in 2009 Ciarán Bollard and Mark French of MUZU have been honoured for creating specialised applications that leverage the power and global reach of the internet to create sustainable and scalable businesses.”

MUZU.TV for the Music Industry
MUZU.TV enables labels and bands to broadcast their music video on the web and get paid wherever it goes. MUZU pays content owners half of all the ad revenue generated from display ads on their MUZU channels and ‘in-video’ adverts within their MUZU players, both on MUZU and when players are embedded on external sites like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo or other external sites. Any band or label can create their own branded music TV channel on MUZU, featuring multiple video playlists, along with a personalised profile, messaging and fans or friends section. On MUZU content owners always retain the rights over their video content and get paid royalties as normal through MUZU’s agreement with the collection societies. They also retain full control over their video as they decide what goes live and can add or remove any of their videos whenever they feel like it.

MUZU for Music Fans
For music fans, MUZU is primarily about watching, creating and sharing unlimited music video playlists. Fans can access over 10,000 artist channels including major label acts like MGMT, The Ting Tings, White Stripes, Adele, Bon Iver, Cold Play, David Bowie, The Kooks and Beyonce, and up and coming indie bands like Fight Like Apes. Fans can also create their own Music TV Channels featuring any video on MUZU, and embed them in their social networking pages further increasing the revenue potential for bands. Fans can also feature on their favourite artist channels by uploading video they have created on that artist. They can also interact with other fans, discover and share music, all legally and at no cost.

MUZU.TV is based in Dublin, Ireland.
For more information, interviews etc. please contact:
Graeme Slattery
+353 1 487 7740
+353 833302015
Graeme.slattery@muzu.tv