fizwoz launches first ever marketplace for consumer captured photos and videos

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) September 30, 2009 -- San Francisco, Calif., October 1, 2009— San Francisco-based start-up fizwoz, Inc. today announced the launch of its service fizwoz™, the first ever online auction site for mobile phone captured photos and videos. fizwoz matches consumer content with potential buyers from television networks to social networking sites.

Allowing sellers to post their photos or videos to the marketplace within seconds of capturing the image, fizwoz provides a native application for almost all smart phones worldwide including the Apple iPhone®, Blackberry®, Nokia®, and Windows Mobile® phones. Consumers need only download the free application and begin taking photos or videos with their mobile device. Content can then be posted on fizwoz.com in the following categories: breaking news, public figures, entertainment, sports, places and fun. Sellers set a starting bid, optional reserve price and “buy now” price. This information together with a description and other metadata is posted immediately to the fizwoz auction.

Potential content purchasers are members of the media around the globe, including but not limited to television and cable networks, local television stations, newspapers, magazines, special interest media, emerging media, social networking companies, corporations, independent journalists and bloggers in both print and web applications. Buyers on fizwoz create a free account and identify the category or categories that match their editorial focus. Potential bidders in the auction are notified by fizwoz that content submitted matches their interest and they can then bid on the items they want, similar to other auction sites, and content is sold to the highest bidder.

.“In the ever changing landscape of citizen journalism and user-generated content, fizwoz offers an interesting dynamic of opportunity for both mobile device users and companies looking for relevant up-to-date content. The recent events in Iran serve as a perfect example of this,” said Mike Sargent, president of Sargent Media and former vice president of editorial photography at Getty Images. “It allows media companies to be more places at once just by allowing consumers to become photo suppliers.” Media outlets will also benefit from the fizwoz marketplace. Content buyers will purchase only what they need and have exclusive rights to the image once they have purchased it.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for citizen journalists to earn anything from bragging rights to substantial sums of cash,” said Andy Sheldon, founder and CEO of fizwoz. “From catching a chance encounter with a celebrity to offering reasonably priced editorial photography, everyone with a smart phone could be using their device to capture a video or photographic treasure and put it in front of buyers and journalists around the globe within seconds.”

The company has been beta testing the service with over two hundred active sellers and will roll out new features to the service in the coming weeks.

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