Targetize Wins Major South American Contract

June 28, 2006; 02:17 AM

Targetize (www.targetize.com), a start-up company that develops next-generation content search solutions for the mobile web - using cell phones to quickly and easily search and retrieve web content to the user's mobile handset, announces its entrée into the South American market. Targetize has signed an agreement with the South American media giant "La Nacion" (www.lanacion.com), the second largest newspaper in Argentina, and one of the most broadly distributed in all of South America. The local telecom power Mobistar (Telefonica Argentina) is the third partner in this content access troika.

The company's Targetize Mobile Web(R) technology was deployed in a record time of only two weeks from project initiation, and is already providing content search and retrieval to every mobile phone user in Argentina. La Nacion's portal is accessed by some 2.5 million users per month, and they predict a sharp increase now, due to the addition of mobile access. Mobistar has also adopted the technology, and provides Mondial (World Cup) content, fed from La Nacion, on its own dedicated portal.

The Targetize - La Nacion cooperative agreement is based on sharing the advertising revenue. Targetize expects this to expand in the near future to include both a broader spectrum of activity with La Nacion, as well as with other media/content sources and service providers in Argentina.

Targetize has developed technology using mobile handsets for smart web searching of web-based content and data - quickly and easily. Relevant content is personalized ("targetized"), and retrieved fully to the user's mobile according to a highly accurate personal key. The Targetize platform is geared for use by both content providers and service providers to provide profitable and enjoyable value added services to their subscribers. The most popular content categories to date include music, video, sports, news and others.

The Targetize solution overcomes the difficulties of searching via the tiny interface of the mobile phone screen by successfully reducing the search process to three-clicks or less. Relevant, personalized content (actual content, not just links) is rapidly displayed on the handset, streamlining the search and retrieval process.

La Nacional's portal provides World Cup/Mondial related content in the first stage. The system was designed to work very quickly, providing the desired content within 3 seconds on games and even individual players. The system is able to anticipate full names and words, so pressing "ron" will quickly present content on "Ronaldinho". The Targetize technology quickly "learns" the end-user's preferences, and interests, and uses this to targetize the content for greater relevance.

Avichai Levy, Targetize CEO: "Our rapid entrée into the South American marketplace was made possible by our unique technology, and the vast range of options it provides content and service providers." Levy added, "Since introducing Targetize's technology at the 3GSM Exhibition, we have been overwhelmed with interest from around the world, and expect to announce additional contracts in the near future".

Recently, Targetize completed a 1.5 million dollar financing round. Many private and public investment groups are increasingly expressing interest in Targetize, which has led the company to decide on entering another round of financing ($5 million), at a much higher valuation, due to the company's continued growth and success.

About Targetize:

Targetize, an integrated mobile search software vendor, takes a two-pronged approach to tackle the usability problem by monitoring usage, preferences and search patterns to offer relevant targetized content, coupled with direct access to the entire web. Targetize Mobile Web (TMW) combines strong usability and application experience with in-house technology, all within an acceptable click-distance of three clicks.

Based on 10 years of search engine technology experience, Targetize has developed and deployed a new approach to mobile search and discovery that goes a step beyond a list of relevant results. TMW technology actually analyzes user interests to present "targeted and prioritized" content from various sources directly from the web onto the handset screen. This provides quicker, richer content meeting the user's personal interests, which increases user satisfaction and interest. Commercial systems are in use with major content and service providers around the world.