Message #78 From:
NewsBot Date: November 14, 2006 01:51:00 PM
WIZD News Wizzard Software Shareholder Update
PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wizzard Software (OTCBB:WIZD) released a shareholder overview today
regarding its most recent accomplishments. The full text follows:
The first three quarters of 2006 have been an exciting year of growth,
team-building, identifying opportunities and capitalizing on ideas.
Management would like to thank our employees for all the hard work and
long hours they've been putting in, resulting in solid progress toward
our Company's goals. We are pleased to announce that for the seventh
consecutive quarter our revenues have increased over the same period in
the previous year and in the 3rd quarter of 2006
Wizzard posted record revenues. Our investments in key hires, marketing
programs, product innovation and business development are starting to
show results.
Our most recent announcements have discussed our entry into the
fast-growing, exciting podcasting industry. With the acquisitions of Switchpod
and Blast Podcast and the
pending acquisition of Liberated
Syndication, we now are the largest podcasting network in the world.
Currently, we broadcast over 43 million podcast downloads per month to
at least 13 million people worldwide. In 2006, this collective group of
podcasting hosts distributed over 360 million audio and video podcast
downloads. In September of this year alone, they broadcast over 7
million hours of content. This is a massive amount of user generated and
professional content and the growth in listeners, downloads and content
is staggering.
By joining forces, we can provide these companies with the operating
capital they need to continue their impressive growth, increase capacity
and maintain their dominant status in the industry while at the same
time expand our revenues by helping podcasters monetize their shows
through unique advertising and sponsorship engagements. These
acquisitions combine the world's largest and fastest growing podcast
networks with Wizzard's expertise in speech technology integration,
creating a powerful new service for podcasters worldwide. The combined
companies will focus on providing independent content creators with
comprehensive search engine indexing, transcription and blogging
integration and new tools so that they may better attract advertisers
and sponsors by allowing them to reach highly-targeted audiences with
more relevant advertising and promotional opportunities.
In addition to the acquisitions we also announced a partnership with
Voice Factory International to distribute over 100 of their
professionally recorded audio books as free podcasts, subsidized with
advertisements. These audio books include such classics as Treasure
Island, War of the Worlds, Sherlock Holmes and the Holy
Bible. The first two books we released for podcasting, Plato's The
Republic, and War of the Worlds by HG Wells, are currently
ranked #3 and #15 in the top 100 K-12 Educational podcasts in iTunes.
Overall, out of the over 7000 podcasts we broadcast, 75 rank in the top
100 in their respective category in iTunes; 25 of these rank in the top
10, and we have three number one shows in the Music, Health and
Education categories. (All stats as of 11/06/06).
In September Wizzard announced that we retained Ibis Consulting Group of
Newport Beach, California, to assist with our investor relations
outreach to institutional investors. Ibis, with a strong West Coast
presence, has a track record of success in introducing companies such as
ours to institutional and retail investors, mutual and retirement funds,
portfolio managers and others who can make a significant difference. In
October Wizzard announced a $1.75M financing package with three
institutional investors at $2.00 per share. This funding allowed us to
make our recent acquisitions and to continue to aggressively pursue the
podcasting market. Our shares were also recently added to the ID3
Podcast Index along with Apple, RealNetworks and Adobe.
Also in October, we announced that Harvard Extension School had selected
Switchpod.com to host their Computer Science E-1 course podcast. For
nearly a century Harvard Extension School has given the wider community
access to many of Harvard University's academic resources and, while
doing so, has provided a curriculum that continually evolves to meet the
interests and needs of its students. These courses are taught by
distinguished Harvard professors, lecturers, and affiliates, as well as
other notable individuals from area universities and practitioners in
the field. We are honored by their selection of our hosting services.
On October 19, 2006, Wizzard Software announced that WizzTones, Wizzard
Software’s premiere software application for
Skype™, has become Skype Certified™
through a worldwide co-marketing and licensing agreement. In order to
become Skype Certified, WizzTones was required to pass multiple Skype
technical tests to insure proper compatibility with Skype and meet all
of Skype’s design standards. Skype
Certification allows WizzTones to take advantage of marketing, retail
and distribution opportunities with Skype. Skype is the world’s
fastest-growing Internet communication offering, allowing unlimited free
voice and video communication between Skype users. Skype currently has
more than 113 million registered users, is available in 27 languages and
is used in almost every country around the world. The VoIP services
market is expected to reach $11.3 billion by 2007, with a compound
annual growth rate of 27.2 percent, according to Gartner Dataquest.
According to ZDNet Research, in 2005, ringtones pulled in $600 million,
20 percent ahead of estimates and more than double the 2004 take.
Wizzard Software and its subsidiary, MedivoxRx Technologies, announced
that Kaiser Permanente will offer Rex-The Talking Prescription Bottle in
140 Northern California Kaiser Permanente pharmacies and health care
facilities. In all of these locations, Kaiser Permanente pharmacists
will provide prescriptions to their patients in Rex talking bottles at
no cost to the patient. Kaiser Permanente is America's leading
integrated health care organization. Founded in 1945, it is a
not-for-profit, group practice program headquartered in Oakland,
California. Kaiser Permanente serves more than 8.5 million members in
nine states and the District of Columbia.
About Wizzard Software
Founded in 1996, Wizzard Software has become a leader in the speech
technology application development market. Wizzard architects solutions
to business problems using its expertise in consulting, speech
development tools and building speech based applications for the Desktop
and Internet. Wizzard has achieved global recognition because of its
expertise with voice communication whether it is via computer or
telephone. Wizzard's successes have led to expanding speech technology
opportunities in both the government and commercial sectors including
several healthcare industry products and services. For more information,
visit www.wizzardsoftware.com.
In April of 2004, Wizzard acquired MedivoxRx Technologies. Established
in 2000, MedivoxRx is the originator of “Rex”,
the talking prescription pill bottle, which “talks”
to the patient allowing them to distinguish what type of medication is
in the bottle and hear critical information on dosage amounts and refill
parameters. Additional information on MedivoxRx can be found at www.rxtalks.com.
In September of 2005, Wizzard acquired Interim Health Care of Wyoming.
Based in Casper, Wyoming, Interim is part of the fast growing home
health segment of the healthcare industry, providing a wide range of
visiting nurse services to the elderly, wounded and sick. It is one of
the 300 home health agencies that comprise Interim Health Care.
Legal Notice
Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: "Forward-looking
Statements" as defined in the Private Securities litigation Reform Act
of 1995 may be included in this news release. These statements relate to
future events or our future financial performance. These statements are
only predictions and may differ materially from actual future results or
events. We disclaim any intention or obligation to revise any
forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information,
future developments or otherwise. There are important risk factors that
could cause actual results to differ from those contained in
forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to risks
associated with changes in general economic and business conditions,
actions of our competitors, the extent to which we are able to develop
new services and markets for our services, the time and expense involved
in such development activities, the level of demand and market
acceptance of our services, changes in our business strategies and acts
of terror against the United States.
