Viewtopia Makes History with First-Ever Real-Time Digital Out-of Home (DOOH) Multimedia Event in Austin

Austin, TX, March 16, 2010—Los Angeles-based new media think tank Future Content LLC has launched with its first project: Viewtopia, delivering a bird’s eye insider’s view of this week’s sprawling music festival in Austin, Texas in real time. The Viewtopia event will be showcasing five days of music, live performance, interview and event content through technology, marketing, and content partners Justin.tv, Zannel, Blip.fm, Tap 11, Whole Foods Market (WFM), and Planet-Tek (www.planet-tek.com).

This will mark the very first live programming event streamed to a major national retailer’s Digital Out of Home (DOOH) system—lifestyle leader Whole Foods Market. Viewtopia will stream to a large-format plasma screen at the entrance to the Whole Foods’ Lincoln Park, IL flagship store as well as throughout their dynamic storewide digital signage program called The Marketplace Station™ and through all partner networks.

“We call this collaboration ‘interactive reality TV in real time;’ true device-agnostic convergence content,” says Future Content LLC founder Heidi Richman, “The outbound content (which will get home page placement on both Justin.tv and Blip.fm) is a really important part of the content flow, but due to the interactive nature of our partners it is the inbound, viewer-supplied content that makes Viewtopia special. We broadcast with, not at viewers.”

“We’re delighted to have Whole Foods Market, Wente Vineyards, and the rest of our partners to help launch Viewtopia and Future Content LLC,” Richman continues, “the brand, marketing and advertising implications are major, and a large part of the innovation is lead by our tech partners. Through Tap 11’s involvement we can offer back-end metrics unparalleled in traditional broadcasting, and with the DOOH piece, we are doing so where 70% of buying decisions are made: at the point of sale.”

After this week’s festivities, Richman is taking the Viewtopia concept to New York City, with the launch of Viewtopia: In Vino on April 11, featuring winemaker Karl Wente, and a special performance by The Antlers.

Along with with co-producer Adam Teeter, and In Vino’s Keith Beavers, aka “The East Village Wine Geek”, Viewtopia: In Vino is tapping into In Vino and ABC Wines’ already vibrant community to create music/wine/food salon events that combine informative tastings with acoustic performances from some of the most buzzed-about independent artists. Though limited to only 50 guests at In Vino, cyber guests worldwide can join and taste in real time thanks to Viewtopia’s technology partners. Look for the on-sale announcement exclusive via Brooklyn Vegan.

* * *

ABOUT FUTURE CONTENT LLC
Whether as designer, marketer, or now content creator/broadcaster, Future: Content LLC founder Heidi Richman has always inhabited the space where innovation and insight combine to produce results! Future: Content partner Francis Ten is a true modern musician/entrepreneur best known musically for co-founding the band West Indian Girl. He also co-owns Lusso Lab, one of the country’s top boutique photo retouching labs. Future Content LLC is primed to take advantage of all the new opportunities in content creation and delivery, with particular attention to in-store DOOH digital solutions and live streaming; true convergence content that translates seamlessly on any device, any platform, with which users anywhere can actively participate & contribute. www.futurecontentllc.com

ABOUT JUSTIN.TV
Justin.tv is the easiest way to create live video and show anyone what’s happening in your world right now. Using only a laptop, you can share your event, class, party or thoughts live, to anyone in over 250 countries while they chat with you and other viewers in real-time. Justin.tv makes it fun, easy and fast to gather and engage with a live audience. Justin.tv is built from the ground up to support any audience, whether it’s five people or 50,000. One new live video starts each second, and users watch more than 300 million videos every month. Headquartered in San Francisco, Justin.tv is funded by Alsop Louie Partners, Tim Draper and Y Combinator. www.justin.tv

ABOUT PLANET-TEK SYSTEMS INC.
The Marketplace Station™ concept is owned and operated by Planet-Tek Systems, a privately held company in Ontario, Canada. Since 2002 Planet-Tek, a specialist in digital signage management solutions, has built a trusted reputation in the IT industry through providing clients with computers, servers and networking services. Planet-Tek Systems will be expanding its managed services across Whole Food Market locations and other leading retail affiliate locations, to continue offering marketers the ability to reach their target demographic through highly targeted media such as digital signage. www.planet-tek.com

ABOUT BLIP.FM
Blip.fm is a social music discovery service powered by your most trusted sources: your friends and favorite people. Music discovery is inherently social, and recommendations are most compelling when they come from real people - people you respect and care about. Simply search from millions of songs and you can DJ music to your friends on Blip.fm and across other networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm. Over a million people are already using Blip.fm to share and discover great music. Say it with music and channel your inner DJ on Blip.fm. www.blip.fm

ABOUT ZANNEL
Zannel—which enables customers to see and be scene—is powering the customizable viewer experience for Viewtopia at the festival. With Zannel, users can post updates can send photos, videos, and longer tweets via their mobiles instantly at the event or at their local Whole Foods Market. Their updates can also be broadcast to the world through Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, YouTube, and bogs all in one update. Zannel: Sharing authentic moments in real-time in Austin and Whole Foods Market. www.zannel.com

ABOUT TAP 11
Tap 11 is the intelligent twitter client that provides businesses the best analytic and CRM tools to monitor, engage, and grow their real-time audience. With Tap 11, companies can listen to conversations about their brands and products throughout the festival; separate the important online conversations from background noise by sorting people in Austin by influence; manage how corporate teams communicate with their customers on Twitter from anywhere; and see their successes as they happen with “per tweet” analytics and a comprehensive analytics dashboard. www.tap11.com

ABOUT WENTE VINEYARDS
The country’s oldest continuously operated family-owned winery; Wente Vineyards is led today by the fourth and fifth generations of the Wente family. More than 125 years of committed stewardship to the land has led to the development of Wente Vineyards’ Farming for the Future, a system of sustainable viticulture practices designed to produce the best quality wines with the least environmental impact. This philosophy extends to all aspects of winery operations, where energy efficiency, waste reduction, recycling and social responsibility are all integral to the culture.
All of the wines within the Wente Vineyards portfolio are Estate Grown, crafted by 5th generation winemaker, Karl Wente from estate vineyards in Livermore Valley and Arroyo Seco. Located just east of San Francisco in the historic Livermore Valley, Wente Vineyards is recognized as one of California’s premier wine country destinations, featuring wine tasting, fine dining and championship golf. For more information, visit www.wentevineyards.com.
# # #

Contact Information

Henry Eshelman

Managing Director

PMG

Contact via E-mail