omniture

VODone Established Strategic Partnerships with Tencent and Baidu

VODone Limited
2008-01-10 22:37 2197

HONG KONG, Jan. 10 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- VODone Limited ("VODone" or the "Company") (stock code: 82.HK), a leading tele-media service provider in China, is pleased to announce today that the Company and its business have entered into two agreements to establish strategic partnerships with two popular multi-media and internet services providers in China, in jointly running the promotion program of the upcoming nation-wide casting polling show (the "Show") for an 80-episode TV series "Water Margin", planned to be produced in mid 2008.

The alliance, between VODone's business partner, VODone Telemedia Co., Ltd. ("VODone Telemedia"), and Tencent, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tencent Holdings Limited, has been formed on Jan 03, 2008. Pursuant to the agreement, VODone Telemedia will provide Tencent official video clips and other contents such as articles, photos and promotion materials relating to the Show for broadcasting on the internet. As such, Tencent agreed to set up the Water Margin theme webpage, posting different types of information including the synopsis of the TV series. The contents in Tencent will direct the internet users to VODone Telemedia's Water Margin official website to vote for their favorite artists to take part in the TV series. Its option is also opened to overseas audiences.

Tencent will also display the link to the theme webpage at conspicuous places in its entertainment channel and TV programme page, both are Tencent's popular pages which most of the visitors are PRC youths and are the target age groups of VODone Telemedia's Water Margin casting polling show as well as the TV series.

Another strategic agreement was formed between one of the Company's subsidiary, VODone Information Engineering Co., Ltd., and Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. ("Baidu"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Baidu.com, Inc., on Dec 04, 2007. According to the terms of the agreement, Baidu will act to jointly run the promotion campaign for the "Water Margin" casting polling show (the "Show"). Baidu also commits to launch a theme webpage to document all relevant news and events about the Show and the TV series, which the webpage will link with the official website of the Water Margin.

The promotion team was set up with various multi-media entities, including a TV station, internet services provider, online network platform, telemarketing and media company, as well as an integrated information system developer. In addition to the main goal of the launch of the nation-wide casting poll show for the planned 80-episode TV series Water Margin, planned to be produced in mid 2008, the lead of the alliance also aims to introduce and evaluate the effectiveness of the innovative cooperation method between competitors or business partners.

Given the popularity of Tencent and Baidu in China, the Directors expect a significant positive impact on the hit-rate of the sole Water Margin official website owned by VODONE Telemedia, which stimulates the popularity and advertising income and income generated from polling through the official website.

As the nation-wide tele-media service company in China, VODone Telemedia has established a full-function, legal payment collection platform with the ability to integrate with the major telephone operators, banks and credit card agencies in the PRC. In addition to self-produced programs and content, VODone Telemedia has built a content management platform to aggregate third party contents into the websites for onward distribution and revenue generation.

The Water Margin series combines the Chinese classic with modern-day pop-culture to attract an extensive demographic of viewers and participants in order to successfully capitalize on the new media phenomenon in China of interactive entertainment. The success of such endeavors has been proven with the likes of "Super Girl Singing Contest" ("Super Girl") in China and American Idol, which has been exported worldwide from the US with unprecedented success. Given the 108 characters of The Water Margin series, the casting polling show is well positioned to capture an even larger audience.

"We are proud to be joining hands with different media to produce this casting polling show and TV series and we believe the potential business impact to the Company is tremendous," said an official at VODone. "Through these events, on top of being able to derive substantial sponsorship revenue as well as generate direct revenue from polling via internet and mobile phones, the much enhanced brand profile will increase web traffic and page view and in turn, help our core internet advertising business."

About VODone Limited

Founded in 2005, Vodone Telemedia Co. Ltd., a strategic partner of VODone Limited (0082.HK), is the first and leading online video media group in China. It is also the only enterprise in the PRC to own a complete set of licenses to operate video broadcasting on the Internet. Vodone Telemedia has contracted the technical and promotional services to Vodone Datamedia Technology Co., Ltd for 50 years.

In September 2006, upon the completion of the sale and purchase agreement between Dr. Zhang Lijun and VODone Limited, Vodone Datamedia Technology Co., Ltd. and subsidiaries of VODone Limited collaborated to further develop the telemedia service business. Capital Market funds were deployed creating support and laying a solid capital foundation for the development of VODone Limited. Vodone telemedia supports the broadcast of financial information, entertainment, sports and lifestyle programs through multimedia on the platforms of leading Internet and telecom network operators. VODone's telemedia streaming video programs can be accessed all over the world, around the clock through the online video portals.

Source: VODone Limited
Keywords: Entertainment
collection