BitPass Introduces BitPass Studios, Marks First Anniversary of Flagship Service

BitPass Introduces BitPass Studios, Marks First Anniversary of Flagship Service

New Product Enables Easier Selling of Music, Photos and Digital Files From Email, Instant Messages and Websites

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- BitPass, Inc., a leading Internet payments company for digital content and services, announced the introduction of BitPass Studios, a revolutionary new service that enables anyone to sell music, photos, reports and other digital files simply by uploading those files and inserting a URL into an email or an instant message (IM).

Released on the first anniversary of BitPass Professional, the company's flagship service, BitPass Studios makes selling content easy, convenient and risk-free and allows merchants to introduce varying price points, from 25-cent downloads to $100 purchases. There are no setup or recurring fees, no software to buy or download, and no merchant account to apply for. BitPass hosts the content so there is no need to maintain a server or website. BitPass Studios has already attracted scores of artists, writers, community groups and small businesses looking for a cost-effective way to sell and distribute content without a huge technology investment.

For BitPass Studios Earners who do have a website but don't have extensive experience configuring a web server, BitPass Studios generates HTML code snippets that can provide a point of sale for their content.

"Today's introduction of BitPass Studios demonstrates our commitment to enable more ways for our customers to monetize their content," said Michael O'Donnell, BitPass' Chief Executive. "We're excited to mark the first anniversary as one of the Web's leading payments platforms for digital content, proving the reliability of the BitPass system and the attractiveness to buyers and sellers of digital content."

Dennis Brooks, a former military instructor and now owner of CramSchool, is expanding his phonics education business following early success using BitPass Studios to sell and distribute class materials.

"I used to offer a package of 12 to 16 physical workbooks for up to $120, but sales were slow and it was a burden to deal with purchase orders from schools," said Brooks, who offers free phonics classes through Fonikz.com. "BitPass Studios makes it profitable to sell and immediately deliver each workbook as a PDF, enables me to focus on teaching and developing curriculum, and removes the tedium of managing servers."

New BitPass Studios Earners Receive 100 MB of Free Storage

In a promotional offer, new BitPass Studios Earners who sign up through Jan. 31, 2005, will receive 100 MB of free storage.

Deep-pocketed corporations routinely market digital content and services like Internet radio streams and movie previews using websites, email and instant messaging, but BitPass Studios is the first service designed for individuals and small businesses to sell digital documents like music files, research reports and articles in all three mediums.

How BitPass Studios Works

After registering as a BitPass Studios Earner at www.bitpass.com, a user can begin selling digital content by following a simple three-step process:

1. Upload - Upload the premium content on to BitPass' servers.
2. Price - Specify item names, prices and access terms.
3. Sell - For each registered item, BitPass automatically generates a URL
that enables instant and secure access to that item from within an
email or an IM. For Earners with a website, the associated HTML code
snippets can be added easily to their site to provide a point of sale.

Availability and Pricing


BitPass Studios is available immediately. For each item sold, there is a transaction fee of 30% for items priced at $5 or less; for items priced greater than $5, the fee is 10% plus $1.

About BitPass

BitPass was founded in December 2002 to address the growing demand for digital content (music, video, photos, news, patents, etc.) and the need for publishers to efficiently monetize their online offerings through a-la-carte and subscription-based payment models. Since the company's production release of its service in December 2003, BitPass has signed over 1,900 vendors. The company has received venture funding from Worldview Technology Partners, Steamboat Ventures, RRE Ventures, First Data Corp., Garage Technology Ventures, Cardinal Venture Capital, Amicus Capital and others. For more information, visit www.bitpass.com.


Source: BitPass

CONTACT: Johnny Wong of BitPass, +1-650-387-0027, or johnny@bitpass.com

Web site: http://www.bitpass.com/


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