US : ShoZu announced an agreement to embed ShoZu’s mobile media service on the new generation of Samsung handsets. ShoZu’s Share-It image upload service, enabling photos and videos to be transferred directly from the handset to the Web with a click, will be natively embedded in the just-announced Samsung SGH-L760 3G camera phone ( inset ) for mobile bloggers as well as in other follow-on models. The agreement reflects a broader ShoZu strategy to accelerate mass market penetration through partnerships with handset manufacturers.

“We are simplifying the mobile upload experience for our users,” said Dr. Dohun Kwon, Vice President at Samsung Electronics Research Institute (UK). “ShoZu will be an integral part of our handset user interface and overall experience, allowing users to effortlessly take and send videos and photos to their chosen web destination, even when while on the go. ShoZu embodies the speed, ease of use, and seamless user experience that consumers have come to expect from Samsung.”

“This agreement mirrors the rise of mobile social networking as a part of consumers’ daily lives. The handset is becoming an extension of the PC for photo sharing, blogging and similar activities, in part because of the ubiquity of camera phones today,” said Mark Bole, CEO of ShoZu. “Samsung clearly understands this cultural phenomenon and has moved aggressively to equip its customers with the means to interact with key online communities quickly and easily.”

ShoZu's Share-It service enables camera phone users to upload photos, video clips and related titles, descriptions and tags to more than two dozen popular Internet destinations such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Kodak EasyShare Gallery, Windows Live Spaces, Google Picasa, Dada.net, Vox and Blogger, as well as any email or FTP address, with a click. New Web partners are added on a regular basis to continually broaden user choice.

ShoZu’s proprietary technology enables images to be uploaded quietly and reliably in the background at full resolution, leaving users free to make phone calls or take more photos during the image transfer process. Users can add descriptions and tags to individual images from the phone before or after uploading, exchange two-way messages between mobile and Web for sites that support that function, and automatically attach location tags when GPS-enabled handsets are used.

ShoZu's services also include ZuCasts consisting of rich media "channels" delivered by free or paid subscription with no clicks, and mobile advertising that can be embedded in ZuCast-based videos, photos, music, wallpaper, ringtones, news feeds and other content by user request for discreet and precisely targeted ad delivery. All services utilize a single client installed on the mobile phone.

ShoZu is currently available for over 250 camera phones worldwide and is used in more than 90 countries.