PRESS RELEASE: Lockerz Takes its Place Among Largest Media Sharing Companies with Acquisition of Leading Photo Sharing Service Plixi
Plixi to Power Lockerz Photo Sharing Service for 18 Million Members Worldwide and Growing
SEATTLE, Jan. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Lockerz, a members-only social commerce website with nearly 18 million members worldwide, today announced the acquisition of Plixi (formerly TweetPhoto), a leading photo sharing service that enables users to instantly share photos via mobile devices and the Web. With this acquisition, Lockerz Photos will create a preeminent media sharing platform and content destination, leveraging combined traffic of more than 31 million unique visitors per month.
Media sharing is a key component of social networking, and Plixi (soon to be Lockerz Photos) is at the forefront of the industry, serving more than 1 billion photos monthly. More than 300 developers have integrated Plixi's photo sharing technology, with more than 67 million API requests daily. Lockerz Photos plans to continue providing the same functionality, as well as increased resources and services to developer partners. Additionally, Lockerz members will be able to upload, share with friends-fwbs;), comment on and rate their photos on Lockerz.com.
"We share Plixi's social approach to media sharing," said Kathy Savitt, founder and CEO of Lockerz. "The acquisition enables Lockerz to offer its millions of members the most social and easy-to-use photo sharing experience, as well as introduce millions of Plixi customers to Lockerz' interactive, engaging and rewarding site features, including e-commerce, music and videos."
Over time, Lockerz and Plixi plans to develop new media sharing features to engage customers, such as the ability for Lockerz members to share their activities, photos and videos on other social networks. The newly combined company will also focus on increasing and enhancing celebrity content. Plixi is currently among the most popular photo sharing service among celebrities for their own social media communication, including Justin Bieber, LeBron James, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Seth MacFarlane and Chelsea Handler, to name a few.
"Plixi has always been about creating a better way to share memories with friends in real-time, around real life experiences," said Sean Callahan, CEO of Plixi. "Joining Lockerz cranks this mission up a notch by dramatically expanding our reach and creating the opportunity to offer our customers an even richer and engaging media sharing experience."
Lockerz rewards members for doing what they love online, including connecting with friends, viewing content and shopping with discounts of up to 100 percent. Lockerz launched the beta version of its social network, fwb;), in October 2010. fwb;) enables members to earn merchandise discounts by accumulating and interacting with Decalz™ (akin to badges) and influencing the content consumption and purchasing decisions of their friends. To date, more than 171 million Decalz have been added to members' Lockerz in fwb;).
*Traffic figures according to Google Analytics.
About Lockerz
Based in Seattle, Lockerz' mission is to be the homepage for men and women ages 13 to 30, building a community of nearly 18 million trendsetters and tastemakers who love to shop, play and connect on the Web. Lockerz rewards members for doing what they love online, offering major discounts on the coolest fashions, electronics, music and more. Members earn PTZ® (Points) by watching videos, listening to music and inviting friends. Lockerz PTZ are then used to lower the prices of merchandise at-will. Lockerz was founded by former technology and retail executive Kathy Savitt, and is backed by Liberty Media Corporation and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
For more information about Lockerz, please visit www.Lockerz.com.
About Plixi, Inc.
Plixi is a service for sharing pictures and creating collective memories around people, places and events in a way that feels natural and engaging to users. Plixi allows users to instantly share their photos, at the same time, to popular social networks through mobile devices and on the Web. Plixi specializes in providing an innovative open API and mobile SDKs to the developer community of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare and more. The platform empowers third-party application developers to quickly add media sharing capabilities and other unique features to their applications without incurring the resources to build, innovate and manage a media sharing infrastructure. Proving the power and scalability of the platform, the company's website is architected using the same open API offered to third-party developers.
(First posted on Monday, January 31, 2011 at 14:03 EST)