NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Dada USA Inc., a wholly-owned New York-based subsidiary of Dada S.p.A (MTAX of the Italian Stock Exchange:DA.MI), today announced the official launch of its social networking and entertainment community for the U.S. market, becoming the first provider to offer complementary product suites spanning the mobile and online worlds. The development and completion of its U.S. Website, www.dada.net, will enable users to subscribe to a wide variety of value-added services that include an affordable mix of personal blogging, profile matching services, text messaging, ringtones, mobile gaming, and wallpaper. The complete suite of Dada USA's services fall under the main categories of "Love," "Life," and "Mobi."
The launch of Dada USA introduces a growing and established worldwide provider of web and mobile value-added services that has been expanding globally since its founding in Italy in 1995. Since its inception, Dada has the distinction of being one of the few proven and profitable social networking and entertainment providers. The company's entrance into the U.S. market was preceded by its August 2006 purchase of Upoc Networks Inc., a New York based pioneer in the Internet and mobile value-added services market. The acquisition allows Dada USA to enhance its rapidly growing U.S. presence by leveraging Upoc's significant user base. Upoc's established social community complements Dada USA's profile matching, community and mobile entertainment suites.
"We are extremely pleased to formally enter the U.S. Market and are confident that our technology and extensive experience in building successful, profitable online communities around the world will spell success here as well," said Massimiliano Pellegrini, CEO of Dada USA. "Our recent purchase of Upoc Networks creates an excellent foundation for building our market share with its exceptional technology, U.S. market expertise, customer base and presence on the decks of key carriers like Virgin, Cingular and Verizon."
About Dada USA
Based in New York City, Dada USA (www.dada.net) is the wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Dada S.p.A. Dada USA provides a suite of mobile products and services subdivided into three brands. Life.dada.net provides a social networking service that supports subscriber created blogs, pictures, and video. Dada USA's mobile entertainment products, ringtones, wallpapers, and games can be purchased through the Mobi.dada.net brand. Love.dada.net is a profile matching service that allows subscribers to peruse profiles on their wireless device.
About Dada S.p.A
Dada S.p.A. (dada.dada.net) is the Italian leading provider of web and mobile community and entertainment services and heads a Group of companies all offering web solutions. Dada is listed on the Italian Stock Exchange (MTAX STAR:DA.MI). Among its shareholders are RCS MediaGroup, having about 43% of the share capital, and Dada management and founders having about 14.6%.
The consumer offering of Dada -- expressed through the community Dada.net (www.dada.net) and the brands Life.dada.net, Mobi.dada.net and Love.dada.net -- is characterized by a rich range of pay "Community and Entertainment" products and services, accessible via the Web and mobiledevices -- through the SMS/MMS channel and the presence on the micro-portals of the main mobile phone operators. In addition to Italy, the Dada consumer offering is available in the USA, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Austria, China, Brazil and Australia.
About Upoc Networks
Based in New York City, UPOC Networks (www.upoc.com) was founded in 1999 with the vision of a service that would let an emerging breed of American mobile consumers communicate with the people and companies that are important to them. Since then, UPOC Networks has developed the most comprehensive mobile community solution for carriers, consumers, media companies and marketers to communicate via SMS (text messaging), WAP (wireless Internet), voice, MMS (multimedia messaging), BREW, Java, and more. Now in its fifth year, UPOC Networks has more experience than any North American company in the space, and currently is solely responsible for more than 4% of all text messaging traffic in the United States.