Prince Wins Billboard Award for 'Best Use of Technology by an Artist'

San Diego – Entriq Technology Enabled NPG Music Club to Build Online Community and Promote New Prince Album, Resulting in Highly Successful Album Release

Entriq(TM), Inc., an innovative company that provides pay media services to leading content providers, ISPs, and cable operators worldwide and a subsidiary of the multinational media group Naspers and (JSE:NPN), today announced that its technology helped enable the successful launch of NPG Music Club’s Prince Musicology album, resulting in the artist receiving the “Best Use of Technology by an Artist” award at the Billboard Digital Entertainment Conference. The award acknowledges the band or individual artist who best uses digital technologies in connection with the promotion or distribution of music.

NPG Music Club is Prince’s interactive lifestyle and music Web site, where visitors from around the world can securely purchase and download full length albums, exclusive live concert videos and Prince singles available only online. Entriq provides the security, billing and customer support for NPG Music Club content, including the recent Prince Musicology album. For Prince, managing a direct relationship between artist and fan base is essential, and the Entriq solution gives NPG Music Club the necessary tools that allow fans to access content in progressive ways, while ensuring content integrity, security and quality.

“We were excited to learn that NPG Music Club received the award for ‘Best Use of Technology by an Artist,’ as we strive to offer Prince fans new ways to connect with him through the use of innovative technologies,” said Sam Jennings, director of online services and Web master at NPG. “The Entriq solution enabled us to make the album available to NPG Music Club members before it hit stores, and we were impressed with the results. Entriq was a key factor in our winning this award.”

Entriq has facilitated millions of licensed transactions from its network to date, helping companies extract the most value from their content assets. The company provides a complete solution for protecting and monetizing media, and supplies customers a full set of technologies to monitor, manage, protect and sell pay media over the Internet. Recent customers using the Entriq technology solution include NBC Universal, European Broadcast Union (EBU), Worldwide Wresting Entertainment (WWE) and MTV.

“Entriq is thrilled to have been able to contribute to the success of NPG Music Club, and that the online launch of the Musicology album made such an incredible impact,” said Jan Steenkamp, chief executive officer of Entriq. “This award validates the goal behind Entriq, which is to provide enabling technologies and services that expand the business opportunities for pay media, and help customers use content in new ways to expand markets and increase revenues.”

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