3rd March, 2010 - Zagreb, Croatia - Shoutem enables users to easily and quickly create their own mobile social networks that are private, targeted to niche groups and location-based.

Shoutem brings together many of the familiar features of existing public platform social networks, but lets users control access, look and feel, without requiring any programming or development skill. Networks can be created in just minutes. Currently free to download, Shoutem includes mobile apps for iPhone and Blackberry, with Android following soon. www.shoutem.com
 
Shoutem is designed to bring together groups, whether friends, students or communities, or more specialist niches such as sports fans, clubs and events - whether users are geographically dispersed or need location-based communications. The new Shoutem platform is being used by social networks worldwide, including UK, Europe and WE Harlem, NFL Shouts and Ranch & Rodeo in the USA. See user comments below
 
New features & benefits
This new product builds on the success of its original microblogging tool, which has over 11,000 networks worldwide. The new product takes Shoutem into a new league, with the addition of feature-rich social networking tools (such as camera function, file uploads), as well as being optimised for mobile and location-based communications.
 
The popularity of social networks has been proven by public platforms such as Facebook, Foursquare, Ning and Twitter. However, these are open networks used by hundreds of thousands of users. Shoutem takes a different approach, by giving users the tools they need to create their own social networks, quickly and easily. This means that users have full control over the look and feel of the network and who has access, but without the need to develop their own software. Instead, Shoutem provides a robust set of Web-based tools, together with direct customer support where needed. Shoutem is available for free download at www.shoutem.com.
 
User comments:
 
WE Harlem (USA) - founder Sergio Lilavois: "Twitter is too big, with Shoutem we can keep it focused. Shoutem is the best fit for what we are looking for: good features and reliable technology. I like the flow of Shoutem: it is not complicated and people can easily see what to do. It's a very user-friendly interface. People spend a lot of their time communicating on their mobiles. 50% of the time I'm logged into Shoutem myself it's from my mobile device. It's great that there's a mobile application for Shoutem, not just an API. It's meant we haven't needed to develop it ourselves."
 
NFL Shouts (USA) - founder Hussein Yahfoufi: There is a lot of NFL presence on Twitter, but it's just an open space with no groups. We decided we wanted to have a Twitter-like site but just for the NFL community. I really like Shoutem because it has given us everything we needed to build our site without needing to do our own development. The mobile function is important to use. We've seen that the most traffic on NFL Shouts is during football games, so people can connect with each other at the ground. We call it `Watch N' Shout' and users can even "shout" pictures from the game."
 
Ranch and Rodeo (USA) - Matt Fury: "We thought, what better than a Twitter-like function to connect with our audience and at the same time, create a destination site where everyone can connect, not just nationwide but internationally too. Shoutem is easy to use and understand. It provides us with everything we need, so we don't need to do our own development."
 
About Shoutem - the company:
Shoutem is part of Croatian-based Five Minutes Group, which has been building social networking and Web 2.0 services since 2006 for global clients including Real Networks, Vodafone and Microsoft. Founders Viktor Marohnic and Sasa Sarunic bring a wealth of start-up and technology experience and head a 25-strong team based in Zagreb, Croatia. The company is currently funded by its founders, supported by seed investment from the Croatian government. PC World recently named Shoutem as one of the top five technology start-ups to watch in 2010.
 
www.shoutem.com