AFP Debuts News Application for BlackBerry Smartphones and Announces New Partnership with Handmark

Agence France-Presse (AFP), the world's most far-reaching news agency, and Handmark®, a world-leading provider of games, applications and services for mobile phones, today announced they have partnered to launch a new mobile application, AFP Mobile News for BlackBerry® smartphone users.

"The AFP Mobile News app promises users a global perspective of news from the U.S. and Canada as well as from around the world," said Gilles Tarot, Director of Sales and Marketing for Agence France-Presse, North America. "AFP offers dozens of categories of unique, premium content that is totally customizable within the application. In this app, users can expect compelling, photo-rich and up-to-the-minute news to help understand the stories that shape our world."

AFP Mobile News, powered by the Handmark Mobile Publishing Platform, launches today for BlackBerry smartphones. The application provides users with one-click access to AFP content, including full news stories, photos and more.

The AFP Mobile News application is an extension of the AFP and Handmark relationship. Earlier this year, Handmark announced a new version of Pocket Express with AFP as a major news provider to the mobile service.

"The Handmark and AFP relationship is another great example of how leading media companies are embracing the changing face of content delivery and recognizing the monumental shifts happening in the publishing world," said Jon Maroney, Senior Vice President of Mobile Publishing at Handmark. "Having direct, instant access to content is clearly what people want from their phone, and we are delivering a fantastic user experience."

As a part of AFP's mobile strategy to provide solutions and content to news outlets and consumers, the application will be available for complete client customization and will allow users to add their own feeds and customize the branding.

Key features and benefits of the new AFP mobile application include:

• Full news stories and photos from a variety of categories, including news, business, sports, life, technology and international
• Optimized content for easy reading on a mobile device
• Striking photo galleries (with captions) feature the work of AFP's award-winning photographers
• Offline functionality for use when wireless service or an Internet connection is unavailable
• Share feature for users to send stories to friends with the click of a button
• Extensive keypad shortcuts with a guided tutorial help users learn how to use the application
• Keywords Tab allows users to create custom content based on user-designated keywords
• My Feeds Tab allows users to include custom feeds

The AFP mobile application is immediately available for all BlackBerry smartphones with a trackball or touch-screen, including the BlackBerry® Tour^TM, BlackBerry® Curve^TM 8900, and BlackBerry® Storm^TM in the Americas. Users can download the mobile application for a one-time cost of $2.99 from the Handmark website at www.handmark.com/company/mpp [1] or BlackBerry App World^TM at www.blackberry.com/appworld [2].

About Handmark

Handmark delivers an engaging, personalized experience for your mobile phone with the industry's best games, applications, ringtones, themes and more to help make your phone your own. As one of the leading developers and distributors of mobile content and storefronts for 10 years, the company has established itself as one of the premier developers for top-quality mobile content, as well as a trusted mobile content partner.

About AFP

AFP offers a truly global perspective on stories from the U.S., Canada and the world. Our journalists, who come from more than 80 nationalities, tell the stories of today with a unique voice. In a world where the lines are often blurred between news, rumor, gossip and spin, AFP delivers the facts: accurate, fast, clear and balanced news. The world's first international news agency, AFP traces its history back to 1835. Now, thousands of AFP journalists are based in 165 countries with nonstop coverage. For more information on AFP and its multimedia news products, go to www.afp.com [3].

© 2009 Handmark, Inc.; Handmark® and the distinctive hand design are registered trademarks of Handmark, Inc. in the U.S. and other territories. The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners. All rights reserved.