Joe Kennedy Appointed President and CEO of Savage Beast Technologies

Joe Kennedy Appointed President and CEO of Savage Beast Technologies OAKLAND, Calif., Dec. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Savage Beast Technologies Inc. announced the appointment of Joe Kennedy as the company's President and CEO. Kennedy joins founder Tim Westergren who moves into the role of Chief Strategy Officer. The announcement coincides with news that the company has raised $7.7 million in a new round of funding, led by WaldenVC with investments from Labrador Ventures, Selby Ventures and MediaWin Partners. The funds will be used to market the company's current offerings as well as develop new products within the digital music space. Westergren, who led the recruiting of Kennedy, stated, "We have attracted the highest quality of leadership in Joe Kennedy." Westergren continued, "As a proven innovator and business builder who shares our passion for music, Joe is exactly the right person for the company." Prior to joining Savage Beast, Kennedy served as President and COO at E-LOAN from 1999 through 2004. While at E-LOAN, Kennedy helped establish the company as the industry's most radically pro-consumer lender, leading it to profitability while increasing revenues from $22 million in 1999 to $153 million in 2003. Prior to E-LOAN, Kennedy served as Vice President of Sales, Service and Marketing for Saturn Corporation from 1995 through 1998. While at Saturn he helped grow the company's revenue to in excess of $4 billion by establishing Saturn as the top brand for customer satisfaction in the auto industry. Kennedy holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University. "I am joining Savage Beast at a very exciting stage of the company's development and the development of the digital music market as a whole," said Kennedy. "The Music Genome Project(TM) [Savage Beast's proprietary database] has clearly attracted a lot of interest, both online and with brick and mortar retailers. The new round of funding allows us to amplify our existing kiosk product as well as develop other applications for our Music Genome that will extend the technology beyond the current user base and position the company for significant future growth." The Music Genome Project is the most sophisticated taxonomy of musical information ever collected on this scale. It is founded on the idea that every individual has unique musical tastes, and that an effective recommendation tool needs to contain a rich enough understanding of music to account for this diversity. Savage Beast's team of highly trained music analysts has spent over five years carefully developing this system and analyzing a vast number of songs along a proprietary set of close to 400 attributes that capture not only the musical identity of a song, but also many significant qualities that are relevant to understanding the musical preferences of consumers who browse the material. This database of songs, representing a century of popular music, provides the back end for SB's uniquely powerful music recommendation and discovery application. It is the most effective solution for helping consumers more easily find new music to buy -- all based around musical similarity. "As music content becomes increasingly ubiquitous, the key to a great experience becomes connecting each consumer with just the music they'll love," said Kennedy. "Providing that magical connection between an artist and their audience is what Savage Beast is all about." Savage Beast's Board of Directors will include Kennedy and Westergren, as well as Larry Marcus of WaldenVC, Larry Kubal of Labrador Ventures and Bob Kavner, the former Chairman of Overture Services and President of Idealab Silicon Valley. "Savage Beast now has both a world class team and the financial resources it needs to make its powerful vision a reality, building on the growing adoption of the Music Genome Project," stated Kavner. About Savage Beast Technologies, Inc. Savage Beast Technologies was founded in January 2000 with the purpose of enabling consumers to find and enjoy music that they'll love. It is the leader in music navigation and recommendation technology, powerful must-have functionality for all music retailers, Internet portals, music subscription services and consumer electronics companies. For more information, visit www.savagebeast.com Source: Savage Beast Technologies, Inc. CONTACT: Tim Westergren of Savage Beast Technologies, Inc., +1-510-451-4100, or tim@savagebeast.com; or Dave Richardson of Plan B, +1-415-503-3911, or dave@plan-b.biz, for Savage Beast Technologies, Inc. Web site: http://www.savagebeast.com/ ------- Profile: International Entertainment