GoAnimate.com Enables Willie Nelson Fans to Animate Naked Willie

GoAnimate.com, the online platform that enables everyone to create their own customizable animations, today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Legacy Recordings (a Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division) to provide Willie Nelson fans the ability to create their own animated Willie adventures. This functionality is launched in tandem with today's release of Willie Nelson's album, NAKED WILLIE, and enables users to include tracks from the new album -- as well as Willie classics -- in their animations. GoAnimate.com also launched its new slideshow offering today, enabling users to upload their own photos into an automatically generated animated slideshow featuring cartoon Willie and his music.

(LOGO: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060130/LEGACYLOGO)

NAKED WILLIE, which is available at all physical and digital retail outlets today, is a 17-track collection of songs recorded by Willie Nelson between 1966-1970. In this collection, Willie and his longtime sidekick, harmonica player Mickey Raphael, set out to "un-produce" a series of tracks to retrieve the original sound and get back to their unmasked essence - to hear them naked. As a result, NAKED WILLIE lays bare Willie's original vision of these songs for the first time. In honor of Willie achieving his creative vision, GoAnimate.com is now enabling everyone to express their own Willie-inspired creativity with Willie Nelson characters, scenes and music.

"Willie Nelson is one of the most prolific country artists of all times, and throughout his career he has remained extremely dedicated to his fans," said JJ Rosen, EVP Business Development, Commercial Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment. "NAKED WILLIE enables Willie's fans to experience his original vision for this collection of songs, and GoAnimate.com enables Willie's fans to celebrate that vision by pairing these songs with their own creative animations."

You Love Willie, But You Can't Draw - No Problem!

Historically, the creation of animation required specific skills, limiting those who can express their creativity. GoAnimate.com's online application allows you to create animations without any drawing talent or the need for a technical understanding of advanced software programs. As a result, you can quickly and easily turn your love for Willie -- with no need for drawing or technical ability -- into your own customized Willie Nelson animations with just a few clicks.

To see how easy it is to GoAnimate your own Willie Nelson story, check out these quick video tutorials and get started: http://press.goanimate.com/.

With the GoAnimate platform, Willie Nelson fans will be able to animate several characters including Willie, Naked Willie, Super Willie, Mickey Raphael and a Talking Horse. With just a few clicks, these characters can be made to talk, sing, play the guitar or harmonica, dance, shoot pool, drink beer and much, much more. You can then pair these animations with your choice of classic or NAKED WILLIE songs, including:

  --  On the Road Again
  --  Always on My Mind
  --  Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys
  --  I'm a Memory
  --  If You Could See What's Going Through My Mind
  --  The Local Memory

Once you've created your animation, GoAnimate's platform makes it simple to save and share your creations right from the site, including integration of both Gmail and Yahoo! Mail contacts, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Reddit.

For downloadable images of the Willie Nelson characters and backgrounds that can be animated, please visit: http://press.goanimate.com/.

"Willie Nelson is an icon in and of himself, so it was a blast to create an animated version of Willie and his world," said Alvin Hung, Founder and CEO, GoAnimate. "We hope that Willie's fans have a great time expressing themselves by creating their own stories, music videos and animations - and we can't wait to see what they create."

Let Willie and His Music Present Your Photos with the New Slideshow Feature

With the launch of the Willie Nelson functionality, GoAnimate is also introducing a completely new feature for its users - the ability to upload their own photos and automatically generate an animated slideshow with music. This is the industry's first ever photo slideshow to utilize character animations. Unlike existing photo slideshows that simply utilize motion graphics, GoAnimate's slideshow enables users to place their photos within a professionally-made short animated film, creating an entirely unique and fresh way to present your photos!

Users can upload photos from their Facebook, Flickr and other sites in a snap. Once a user uploads their photos, they can simply select the Willie Nelson song they would like to play along with the slideshow, then GoAnimate does the rest. The end result is an auto-generated animated slideshow where the animated Willie characters present each of your photos along with the featured song -- without any requirement for the user to create the accompanying animation. Once you're done, you can easily send and share your slideshow with your friends and social networks.

To create your own photo slideshow, visit: http://goanimate.com/go/slideshow

Want to Send Some Quick Willie?

In addition to GoAnimate's full animation platform that enables the creation of full-fledged animations, GoAnimate also gives you the option to create quick animated "eMessages". eMessages are pre-defined templates that already include different characters and scenes, enabling you to simply add dialogue and then send a quick animated note to your friends. With the launch of the new Willie Nelson content, GoAnimate will also launch new Willie Nelson eMessage templates, allowing you to quickly and easily send a little Willie to your friends!

To see how easy it is to send your friends a quick animated Willie Nelson eMessage today, visit http://goanimate.com/go/emessage.

Legacy Recordings

The multiple Grammy-winning Legacy Recordings, Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division, produces and maintains the world's foremost catalog of historic reissues, an unparalleled compendium of thousands of digitally remastered archival titles representing virtually every musical genre including popular, rock, jazz, blues, R&B, hip-hop, folk, country, gospel, Broadway musicals, movie soundtracks, ethnic, world music, classical, comedy and more.

Founded in 1990 by CBS Records (rebranded Sony Music in 1991), Legacy's original mission was to preserve and reissue recordings from the extensive catalogs of Columbia Records (including ARC, Brunswick, OKeh and Vocalion), Epic Records (including Philadelphia International Records) and associated CBS labels. Following the creation of Sony BMG Music Entertainment in 2005, Legacy assumed responsibility for the preservation and ongoing availability of recordings from the archives of the BMG family of labels including RCA Records, Arista, J Records, Jive, Profile, Silvertone, Sony BMG Nashville and Windham Hill, as well as imprints including American, Bang!, CTI, Mainstream, Monument, Ode, and others.

About GoAnimate, Inc.

GoAnimate, Inc. is an entertainment website that enables everyone to simply and easily create their own animations. GoAnimate was created by a bunch of guys who love animation, and who wanted to enable everyone to share in the joy of animation without any need for previous training. We believe the world is made up of great stories, and we want to empower you to creatively tell yours and then share them with your world. To get started, please visit http://goanimate.com/.

Headquartered in New York, GoAnimate has offices in the Bay Area and Hong Kong. For more information or to partner with GoAnimate, please contact Stone Newman, Senior VP of Licensing and Business Development, at stone@GoAnimate.com.

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Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060130/LEGACYLOGO
http://photoarchive.ap.org/

SOURCE: Legacy Recordings

CONTACT: Andrew Miller of Miller Communications Group, +1-707-386-1193,
or andrew@mcgcomms.com

Web Site: http://www.goanimate.com/