The partnership with StudioNow has already yielded a new customer, ListingBook™, an online real-estate service. ListingBook will use the SundaySky platform to produce product showcase videos that are personalized for each user wishing to buy or sell a home.

“Businesses in nearly every market realize the power online video has in attracting prospects and converting them into buyers,” said Jim Dicso, President and CRO of SundaySky. “Working with StudioNow to extend SundaySky’s capabilities to its customers and content properties will enable users to fully leverage the potential of automated, customized video generation.”

“StudioNow provides companies with the resources they need to create, manage and distribute premium video that connects with consumers and builds brands. By adding the SundaySky technology to our suite of services, we can offer clients a way to create dynamic, highly personalized video in real time so they can produce on an even larger scale,” said Roy Oron, Vice President of Global Business Development.

About SundaySky

SundaySky has developed a newer, smarter way to use video to communicate with consumers in a deeper, more engaging, and more effective way. By using automated, real-time, personalized videos, leading organizations are significantly increasing their profits. Among our customers are Office Depot, Overstock.com and History Channel. Hundreds of thousands of videos are generated daily by SundaySky’s SaaS-based platform to connect with consumers in different stages of the customer lifecycle, driving them to take action. To learn more, please visit www.sundaysky.com.

About AOL

AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) is a premier global media company with a suite of brands and products serving consumers, advertisers and publishers worldwide. The AOL Huffington Post Media Group is a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information comprising a wide range of destination websites, including AOL.com, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Moviefone, Engadget, Patch, AOL Music, StyleList and MapQuest. The AOL Advertising.com Group includes Advertising.com, ADTECH, Pictela, Video (inclusive of AOL Video, goviral and 5min Media), Content Solutions and Sponsored Listings and serves a combined content and advertising market at scale through video, brand advertising, content and ad serving. AOL is focused on engaging consumers and providing online advertising services and solutions on both AOL Huffington Post Media Group destination websites and third-party websites, in addition to serving consumer platforms including AOL Mail, AIM, about.me, and mobile experiences. AOL also operates one of the largest Internet subscription access services in the U.S., which serves as another distribution channel for its consumer subscription products, such as AOL TechGuru and Computer Checkup.

ATLANTA — EyeWonder Inc., an innovator in interactive digital advertising technologies and services, announced its support of the launch of Microsoft Silverlight 3.

“Last fall EyeWonder delivered the first in-stream advertising solution via Silverlight for New York Magazine,” said CIO Ricky McClellen. “A pioneer and innovator in the video advertising space, EyeWonder is focused on providing increased monetization opportunities for publishers, and with partners like Silverlight, we’re able to create unique online ad experiences that engage users, which in turn drives measurable results for advertisers and brings more traffic to publishing sites.”

With online media now mainstream, consumers—and in turn publishers—have high expectations for quality. As part of the launch of Silverlight 3, Microsoft provides high-quality yet cost-effective online video experiences through Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7) Smooth Streaming technology.

“Silverlight aims to increase user engagement by creating more opportunities to reach audiences with compelling advertising content,” said Steve Sklepowich, group product manager for Silverlight at Microsoft Corp. “IIS7 Smooth Streaming delivered by Silverlight creates engagement times on par with traditional broadcast channels, allowing marketers to bring their online campaigns to the next level of success. When Microsoft combines its technologies with partners like EyeWonder, it is able to provide highly innovative, interactive user experiences.”

EyeWonder-powered campaigns utilizing Silverlight technology enable agencies and advertisers to create, launch, measure and quickly respond to online advertising campaigns through powerful controls and fully integrated tools to build campaigns with superior user engagement, discoverability and analytics-driven accountability.

EyeWonder’s Universal In-Stream Framework (UIF) supports interactive in-stream ads within any Silverlight-based video player. UIF is an open standard platform that enables a “create once, play anywhere” ad solution to drive scale within the in-stream advertising industry and allows for complete interactivity within any in-stream ad format. UIF fully supports the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) and Video Player-Ad Interface Definitions (VPAID) Guidelines, giving publishers that adopt the technology the ability to immediately be in full compliance with these standards.

EyeWonder offers a variety of ad features and formats through Silverlight, including linear pre-rolls, post-rolls and interstitials as well as non-linear tickers, bugs and transparent overlays.

About EyeWonder, Inc.

EyeWonder, Inc. is the pioneering interactive digital advertising provider, extending the reach of online rich media and interactive video ads to digital device displays. Through its superior technology, products and services, EyeWonder empowers advertisers, advertising agencies and content publishers with the ability to create, build, deliver, track and optimize interactive advertising campaigns proven to drive industry-leading results. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., EyeWonder, Inc. has domestic offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas and Los Angeles. International offices are located in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Australia. For more information on the company’s interactive digital advertising solutions or its global office network, please visit http://www.eyewonder.com.

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Gigya, Inc., the leading widget and content sharing platform for the social web, today announced that Jake Winebaum has joined Gigya’s board of directors. Winebaum was until recently the chief executive officer and founder of Business.com. He is currently working on a new start-up. As a board member, Mr. Winebaum will provide strategic oversight to Gigya’s direction and progress.

“I am thrilled that Jake has agreed to share his time and expertise with Gigya,” said CEO Dave Yovanno. “The opportunity to add an internet media and publishing leader of Jake’s caliber to our board is extraordinary. With his track record of success in new media, and as a driving force behind bringing Disney into the Digital Age, Jake understands the intersection of digital and traditional media and will be a significant contributor to Gigya’s success.”

A media industry veteran, Mr. Winebaum co-founded eCompanies and prior to that served as chairman of Buena Vista Internet Group (BVIG), encompassing Disney.com, ESPN.com, ABCNews.com, ABC.com, and Family.com, and also as president of Disney Online, where he led the team that extended the Disney brand onto the Internet. Jake took on the role of president of Disney Publishing after The Walt Disney Company acquired FamilyFun magazine, a publication which he founded and for which he served as president, editor and publisher.

“Gigya is one of the most innovative companies helping to shape the next generation of the Internet, and it’s an honor to join their board,” said Winebaum.” The company is playing a critical role in how content is shared across a distributed and social web, and I’m looking forward to helping the team as they continue to grow and evolve.”

In addition to Yovanno, Winebaum joins current board members Michael Eisenberg of Benchmark Israel and Navin Chaddha of Mayfield Fund, as well as Eyal Magen, CSO and Eran Kutner, CTO, two of Gigya’s three co-founders.

About Gigya

Gigya’s technologies give people the power to socialize and share content across the web, providing publishers and marketers with powerful tools for increasing audience reach and engagement online. Reaching more than 174 million people each month, Gigya’s technology platform includes world-class sharing, analytics and monetization features. The company’s products simplify access to more than 50 unique web platforms, distributing content across the social web and bringing users’ social graphs to any site. Each day, millions of people use Gigya to engage with their friends and with content from Gigya’s publisher and advertiser clients such as CNET, DoubleClick, Electronic Arts, Levis, MTV, RockYou!, Toyota, Unilever and Walmart.

Yahoo! Go is Yahoo!’s award winning all-in-one mobile application, available on more than 280 devices across 19 countries.  Yahoo! Go lets users enjoy the best of the Internet on their phone.  Users can send email, upload photos, download a map, search for answers, check stock quotes, or get breaking news—all from one application on their mobile device.

“By providing all developers and publishers access to Yahoo! Blueprint and giving them the necessary tools to create exciting new mobile content and services, we are furthering our goal of enabling an open mobile ecosystem,” said Michael Shim, Senior Director of Mobile Advertisers & Publishers, Yahoo! Connected Life Americas. “Yahoo! Blueprint enables innovative new experiences that we believe will drive further adoption of mobile services by millions of users around the world.”

“For mobile subscribers, LSN’s new Mobile Widgets are the best gateway to get where they want to go on the mobile Internet,” said Lee Durham, Founder and CEO of LSN. “We are extremely pleased to partner with Yahoo! to extend the capability and value subscribers can obtain from their mobile phones.”

To date, mobile users have downloaded applications written in Yahoo! Blueprint across thousands of mobile devices from manufacturers including Research in Motion®, Nokia®, Motorola®, and others, getting a user experience specially optimized for their device. Developers can now turn to Yahoo! to alleviate the cumbersome process of porting and rendering their application across a wide variety of devices, while also taking advantage of Yahoo!’s extensive mobile distribution network and monetization capabilities.

About LSN, Inc.

Local Solutions Network, Inc. (LSN), headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, is a mobile media and marketing company that enables local broadcasters and brand advertisers to extend their reach to the mobile consumer market via their handset. LSN has the nation’s largest network of local television news content, in both English and Spanish, currently offering news, weather, sports and more to over 200 million mobile users. Through its Direct Mobile Marketing & Advertising Group, LSN enables companies to rapidly deploy direct mobile marketing campaigns to mobile users via text messaging, rich media content, and interactive mobile marketing campaigns across all wireless carriers and handsets.

To learn more, please visit www.lsnmobile.com.

NEW YORK – MIVA Direct, Inc., the toolbar, homepage and content division of digital media and advertising company, MIVA, Inc. (NASDAQ:MIVA), announced the beta release of ALOT Desktop, a free software application that enables users to display widgets directly on their computer desktops without having a browser window open.

Through the new product, users can choose from a range of different ALOT widgets that they can customize and then add to their desktops. These widgets include an online radio player, news headlines, weather and celebrity gossip. It is intended that with future releases of the product, users will be able to access any widget from MIVA Direct’s rapidly expanding online widget portfolio, ALOT Buttons.

The ALOT brand was launched by MIVA Direct in Q4 2007 and is designed to ‘Make the Internet Easy’ by aggregating ‘best of the web’ content within widgets that can be displayed across toolbars, homepages and now desktops. ALOT’s toolbar and homepage products come pre-configured across 40 different categories, enabling MIVA Direct to build up niche vertical audiences. The ALOT music and recipe toolbars, for example, currently have over 900,000 and 500,000 users respectively.

“Our objective with ALOT is to create an integrated widget platform that users can interact with across a variety of different touch points,” commented Peter Corrao, MIVA’s President and CEO. “We believe that adding increased integration through the launch of products like ALOT Desktop not only enhances user experience, but also provides a valuable platform for brand and direct response advertisers to reach potential customers.”

The beta release of ALOT Desktop follows the October launch of MIVA Direct’s new, fully customizable toolbar and homepage products, ALOT Toolbar and ALOT Home. Together, ALOT’s toolbar and homepage products generate over 110 million searches each month1.

According to an October 2008 report from Razorfish, 55% of “connected consumers” — people with broadband who use social networks and digital media — use widgets on their desktops with some frequency, and 62% use them on personalized homepages and social networking sites.

http://www.alot.com

www.alot.com/desktop/

http://www.miva.com

About MIVA Direct, Inc.

MIVA Direct operates a portfolio of consumer websites, interest-specific toolbars and personalized homepages. MIVA Direct’s millions of active toolbars span a range of niche sectors including jokes, music, recipes and horoscopes and offer consumers search functionality in addition to one-click access to tailored content. MIVA Direct is owned by MIVA, Inc. (NASDAQ:MIVA).

About MIVA®, Inc.

MIVA, Inc. (NASDAQ:MIVA) is a global digital media company with a mission to deliver valuable digital audiences to advertisers. MIVA has two focuses to its business: owning and operating a growing portfolio of consumer destination sites and interest-specific toolbars, through its MIVA Direct division; and running a third-party contextual Pay-Per-Click ad network focused on key vertical sectors, through its MIVA Media division. MIVA, Inc. operates across North America and Europe.

NEW YORK – Buddy Media today released a new white paper entitled What Advertisers Need to Know About Branded Social Media Applications, which describes the development of branded social media applications, or “app-vertising”, and how companies can use this new form of advertising to build brands and drive sales.

“Over half a billion people worldwide regularly visit social networks,” said Michael Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media. “And as we describe in the white paper, branded social media applications are the perfect way for brands to advertise on social networks, in that they provide deep levels of engagement, can be shared with others on the network and provide clear metrics on their success.”

What Makes a Successful App-vertisment?

Through its experience building successful app-vertisements for brands such as New Balance, InStyle and Anheuser-Busch, and from data culled from its BuddyBrain analytics tool, which provides advertisers and brand managers with accurate and accountable data on their social media app-vertising campaigns, Buddy Media has determined that there are five key factors that determine whether an app will break-out or go bust, which they classify as:

* Super Social Invites
* Status
* Visibility
* User Identify
* Benchmarks and Milestones

Applications which address these five factors have a much greater chance of creating “social brand loyalty” — the intense adoption of, commitment to and interaction with a brand in a social network. Such loyal social brand advocates do not just engage in a conversation with the company about their brand, but embrace the brand, and share their brand enthusiasm with others on their social network.

“Just as it is unreasonable to expect poorly conceived and executed Internet banner or keyword ads to work, so is it unreasonable to expect poorly conceived and executed branded social media applications to work,” said Lazerow. “However, when properly constructed, branded social media applications don’t just reinforce brand messages, but also engage consumers with the brand, evoke consumer emotion and provide measurable results.”

“Given this, and the fact that more and more people — from college students to grandmothers, high-level executives to blue collar workers — are spending time on social networks, using branded social media applications as part of one’s overall marketing strategy is no longer just an option for major brands– it is a necessity.”

About Buddy Media

In today’s social media world, every brand needs a Buddy. Buddy Media develops and promotes social app-vertising campaigns that increase engagement and interaction between people and brands. Some of the world’s largest brands, including AmEx, New Balance and Anheuser Busch, work with Buddy Media to create social brand loyalty. Based in NYC, Buddy Media is a privately held company backed by Softbank, European Founders Fund and GreyCroft partners amongst other investors.

- Pangea Media Expands Quibblo.com Functionality
New Consumer Features and Greater Targeting and Performance Capabilities to Enhance User Experience and Improve Advertiser Returns
Pangea Media (PangeaMedia.com), a leader in online quizzes and quiz technology, today announced several updates to its popular Quibblo.com site. These new features provide Quibblo users enhanced functionality and offer marketers additional ways to engage users with innovative advertising products.

Silicon Valley, CA and New York, NY—November 18, 2008—Glam Media, Inc. (www.GlamMedia.com), recently ranked comScore Media Metrix Top 10 Web property, today announced the launch of the Glam Applications Network. The platform that enables brand ad-enabled applications and widgets to be integrated into web sites and blogs, Glam Apps “Atako”, includes a standardized payment system for developers, publishers and media companies. Apps and widgets will be available in the Glam Apps Store (www.GlamApps.com), which provides a curated set of applications for publishers to add new features, build traffic and create new revenue streams. Today, Glam Apps names more than 50 premier charter developers, including: Sphere (a division of AOL); BuzzFeed; Meebo; PollDaddy; PicApp, JS-Kit and Kwanzoo. GlamTV, a signature application on the Glam Apps platform, features video content from select media partners including Cinelan, Diagonal View and Young Hollywood.

As the largest vertical content network, Glam Media fills a unique position in the marketplace, bringing together publishers, developers, content producers, media companies, agencies and advertisers to create branded, distributed media content and applications. The Glam Applications Network, launching today in beta, is immediately available to the 700+ web sites in the Glam.com and Brash.com vertical networks—and will be open to all professional Web publishers in early 2009. Examples of Glam Apps include: polls; slideshows; video commenting and contests; content feeds & syndication; ratings; recipe search, quizzes and shopping search.

Glam Apps Atako was built with brand advertisers’ needs in mind. Glam Apps’ ad-supported widgets contain IAB standard ad units that can be sold by Glam Media, the media publisher, agency and/or the developer. Today, most widget platforms are designed only to add functionality to social networks with no targeting technology or controls for brand advertisers, like brand proximity and relevance. For example, the main display ad may be a retail client, with widgets on the same page showing non-targeted or even competitive retail ads. Glam Media’s platform is also noteworthy because it solves the challenge of revenue-sharing with a built-in distributed ad payment system. Glam Apps Atako allows a range of monetization and distribution choices for developers building applications: ad-enabled with required IAB-standard ad units, sponsored or advertorial widgets, paid for or subscription based applications and free no-ads utilities.

“Widgets and distributed content are great examples of how interactive media companies are transforming marketing in search of new ways for consumers to engage with brands,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “That these widgets adhere to IAB ad standards, simplifies the interactive ad buying process and will help expand the value and measurement capabilities of widgets.”

Glam Media has already created many successful application campaigns for advertisers. Glam Apps builds on this success with a platform that allows developers to create the apps and for advertisers to sponsor them. With Glam Apps, brand advertisers can develop custom publisher features and share-of-voice branded widgets on targeted sites, resulting in deeply immersive campaigns and advertorials. Agencies can use Glam Apps Atako to create integrated brand applications and widgets that leverage the distribution of the Glam Publisher Network. Application campaigns previously built on the Glam platform include:  a styling video built for Levi’s® brand Luv My Levi’s® campaign; a flirting widget for V05; Glam Re-Skins, which enable a publisher to automatically re-skin their entire site with specific ads; and Glam Spotlight units which allow an advertiser to distribute video in a brand-engaging/skinned module.

Media companies can use Glam Apps Atako to create widgets for content distribution in a “rights-managed” system with monetization or distribution from content networks. Video providers and media networks can use GlamTV and BrashTV applications to distribute protected video content packaged with high-CPM display and video ads.

Glam-developed applications that are part of Glam Apps at launch include:

GlamTV/BrashTV: an innovative video application that allows for the distribution of professionally-produced premium content across the Glam Network, reaching 22 million users with over 50 million views per month three months after its beta launch.

Glam Now:  a vertical content story headlines widget promoting the hottest story links in the Glam Network, reaching 31 million users with over 100 million widgets views per month.

“The Glam Applications Network allows developers and advertisers to easily promote and distribute applications on a wide variety of web sites with a built-in system for monetization,” said Ryan Roslansky, VP of Products & Audience for Glam Media. “Not only are we expanding the app distribution market for developers, we are opening up new opportunities for publishers to add functionality to their sites and for advertisers to reach users with innovative campaigns.”

The charter developers for Glam Apps at launch include: Apture; Bang International; BuzzFeed; CookThink; FoodChannel; Fotoviewr; Grouptivity;  Meebo; Kwanzoo; NearbyNow; Ojingo (Blipback); PicApp; Pixsta; Predictify; Poll Daddy; TheFind; JS-Kit; Sphere; ShareThis; Polyvore, The Astrologer and WeSeed.

“Sphere partnered with Glam Media to build a module for Glam Apps that is distributed content at its best,” said Tony Conrad, CEO of Sphere. “For Glam’s publishers, Sphere’s module connects their articles to contextually relevant content from their archives and also displays related content from around the Glam Publisher Network. Participating publishers will serendipitously see inbound traffic from other Glam sites. The module also integrates a high quality ad unit that provides marketers a new and innovative way to engage with their audience and drives incremental revenue for the publisher.”

“JS-Kit provides ultra-lightweight community services like Comments, Ratings, and Polls for any web site,” said Khris Loux, CEO of JS-Kit.  “Glam Apps gives us a new way to access premium web publishers and advertisers at the same time.”

“PicApp is thrilled to be selected by Glam Media as a developer partner,” said Eyal Gura, PicApp’s CEO. “PicApp gives Glam’s publishers easy access to millions of premium images from sources such as Getty Images, Corbis, Splash News, Newscom, Image Source and others. Our images not only enhance and drive traffic to publishers’ sites, but also encourage viewers to further interact with the content. The partnership with Glam Media, and other partnerships to be announced soon, is a further demonstration of PicApp’s appeal to blog networks.”

Built upon standards including Google Gadget, OpenSocial and OpenID, the application distribution software powering Glam Apps Atako is scheduled for full open source release in Q4 of 2008. Glam’s first open source release underscores the company’s commitment to creating a vibrant community of developers with the common goal of integrating functionality into a wide variety of publishing platforms. Integration with OpenID creates a whole new class of consumer applications in a distributed media environment, where users can use one log-in across the wide Glam Publisher Network or specific vertical networks, enabling social networking and communication applications.

Today, Glam is also launching GlamID, a distributed login and registration platform built off OpenId for use across Glam Media properties. Glam Apps Atako is built on Google’s open source Gadget technology. Glam Apps allows developers to leverage Glam Evolution, Glam’s unique ad services platform with full Brand Sense Accountability and ROI measurement for advertisers. Glam is also one of the first to use the newly announced tracking comScore Extended Web measurement (CXW), to help measure and report reach and advertising for distributed Web content such as Glam Apps. This allows targeting, measurement and reporting of key data to brands and agencies.

For additional information, please visit www.GlamApps.com.

About Glam Media
In creating a new prototype, Vertical Content Networks, the founders of Glam Media have introduced a revolutionary new media model that powerfully brings brand advertisers to targeted vertical audiences online. With more than 700 sites, Glam Media comprises Glam.com, a carefully curated network of popular and influential lifestyle women’s websites, blogs and magazines, and Brash.com, the newly launched network catering exclusively to men. Glam Media’s reach is deep and far-reaching; it is a comScore Top 10 Web property, with a total reach of 52 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. and 88 million uniques globally, and is also a Top 10 Display Ad Publisher. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital.  The company is headquartered in New York City, New York and Silicon Valley, California, with international offices in London, Munich, Berlin and Tokyo.

Palo Alto, CA — November 3, 2008 — Gigya, Inc., the largest widget and content sharing platform for the social web, today announced that it has created a widget for the Interactive Advertising Bureau The IAB widget was designed to provides easy access to the latest IAB news, upcoming events, standards and guidelines, and a feed of the IABlog, a recognized industry news blog featuring commentary from IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg

“As a member of the IAB, we were delighted to work together to create a widget that fosters engagement with the valuable content and services the IAB provides,” stated Liza Hausman, VP of Marketing at Gigya. “We work with hundreds of brand advertisers, web publishers, and media and entertainment companies to help them engage their audiences through widgets, and we see this IAB widget as a clear reflection of the IAB’s commitment to nurturing the next generation of online media and advertising.”

“The IAB widget will allow us to deliver our latest, most in-demand content to our key stakeholders in the interactive community and extend our reach on behalf of the interactive industry,” said David Doty, senior vice president, Thought Leadership & Marketing of the IAB.

The IAB widget can be grabbed and shared from the IAB website www.iab.net/widget and the IAB Facebook page and is also accessible through the Facebook application directory under the name IAB-Interactive Advertising Bureau Daily News+. Incorporating Gigya’s Wildfire technology, the IAB widget can be installed with ease to over 50 online destinations including blogs, start pages, desktops and social networks including Facebook and MySpace.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

About Gigya:
Gigya gives people the power to socialize and share content across the web, providing publishers and marketers with powerful tools for increasing audience reach and engagement online. Reaching more than 174 million people each month, Gigya’s technology platform includes world-class sharing, analytics and monetization features. The company’s products simplify access to more than 50 unique web platforms, distributing content across the social web and bringing users’ social graphs to any site. Each day, millions of people use Gigya to engage with their friends and with content from Gigya’s publisher and advertiser clients such as CNET, DoubleClick, Electronic Arts, Levis, MTV, RockYou!, Toyota, Unilever and Walmart.

PALO ALTO, CA – Gigya, the leading social technologies company, announced its Levis® widget campaign, co-created with Avenue A|Razorfish, has been named by the Interactive Advertising Bureau as a finalist for the 2008 MIXX Awards in the category “Widget Marketing Campaign.” Avenue A| Razorfish and Gigya partnered to conceptualize, design, and execute this widget advertising campaign for Levi Strauss & Co®. The final Gold, Silver and Bronze winners will be announced at the MIXX Awards Gala on the evening of September 23, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza Times Square Hotel in New York City.

“We are excited that our Levis campaign created with Avenue A|Razorfish has been recognized by the IAB,” said Ben Pashman, VP of Sales & Business Development at Gigya. “This is a great validation of Avenue A’s vision, of widgets as effective ad vehicles and of the vital role Gigya is playing in this emerging industry.”

The coveted MIXX Awards is judged by an independent panel of highly recognized representatives of the entire interactive advertising network – brand marketers with direct control over many of the largest advertising budgets in the country, major media company executives and advertising agency experts who create campaigns for the world’s most powerful brands. The intense scrutiny of the judging process ensures that the finalist and winning campaigns truly reflect the industry’s best work. With two intensive phases of judging by some of the most demanding marketing executives, winning a MIXX Award is the highest recognition in Interactive Advertising.

Levis® 23/501 Campaign Specifics
Levi Strauss & Co.’s ® advertising agency Avenue A|Razorfish used Gigya’s full-service solution for design, production and distribution. Gigya collaborated with Avenue A|Razorfish to design and develop an innovative, high-impact widget, featuring one-click scrolling through a gallery of 23/501 product shots. An anticipation-building countdown timer ticked off the hours, minutes and seconds to product availability, and store location information was put at the users’ fingertips. The widget also incorporated a soundtrack of fresh hip-hop tracks from Sony’s Jive Records, chosen specifically to appeal to the 23/501 target demographic and add to the widget’s perceived value. The campaign focused exclusively on driving widget installs to the social network profile pages of the target. Gigya incorporated its Wildfire platform, enabling the widget to be easily grabbed and shared, and distributed the widget on its network, focusing exclusively on sites frequented by young urban males.

“We are honored that our Levi’s® 23/501 campaign is a finalist and will be showcased at the 2008 MIXX Awards,” said Rob Toledo, Senior Account Director at Avenue A | Razorfish. “Gigya helped make this campaign a success with their comprehensive widget solution which encompassed concept design, distribution and tracking. This campaign effectively engaged our target audience and generated buzz around the Levi’s® 23/501 Limited Edition Collection, which ultimately sold out in less than 50 seconds.”

About Gigya
Gigya gives people the power to socialize and share content across the web, providing content companies with powerful tools for increasing audience reach and engagement. Reaching more than 150 million people each month, Gigya’s technology platform includes world-class sharing, analytics and monetization features. The company’s APIs simplify access to more than 50 unique web platforms, distributing content across the social web and bringing users’ social graphs to any site. Millions of people each day use Gigya to engage with their friends and with content from publisher and advertiser clients like CNET, DoubleClick, Electronic Arts, Levis, MTV, RockYou, Toyota, Unilever and Walmart.

Standard, Flash or Rich Media Banner
Agency: A&E Television / Client: Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels
Agency: IAC Advertising Solutions / Client: Bacardi
Agency: MS3 Marketing / Client: Castrol SYNTEC

Standard, Flash or Rich Media Expandable Banner or Overpage Unit
Agency: Juxt Interactive / Client: Coca-Cola Co./Coke Zero
Agency: Liquid / Client: Paramount/The Spiderwick Chronicles
Agency: Unicast / Client: Warner Brothers/Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Homepage Takeover/Sponsorship
Agency: AvatarLabs / Client: Sony Pictures/Pineapple Express
Agency: AvatarLabs / Client: Walt Disney Pictures/Wall-E
Agency: The Visionaire Group / Client: Universal Pictures/Wanted

Content Integration
Agency: Digitas / Client: American Express OPEN
Agency: Monster Worldwide Inc. / Client: PBS/Military.com
Agency: Sojern / Client: Delta Air Lines/E-Ticket

Standalone E-mail
Agency: Digitas / Client: American Express and DailyCandy, “Local Deals”
Agency: Merkle Inc. / Client: Corporate Express
Agency: Yesmail / Client: HP

E-mail Campaign
Agency: Moxie Interactive / Client: Verizon Wireless
Agency: Smith-Harmon Inc. / Client: REI
Agency: Tribal DDB / Client: Pepsi-Cola North America, “Pepsi Stuff Insider”

Search Campaign
Agency: 90octane / Client: Globus Family of Brands
Agency: Bigmouthmedia / Client: Hilton Hotels
Agency: Stinson Partners / Client: Costa Cruise Lines

Video Appearing in a Banner, Pre-Roll, Interstitial or In-Stream Unit
Agency: A&E Television / Client: A&E Television
Agency: TM Advertising/Janimation/EyeWonder – Client: Superpages.com
Agency: VML / Client: Dr Pepper

Standalone Video (Not Principally Deployed on YouTube)
Agency: AKQA / Client: AOL News, “Where Are They Now?”
Agency: Enlighten / Client: Bioré, “Let’s Face It”
Agency: Vibrant Media / Client: Unilever, “Blondes vs. Brunettes”

YouTube Video Ad
Agency: Element79 / Client: Gatorade, “Ball Girl”
Agency: Intuit / Client: TurboTax, “Ping Pong and Taxes Made Easy”
Agency: KulaVortex.com / Client: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, “28 Seconds Later”

Rich Media Campaign
Agency: A&E Television / Client: Paranormal State
Agency: Avenue A | Razorfish/Euro RSCG Worldwide / Client: Nabisco/Ritz, “Open for Fun”
Agency: PointRoll/Armchair Media/Turf / Client: College Board

Contest/Promotion/Sweepstakes
Agency: Dailey / Client: Intuit/TurboTax, “Tax Rap”
Agency: Exopolis/MMA Creative Group / Client: Roxy and Schick Quattro, “Follow Your Heart”
Agency: Liquid Advertising / Client: After Dark Films, “Miss Horrorfest”

Campaign in Social Media
Agency: Avenue A | Razorfish / Client: Washington Mutual
Agency: McCann Erickson / Client: VeriSign Inc.
Agency: Sapient / Client: Coca-Cola Co./Burn

Mobile or Wireless Campaign
Agency: Ad Infuse/Mindshare/Phonevalley / Client: Strongbow Cider, “Flirtogram”
Agency: AKQA / Client: Nike, “PHOTOiD”
Agency: Moxie Interactive / Client: Twentieth Century Fox/Jumper

Use of Gaming
Agency: AKQA / Client: McDonald’s
Agency: MS3 Marketing / Client: Colgate Palmolive/Speed Stick 24/7
Agency: Play/Denuo / Client: General Motors/Buick

Use of Widgets
Agency: Cheil Worldwide / Client: Samsung/Juke
Agency: Euro RSCG 4D / Client: iShares
Agency: Mediaedge:cia/Mindshare / Client: Ford/Sync

Viral Campaign
Agency: Brief Attention Span Communications / Client: Serena Software, Inc., “Just @#$% It” and “Go @#$% Yourself”
Agency: Element79 / Client: Gatorade, “Ball Girl”
Agency: McKinney / Client: Virgin Mobile, “Promiscuous Text”

Advertising/Promotion Web Site or Microsite
Agency: 65 Media / Client: Twentieth Century Fox/The Simpsons Movie
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners / Client: Adobe Creative Suite 3, “Adobe Layer Tennis”
Agency: Q Interactive / Client: UPS, “UPS Whiteboard Headquarters”

This first-of-its-kind solution provides buy.at affiliate publishers with an exclusive gallery of advertiser-generated widgets through the buy.at web site. Once a publisher places a widget on their web site, consumers can grab it and distribute the widget to other locations on the Web, including social network pages, desktops and blogs. The publisher earns revenue for each sale driven by the widget, even if it’s several download-generations away from the publisher’s site.

“This solution combines the best of affiliate and widget advertising in a solution that benefits publishers and advertisers alike,” said Lynda Clarizio, President of Platform-A. “Publisher revenue potential, brand exposure for the advertiser, and potential conversions grow virally each time the widget is downloaded by a consumer.”

Entertainment advertiser Ticketmaster.com is the first buy.at advertiser to work with Platform-A in developing and distributing this new affiliate feature. The customizable “EventEngine” widget is now available for download by buy.at affiliate publishers. Ticketmaster’s “EventEngine” campaign widget can be tailored to promote specific Ticketmaster events. All ticket purchases that originate from Ticketmaster’s widget are credited to the buy.at affiliate network publisher.

Goowy Media forms part of AOL’s newly created People Networks business unit, which combines social media network Bebo, the AIM and ICQ personal communications network, and social search and answer service Yedda. People Networks’ collection of community platforms reaches 80 million unduplicated users worldwide.

About Platform-A

Platform-A, AOL’s advertising business, is the industry’s largest digital advertising platform, offering the most comprehensive suite of marketing solutions, powered by the Web’s best advertising technologies. Platform-A includes AOL’s leading media properties – AOL.com, AIM, MapQuest, and more – and Advertising.com’s third-party networks. Platform-A also includes TACODA’s audience insights and behavioral targeting; Quigo, a site- and content-targeting solution; ADTECH, an international digital ad serving business; Third Screen Media, a mobile ad serving network; and buy.at, an affiliate marketing solution. Platform-A currently has operations in the United States, nine countries across Europe, including Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and Japan through a joint venture with Mitsui. Learn more at http://www.platform-a.com.

Advertisers can now utilize Goowy to create customized “grabbable” web widgets and distribute them across Platform-A, which includes AOL’s leading media properties and thousands of sites within Advertising.com’s third-party network. In addition, widgets may also be served as ads within Bebo and Facebook applications that are part of the Widgnet publisher network, launched by Advertising.com earlier this year. While most widget platforms charge additional CPM rates, Platform-A offers the service as a value-add for qualified advertisers.

“Platform-A is committed to expanding widget advertising services, and Goowy is one way to ensure that our customers generate value from their campaigns,” said Lynda Clarizio, President of Platform-A. “Widget-based advertising is gaining momentum in the industry, and Platform-A’s network approach allows our customers to build brands, encourage interaction, and drive site traffic – all at scale.”

Widget campaigns, powered by Goowy, will leverage Advertising.com’s AdLearn technology for full optimization across Platform-A based on clicks, installs, and other campaign objectives. By distributing widget ads across Platform-A, marketers will be able to create more compelling ad units, include more dynamic content, and build longer-term relationships with the growing number of consumers who are increasingly downloading applications to their social network pages.

Additionally, widget publishers can utilize Goowy for free by becoming part of the Widgnet publisher network and agreeing to display advertising within their widgets. Any revenue generated from these publisher widgets will then be split back with the publisher.

Goowy Media forms part of AOL’s newly created People Networks business unit, which combines social media network Bebo, the AIM and ICQ personal communications network, and social search and answer service Yedda. People Networks’ collection of community platforms reaches 80 million unduplicated users worldwide.

To see an example of a widget campaign, please visit http://www.advertising.com/advertisers-widgnet.php.

About Platform-A
Platform-A, AOL’s advertising business, is the industry’s largest digital advertising platform, offering the most comprehensive suite of marketing solutions, powered by the Web’s best advertising technologies. Platform-A includes AOL’s leading media properties – AOL.com, AIM, MapQuest, and more – and Advertising.com’s third-party networks. Platform-A also includes TACODA’s audience insights and behavioral targeting; Quigo, a site- and content-targeting solution; ADTECH, an international digital ad serving business; Third Screen Media, a mobile ad serving network; and buy.at, an affiliate marketing solution. Platform-A currently has operations in the United States, nine countries across Europe, including Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and Japan through a joint venture with Mitsui. Learn more at http://www.platform-a.com.

In a nutshell: the widget component that can be grabbed from any PointRoll ad unit and shared across social networks, start pages and blogs. The viral distribution capability exponentially spreads the advertiser’s brand messaging across the Internet, while tracking functionality lets advertisers monitor the widget’s progress and user engagement long after it has been grabbed from the initial ad.

PointRoll’s or your own creative team can develop widgets from scratch or from existing assets, using PointRoll’s rich media capabilities and Clearspring’s cross-platform widget services. Clearspring’s viral sharing functionality may be placed into any of PointRoll’s ad formats, including FatBoy expandable ads, TowelBoy pre-expandable ads and TomBoy polite ads. No news on the girls, yet.

Here’s PointRoll step-by-step explanation on how SnaggableAds work:

- Create a widget on Clearspring’s easy-to-use platform, generating a unique widget ID.
- Build your PointRoll rich media ad, incorporating the widget ID (or let us do it for you).
- We’ll serve your ad to each publisher and placement on your media plan.
- Users view the ad, then snag the widget and place it on their websites, blogs and social networking profiles.
- You sit back and watch as your brand spreads across the internet.

PointRoll engineers your widget to work within the ad unit per each publisher’s specifications, while Clearspring’s menu (included with each widget) lets clients select the appropriate format for the site where they plan to place the widget.

Tracking and measurement could be a thorny issue but PointRoll insists that they provide a wealth of rich media metrics, accessible via AdPortal, including the number of times your widget was snagged. Clearspring tracks your widget’s syndication, showing you which placements the widget was snagged from, where it has landed and how people are interacting with it. If you have widgets in multiple creatives, you can easily adjust the creative rotation in AdPortal to capitalize on the more popular placements.

SnaggableAds are still too new in the widget ads landscape to be pronounced a hit or a miss – surely, they sound intriguing enough and it will be interesting to see if and how the market will integrate them. Do you know any publisher displaying these SnaggableAds? If so, please leave a URL as a comment so we can look into these SnuggableSnaggableAds more!

Forbes.com New Content Widgets Sponsored by Visa Small Business

San Francisco — July 11, 2007 — Widgetbox™, the world’s largest marketplace for web widgets, today announced a unique solution designed to automatically insert third-party paid advertising into sponsored-content widgets. The sponsored-content widgets, typically from publishers, then use the Widgetbox Network™ to broadcast these widgets, with advertising, to thousands of registered domains. Because the widgets can easily spread virally across the web, in-widget advertising can be widely propagated beyond the boundaries of both the original publisher’s site and the network domains.

“What we are seeing here is the emergence of a new, powerful Internet advertising media with the same defined characteristics as traditional media: editorial and advertising combined together in a format that can be easily broadcast to a wide network of targeted recipients,” said Ed Anuff, co-founder and CEO of Widgetbox. “This is the first step in the emergence of a potentially very large in-widget advertising market.”
New Forbes.com Widgets Feature In-Widget Advertising from Visa Small Business

In a related announcement made yesterday, Forbes.com unveiled a set of new content widgets sponsored by Visa Small Business. These widgets, featuring topical editorial content from Forbes.com, can be placed on placed on any blog, website or social network profile with one-click.

“Widgets clearly embody the Forbes.com philosophy that our users should be able to choose where, when and how they consume our content,” said Jim Spanfeller, President and CEO, Forbes.com. “Visa Small Business is the perfect launch sponsor, as small business owners are especially time constrained and can benefit from being able to designate their own access points to critical news and information every day.”
Widgetbox In-Widget Advertising Solution

The new Widgetbox In-Widget Advertising solution is designed for easy delivery of advertising across the web. In addition the solution features:

* Full integration with remote ad servers allowing seamless in-widget ad delivery while the publisher controls the widget content.
* A unique to Widgetbox ad-friendly detection system ensuring that in-widget ads never show up where they are not allowed.
* Widgetbox managed distribution, promotion and seamless ad integration with the Widgetbox Network.
* And, powerful widget tracking, analytics, reports and management from the Widgetbox Syndication Platform™.

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox is the leading managed syndication network for web widgets. Widgetbox’s mission is to create a thriving web widget economy by becoming the trusted resource for creating, distributing, promoting, tracking and monetizing widgets. The Widgetbox gallery is the world’s largest marketplace for widgets and the Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ is Widgetbox’s exclusive backend infrastructure that provides the most comprehensive set of tools for the management of your web widget strategy. Widgetbox serves both the producers of widgets, including the largest, online distributors as well as individual developers, and the consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

As part of a multi-faceted campaign that crosses multiple borders, the widgets leverage Eyeblaster’s digital expertise and technology to enhance user experience and brand integration for one of the most well-known brands on the planet.

“We’re excited to launch one of the largest global video widget campaigns ever,” said Mike Cookson, content and media director at Nike EMEA. “AKQA’s creative ability, MindShare’s leading distribution strategy and Eyeblaster’s targeting technology is enabling Nike to distribute content in ever-smarter ways.”
NIKE’s new campaign uses ad-unit content distribution (ACD) to extend the reach of NIKE branded football films found on its groundbreaking NIKEFootball website. AKQA designed the NIKE widget to showcase video using well known sporting and media celebrities to deliver NIKE branded content directly from a video banner ad to social networks, homepages, blogs, etc.

“NIKE’s new campaign breaks the traditional online advertising model,” said Chris Hancock of AKQA. “We wanted to invent a way to push content out to users. Using Eyeblaster, we designed a campaign that uses advertising space on websites as a channel to distribute video from a site in conjunction with the added ability for consumers to ‘grab’ the content.”

“The widget represents fresh thinking that adds value to consumers’ experiences of the brand. It allows us to sustain a 3-way dialogue between Nike and consumers and amongst themselves, throughout the campaign and beyond, by continually refreshing our messaging and the functionality of the widget,” added Hani Mahdi, account director at MindShare WorldWide.
To maximize ad spend and add a viral aspect to the campaign, AKQA integrated seeding technology with the video widget. The seeding technology is powered by Gigya in cooperation with Eyeblaster. Users can “grab” the widget from the website they are looking at and install it on their social networking page. This opens a direct, permanent communication channel with users where NIKE can update video content at anytime.

“NIKEFootball’s new widget campaign revolutionizes the way any brand has ever used ad serving technology,” said Gal Trifon, CEO and co-founder of Eyeblaster. “Eyeblaster makes it possible to fully execute MindShare’s and AKQA’s creative strategy and we are confident that the campaign will generate great results.”

The campaign is being served and measured using Eyeblaster’s Ad Campaign Manager (ACM) platform. With ACM, AKQA and Nike can access data consolidation and manage geo targeting, dynamic content and global distribution from one platform.

You can get the widget at: http://demo.eyeblaster.com/AKQA/NIKE/NIKEFOOTBALL_Widget.html

About Eyeblaster

In 1999, Eyeblaster was among the pioneers in rich media communication. Today, Eyeblaster extends its inventive heritage in digital advertising through Ad Campaign Manager (ACM). ACM enables interactive agencies, advertisers and publishers to manage campaigns across digital media channels, including online, mobile and in-game, and a variety of formats, including rich media, in-stream video, display and search. ACM is a robust, integrated and easy-to-use platform that allows customers to focus on campaign strategy, creativity and media efficiency without having to worry about the technical complexities associated with managing global advertising campaigns online.
In 2007, Eyeblaster delivered campaigns for nearly 7,000 brand advertisers serving approximately 2,500 ad agencies across over 2,700 global web publishers in over 40 countries worldwide throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. Learn more at http://www.eyeblaster.com.

Media Contact:
Jamie Fishler
Mortar
T: 415.772.9907 ext. 117
C: 727.492.5548
jamie@mortarpr.com

Palo Alto, CA – June 23, 2008 – Gigya, the leading widget and social technologies company, today announced its upcoming schedule of speaking appearances at leading social media and advertising conferences. Gigya will be one of several industry experts discussing the adoption and effectiveness of widgets and other social media marketing tools as part of a brand advertiser’s interactive strategy for reaching and engaging key online audiences.

Gigya executives will be appearing at the following events:
– OMMA Social Conference, June 23, 2008, New York City, 12:30 pm
Todd Sims, executive vice president of business & corporate development, will speak on a panel entitled “Catching On: What Makes Something Viral?”
– Ypulse National Mashup, July 14, 2008, San Francisco, 4:30 pm
Liza Hausman, vice president of marketing, will be a panelist on the topic: “Killer Apps: Which Widgets and Applications Are Hits with Younger Users?”

– Digital Hollywood: Building Blocks Conference, August 5, San Jose, 3:50 pm
Ben Pashman, vice president of sales & business development, is speaking on the
panel: “Advertising in Social Media, Mobile, Search, P2P and other Web Based Service.”

– ad:tech Chicago, August 6, 2008, Chicago, 12:00 pm
Ben Pashman is appearing on a panel discussing: “Widgets and Applications – The New Media Network.”

Advertisers are increasingly looking to widgets as an effective medium for engaging with their target audience in the places that audience is spending time online, like social networks, blogs, and start pages. Those advertisers are also turning to Gigya to ensure that their brand widget is installed and engaged with by a large and relevant audience over the weeks or months of a campaign. Gigya connects advertisers with a large audience of active widget and social media users — charging only when someone actively endorses a branded widget by choosing to install it on their profile page, blog or desktop — and provides visibility into all of the ways individuals are using and sharing that widget.

Gigya’s advertiser widget distribution network is built on the content sharing infrastructure it provides for web publishers. Gigya’s content syndication technologies are used by more than 1000 companies to make it easy for users to grab and share their widgets. Gigya’s technology is currently installing nearly half a million widgets per day, and tracking more than four billion widget impressions each month. Recently, Gigya launched Gigya Socialize, a technology that provides website owners with the tools to tap into a user’s social graph and connect it to social features like ratings, comments, content sharing, and newsfeeds to grow site traffic and engagement.

About Gigya

Gigya is the leading widget and social technologies company, serving brand advertisers, media companies, and widget developers. Gigya’s content sharing and advertising platform helps publishers and advertisers increase reach and engagement, distributing widgets to any platform and providing both user social graphs and powerful social features to any website. Gigya serves the world’s largest brands with a full-service widget advertising model covering design, development, hosting, distribution, viral promotion, tracking and optimization. Gigya’s Wildfire technology installs hundreds of thousands of widgets per day and tracks billions of impressions per month. Gigya’s partners include EyeWonder, DoubleClick, EyeBlaster, Electronic Arts, RockYou!, Webshots, Snapvine and many others. To learn more or to get started, go to: www.gigya.com.

New York and Mc Lean, VA, June 10, 2008 — KickApps (www.kickapps.com), the leading on demand social media platform, and Clearspring Technologies Inc., the world’s largest widget syndication and tracking service, today announced a strategic partnership to further accelerate widget usage and monetization. Under the agreement, Clearspring will promote KickApps’ new WYSIWYG Widget Studio (currently in beta), a self-service widget-authoring environment to the Clearspring user base. This will enable Clearspring customers to easily build their own rich-media and interactive widgets with tremendous ease. KickApps will use Clearspring’s powerful distribution and tracking services to provide one-click distribution and in-depth analytics to anyone using the KickApps Platform.

With widgets becoming an integral part of every web publisher and marketer’s arsenal for driving audience growth, the industry is turning its focus to widgets as a platform for advertising. With over 24,000 publishers using KickApps to create and deploy widgets, including some of the world’s largest media & entertainment companies, the company recently launched an internal initiative around the development of WidgeADsTM, KickApps’ new industry standard format for widget advertising. Using Clearspring’s WidgetMedia services, the companies will collaborate on delivering a powerful end-to-end widget advertising solution for publishers and marketers. Clearspring is the No. 1 widget platform in the U.S. tallying 47.5 million unique widget viewers in April 2008, according to comScore’s Widget Metrix report.
“Widgets have proven to be a very effective vehicle for distributing content and marketing messages in a highly viral manner,” said Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps. “As we’ve done with social networking, user-generated content and video players, we’re reducing the barriers to entry for publishers and Madison Ave to begin monetizing widgets using WidgeADs. Our partnership with Clearspring brings together the core pieces that will define this new market opportunity.”

Like next-generation banner ads, widgets are interactive Web applications that contain dynamically updated content, keeping them fresh and relevant to viewers, and driving traffic back to the publisher’s web site. Consumers can easily grab and post widgets that interest them to their own websites, social networking site, personal homepage, blog or desktop. Posted widgets retain their viral capability and can be shared time and again.

“Our vision is to deliver an end-to-end solution enabling marketers and publishers to reap the benefits of the emerging widget channel,” said Hooman Radfar, founder and CEO of Clearspring. “We have created innovative solutions for distribution, tracking, and monetization and we are well on the way to creating the Web’s most efficient widget ad network. In partnering with KickApps we deliver a one-stop shop for any publisher or marketer to create and distribute widgets.”

Clearspring’s advertising solutions are fully integrated with the top ad-serving systems including DoubleClick and Mediaplex. Clearspring also offers a full set of analytics and reporting tools so advertisers can monitor activity as WidgeADs traverse the Web and can manage media placements in response to each widget’s viral performance.

About Kickapps

KickApps provides on demand social media applications that enable web publishers and marketers to grow, engage and monetize online audiences. Its SaaS platform includes social networking, user-generated content, programmable video players, viral Widgets and other applications that are tightly integrated with robust media moderation, member management and reporting. The KickApps Platform seamlessly integrates with any website using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, feeds, Widgets and APIs (REST and SOAP). Customers include: ABC Family, CW Television, Guinness World Records, Scripps Network Interactive, VIBE Magazine, HBO, Cinemax, Cox Television, the Phoenix Suns, the New York Knicks, the New York Rangers and over 21,000 other sites. For more information, visit www.kickapps.com and www.kickdeveloper.com.

About Clearspring

Clearspring is the market’s leading widget syndication, tracking and monetization service, used by the world’s largest media companies, advertisers, and independent widget developers. Clearspring helps publishers and marketers extend their reach to the leading social networks, start pages and blogs and to respond to growing consumer demand for a more personalized desktop, Web, and mobile experience. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., Clearspring offers a comprehensive set of widget creation, distribution, management and monetization services. For more information about Clearspring and how to use widgets in your business or to join the Clearspring developer community, please visit www.clearspring.com.

SAN BRUNO, CA, March 25, 2008 – Adify, the premier technology and media company focused on vertical online advertising, today announced Adify Widget Share. The content syndication platform enables media creators to elevate the brand quality of in-network sites by securely syndicating exclusive content of any type (RSS, video, Flash games, etc.) via widgets within an editorially selected community of publishers. Through a new, highly configurable widget distribution and tracking platform, Adify Network Builders will be able to increase the quantity and quality of content viewed across sister sites, thereby visually branding their network to increase reader loyalty and engagement.

Adify Widget Share transforms online networks from simple advertising vehicles into communities with captive audiences. By providing access to exclusive content and publicizing the most recent updates across the entire network, widgets drive more traffic across all network sites. As a result, media owners can generate higher advertising rates through increased page views and traffic, and better targeting based on valuable information about their sites’ readership interests. Different from viral widgets, only publishers whose content is on-target and reviewed by the editorial team of Adify’s Network Builders can access and showcase these widgets.
“The challenge with widgets has always been simplifying distribution and reporting, tracking how readers use them, and translating the data to increase the value of your sites for advertisers. In addition to being the secure syndication platform to distribute content exclusively within an editorially selected community of sites, Adify Widget Share also measures how widget content is boosting impressions.” said Russ Fradin, CEO of Adify. “Advertisers are constantly looking for new ways to engage audiences with their brand. Widgets with exclusive content can drive this engagement on high quality, premium niche sites, where Adify enables advertisers to track how publisher quality delivers engaged audiences who support the marketer’s brand.”

Adify Widget Share is a new product available on Adify’s vertical ad network platform for creating, managing and commercializing vertical advertising communities. It delivers a comprehensive, secure framework to create or drop-in widgets exclusively for distribution on Adify customer’s networks. Adify Widget Share can distribute image, HTML/Javascript, RSS, iFrames, Video and Flash widgets. The configurable reporting features show performance by widget, by site hosting the widget and by individual content feed within the widget.

“IDG TechNetwork uses Adify Widget Share to distribute unique widgets which help drive qualified traffic among the premium technology publishers in our media network,” said Kevin Normandeau, vice president, sales and business development, IDG Tech Network. “IDG TechNetwork and our publishers now have unmatched flexibility in content syndication along with visibility through easy to use, drill down reporting.”

Adify enables media owners to deliver brand advertising solutions to targeted premium niche audiences across their portfolio of editorially selected Web sites. Adify’s infrastructure delivers content sponsorships, video, image and rich media advertising as well as behavioral targeting and now widget distribution. Adify provides the key network management services required to execute successful advertising campaigns, including ad management, tracking, reporting, billing, payment and technical support functions.

About Adify

Adify is changing the rules of Web advertising by creating brand networks anchored by leading media companies and entrepreneurs where brand advertisers unlock value from hard to reach audiences. Adify’s Build Your Own Network (BYON) technology capitalizes on the increasing fragmentation of the Internet, offering marketers the reach of a branded advertising network with the quality of a premier property buy. Through a unique mix of technology, expertise and key business services, Adify customers can rapidly define, assemble, merchandize and manage highly targeted ad networks with little or no upfront cost. Entrepreneurs and global media partners such as adChakra, Comcast Corp., The Guardian, HotChalk, Houseblogs, Martha Stewart, NBC Universal, Reuters, Time Warner, The Washington Post Co. and Yardbarker use Adify’s solutions to extend their brands, increase their reach and grow their revenue. Adify was founded by the team that created Flycast Communications — the first successful direct-response online advertising solution — and is backed by blue-chip venture firms Venrock Associates and U.S. Venture Partners, as well as GE Commercial Finance, NBC Universal, Inc., and Time Warner Investments.

New York, March 17, 2007 – DoubleClick Inc, a premier provider of digital marketing technology and services, today announced the support of widget advertising within the core DART for Advertisers (DFA) ad serving platform through the creation of the new Widget Ad rich media format. Widget Ads enable media and creative agencies to integrate a viral component into any campaign to allow consumers to “snag” or “grab” the ad onto their personal homepage or social network page. Widget Ads allow brands to move beyond strictly paid media and help them to build an ongoing interactive and engaging relationship with consumers.

Widget advertising is a growing trend, especially within social networks. According to eMarketer, 22 percent of marketers surveyed used widgets as a social media marketing application last year. They predict that this year, the number of marketers who plan to use widgets will double to 47 percent (Source: December 2007, “Social Network Marketing: Ad Spending and Usage).

“Widgets are part of a fundamental change within the online marketing arena,” said Ari Paparo, vice president of advertiser products for DoubleClick. “Widget Ads provide audiences with the ability for self-expression and identification with well-loved brands while providing marketers the benefits of virality and engagement along with the measurability of traditional online channels.”
Interactive agencies and marketers often look to Widget Ads for easy integration of viral distribution options into any online campaign. Widget Ads are developed using the same creative process and applications as DoubleClick Rich Media ads. In addition, Widget Ads are created with a customizable Sharing Component to support virality.

“Since DoubleClick’s Widget Ads follow the same creative workflow as rich media ads, incorporating widgets into a campaign is straight-forward for our creative developers,” said Laura Primack, creative producer of Avatar Labs. “From a creative standpoint, we can build the most exciting and engaging viral content, seamlessly include the Sharing Component, then configure it to support our preferred social networks.”

The sharing component is powered by Gigya, a leading provider of tools and technologies for distributing widgets. Gigya’s Wildfire technology installs hundreds of thousands of widgets per day to more than 50 of the leading social networks, blogs and bookmarking platforms.

“Incorporating viral functionality helps give advertisers the ability to tap into the incredible power of potential brand evangelists,” said Ben Pashman, vice president of business development with Gigya. “The combination of DoubleClick’s leading rich media advertising technologies, world-class analytics, and our proven Wildfire widget sharing tools are now enabling great creative to enter a user’s social circle, where it may become an even more powerful, user-endorsed ad unit.”

Widget Ads may be distributed in a multitude of ways including branded websites, word-of-mouth outreach and even through another rich media ad. In addition, integration with the industry-standard DART platform allows for valuable Widget Ad metrics including impressions, interactions, video metrics, viral “grabs” for different social networks, and reach and frequency, all easily managed with DART for Advertisers (DFA). These metrics help provide insight into viral distribution patterns and the effect of widgets on conversion, as well as the option for refreshable content and message control.

About Gigya
Gigya delivers innovative discovery and monetization solutions to the social media ecosystem, connecting brand advertisers, content publishers and an enormous audience of active social media users. Gigya serves the world’s largest brands with a full-service widget advertising model covering design, development, hosting, distribution, viral promotion and tracking. Gigya’s Wildfire technology installs hundreds of thousands of widgets per day and tracks over three billion impressions per month. Learn more at www.gigya.com.

About DoubleClick Inc.
DoubleClick is a premier provider of digital marketing technology and services. The world’s top marketers, publishers and agencies utilize DoubleClick’s expertise in ad serving, rich media, video, mobile, search and affiliate marketing to help them make the most of the digital medium. From its position at the nerve center of digital marketing, DoubleClick provides superior insights and insider knowledge to its customers. Learn more at www.doubleclick.com.