PHILADELPHIA – Hundreds of entries were submitted, but only a select few earned the proverbial “Best Of” in the field of advertising, last night, at The Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Philly Ad Club played host to its annual ADDY Awards, celebrating the regions best advertisers.

During a star-studded presentation, top executives collected awards in more than 80 categories. A total of 166 honors were awarded. Six of those awards went out to a select group vying for the ADDY’s most-coveted “Best Of” honors. And they are:

BEST OF SHOW – Neiman Group, PA Department of Health, Full Apologies Campaign

BEST OF MIXED MEDIA – Mangos, Cannondale Bicycle Corporation, HiMOD Campaign

BEST OF INTERACTIVE – 1 Trick Pony, Turner Classic Movies, Summer Under the Stars

BEST OF PRINT – Neiman Group, Harbour House Crabs, Harbour House Crabs Campaign

BEST OF TELEVISION – Sleeping Tree Films, AT&T, National TV, Studying – AT&T

BEST OF PUBLIC SERVICE – Neiman Group, PA Department of Health, Public Service, Full Apologies Campaign

NOTE: Images of “Best Of” entries can be downloaded at – http://bornphotos.com/bests.zip.

The Philly Ad Club proudly boasts more than 60 years as the voice of the greater Philadelphia area communications industry and would like to thank all of this years sponsors, including, Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News/philly.com – title sponsor of the 2009 Philadelphia ADDY awards; corporate sponsors – MY PHL 17 and Razorfish; gold ADDY awards sponsor – Blue Design, NFL, and Shooters; silver ADDY awards sponsors – Baker Sound and Business Wire; and bronze ADDY awards sponsors – SJ Miller Group, Serif Design, and Cubist Media Group.

The Philly Ad Club, a non-profit organization, serves the industry’s professionals with distinction. As one of the region’s largest and most active trade associations, more than 1,200 advertising, marketing and media professionals work to improve and promote high standards in the advertising industry.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AAF represents 50,000 professionals who guide the nation’s leading brands and corporations to advertising excellence. The 210 ad clubs across the nation connect the industry with an academic base of 210 collegiate chapters to promote the well-being of advertising, educate peers, and present the industry with its future leaders.

HOUSTON – Kelsey-Seybold Clinic was recognized as Houston’s Marketer of the Year (MOTY) by the American Marketing Association (AMA) Houston Chapter at an evening reception that attracted 300 local-area marketing professionals to the Alley Theatre on March 2, 2009. Kelsey-Seybold Clinic was chosen from 33 Best of Category winners by a panel of 13 marketing professionals from outside the Houston area.

“Kelsey-Seybold Clinic is clearly deserving of this honor,” said Sherri Scott, president of AMA Houston. “Their marketing team demonstrated incredible strategy, passion and creativity in their 2008 marketing programs which yielded high-impact results for their organization. They are a great example of how aligning your marketing strategy with your business objectives is the most effective way the marketing function can support an organization. We congratulate them on this high honor.”

Prior to the keynote and the announcement of the 2008 MOTY, the event recognized the 33 Houston companies, organizations and institutions that were voted “Best of Category” by the chapter’s more than 1000 members for outstanding marketing efforts in their respective industries. Best of Category winners included Administaff; Blue Bell Creameries; BMC Software; Carrabba’s Italian Grill; CB Richard Ellis; CenterPoint Energy; Continental Airlines; David Taylor Cadillac; David Weekley Homes; El Paso Corporation; Energy Alloys; Fulbright & Jaworski; Gallery Furniture; Greater Houston Partnership; Hotel ZaZa; House of Blues Houston; Houston Business Journal; Houston Food Bank; Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo; Houston Museum of Natural Science; Igloo Products; John Moore Services; Kelsey-Seybold Clinic; Martha Turner Properties; MD Anderson Cancer Center; Mieko Mahi Photography & Video; Mustang Engineering; PKF Texas; Rice University; Shell Oil Company; Sterling Bank; Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS); and Weatherford International.

During the program, keynote speaker Kevin Bertram, founder and CEO of Distributive Networks, discussed his firm’s major role in managing mobile marketing for the successful Obama for President campaign. Distributive Networks is one of the nation’s most successful mobile technology companies, serving such names as AOL, AT&T, Avis Budget Group, BET, Boost Mobile, Cable & Wireless, CBS, D.C. United, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Permanente, MTV, VeriSign, Vodafone, Viacom, Armani Exchange, and the Washington Capitals.

The MOTY event was underwritten in part by the Houston Business Journal, the presenting sponsor. Platinum sponsors included Paladin Staffing and Pierpont Communications; Gold sponsors were Aquent, Brookwoods Group, Continental Airlines, and Sterling Bank. Silver sponsors were Business Wire, MD Anderson, Sabre Marketing, and Weatherford International Ltd. In-kind sponsors included the Alley Theatre, Commercial Audio/Video, Getty Images, Houston Style Magazine, Newman & Newman, and Ventures Marketing Group. Past recipients of this award have included the Houston Symphony, Weatherford International, and the Houston Zoo. Information on AMA Houston’s Marketer of the Year event is available at www.amahouston.org.

About the American Marketing Association – Houston Chapter

The Houston Chapter of the American Marketing Association is the area’s leading professional marketing organization and the nation’s second largest chapter. AMA Houston is currently Chapter of the Year and has won this national award three times in five years. AMA Houston connects more than 1,000 members with diverse marketing expertise from a variety of industries. For event and membership information, please visit www.amahouston.org.

EMERYVILLE, Calif. – Lithium Technologies, the leading provider of on-demand customer community solutions for the enterprise, announced the launch of Lithium Insights, the first and only set of analytic solutions available to accurately measure and benchmark the health of online communities. Lithium Insights includes the Community Health Index and the Lifecycle Benchmark Service enabling customers to proactively monitor six key dimensions of community health, compare their communities’ performance to benchmarks and, most importantly, receive step-by-step recommendations to help improve performance. The Community Health Index is designed as an open standard, available for use by all in the customer community industry as a common way to measure community health.

“Lithium’s strength in reporting and metrics has helped us drive success with our customer community,” said Mark Hopkins, project manager for social media at Lenovo. “Having access to the Community Health Index and Lithium’s ability to benchmark our community against peers in size, tenure, and type provides us with insights that guide and optimize our growth and help us achieve our business objectives.”

In the October 2008 Forrester Report, Metrics for Social Applications in a Downturn, Josh Bernoff wrote, “Your social application should be aimed at a specific objective. Unless you measure progress toward that objective, you have no idea whether you’re accomplishing anything valuable.”

The challenge is that with so many possible characteristics to measure, it has been unclear to community managers which metrics should be used. What is more, many community managers are unclear about how to use those metrics to determine how to improve the health of their community. With Lithium Insights, the company has pioneered the science of community measurement and has developed two separate, but complementary solutions to address these needs for community managers:

* Lithium’s Community Health Index allows businesses to easily and accurately measure the six key characteristics of a healthy community: growth, usefulness of content, level of traffic, degree of responsiveness, interactivity, and liveliness. In combination, these characteristics allow companies to quantitatively measure and compare the progress of their community initiatives in a unified way. Lithium has developed this methodology based on scientific research from hundreds of customer communities and 10 years of experience. Controlling for differences in communities’ function and focus, Lithium has identified a set of qualities that unites healthy online communities of all kinds. Lithium customers will receive their Health Index on a weekly basis along with recommendations to address opportunity areas. In addition, the methodology will be available for anyone to use to identify their own health index rating.
* The Lifecycle Benchmark Service builds on the Community Health Index and offers the ability to benchmark the success and health of an online community from the very first hours of the community launch and throughout the communities’ life. In fact, within the first 4 hours of launch, Lithium begins sending the customer reports about the health of its community that can help predict the long-term success of a community. Additionally, if supporting data indicates that a community isn’t heading in the right direction, corrective action can be taken proactively to correct course.

“Through its Benchmark Service, Lithium is taking advantage of the predictive power of the Community Health Index. By mapping a community’s health index against appropriate benchmarks, the company can point out which levers to pull to attain the desired outcomes. As a result, community managers can be more effective in their jobs, and the community as a whole will be healthier, and therefore more effective in meeting business goals,” said Matthew Lees, vice president and analyst at the Patricia Seybold Group.

Lithium Insights is part of the company’s next generation platform release which includes numerous new capabilities dedicated to customer success. The new platform includes enhancements to drive engagement such as search-engine friendly mark-up, video, rich-media capabilities, and a widget-based interface that allows for rapid tailoring to customer needs. These new innovations enable customers to react to new insights quickly and take action to meet their business objectives without the need for a large staff or IT investments.

“At a recent industry roundtable, brands, vendors, and partners agreed that it was an imperative for all of us to develop a common way to measure the health of communities,” said Lyle Fong, CEO of Lithium Technologies. “We developed the Community Health Index based on our research and experience in the industry as a way to jump start this imperative. As an open methodology that can be used by all community managers, regardless of whether they are a Lithium customer, our hope is that this is the beginning of an industry-wide discussion about a common metric and look forward to the broader community’s feedback.”

“We applaud Lithium for sharing its Community Health Index with the industry. Lithium’s massive data set and years of experience put it in a near-unique leadership role to start the dialogue on benchmarking standards,” said Lees.

About Lithium Technologies

Lithium is the leading provider of customer-centric social networking solutions for the enterprise. Working with market leaders such as Best Buy, Sony, AT&T, Research In Motion Limited (RIM), Univision, and PayPal, Lithium delivers online customer communities that work. Lithium solutions inspire customers to share knowledge, connect with each other, and connect with the enterprise, thus providing a unique method for companies to identify, engage, and understand customers. As a result, businesses measurably improve their marketing and sales, accelerate innovation, and increase customer satisfaction. Lithium’s platform is proven in high-volume, growth environments and provides the security, analytics, APIs, and multi-language support that enterprises demand. Founded in 2001, Lithium is privately held with headquarters in Emeryville, California. For more information, visit www.lithium.com.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=5904093&lang=en

HOUSTON – Houston’s Marketer of the Year (MOTY) will be announced March 2, 2009 by the American Marketing Association Houston Chapter at an evening reception being held at the Alley Theatre.

The AMA Houston 2008 MOTY winner is chosen from 33 Best of Category winners by a panel of marketing professionals from outside the Houston area. The MOTY event will also honor these 33 Houston companies, organizations and institutions that were voted “Best of Category” by the chapter’s more than 1000 members for outstanding marketing efforts in their respective industries. Best of Category winners for 2008, selected from 176 nominated firms, include Administaff; Blue Bell Creameries; BMC Software; Carrabba’s Italian Grill; CB Richard Ellis; CenterPoint Energy; Continental Airlines; David Taylor Cadillac; David Weekley Homes; El Paso Corporation; Energy Alloys; Fulbright & Jaworski; Gallery Furniture; Greater Houston Partnership; Hotel ZaZa; House of Blues Houston; Houston Business Journal; Houston Food Bank; Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo; Houston Museum of Natural Science; Igloo Products; John Moore Services; Kelsey Seybold Clinic; Martha Turner Properties; MD Anderson Cancer Center; Mieko Mahi Photography & Video; Mustang Engineering; PKF Texas; Rice University; Shell Oil Company; Sterling Bank; Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS); and Weatherford International.

The announcement of the 2008 MOTY will be accompanied by keynote speaker Kevin Bertram, the founder and CEO of Distributive Networks, which had a major role in managing mobile marketing for the successful Obama for President campaign. Distributive Networks is one of the nation’s most successful mobile technology companies and has enabled innovative, customized mobile messaging solutions for such clients as Obama for America, AOL, AT&T, Avis Budget Group, BET, Boost Mobile, Cable & Wireless, CBS, D.C. United, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Permanente, MTV, VeriSign, Vodafone, Viacom, Armani Exchange, and the Washington Capitals.

The MOTY event is underwritten in part by the Houston Business Journal, the presenting sponsor. Platinum sponsors include Paladin Staffing and Pierpont Communications; Gold sponsors are Aquent, Brookwoods Group, Continental Airlines, and Sterling Bank. Silver sponsors are Business Wire, MD Anderson, Sabre Marketing, and Weatherford International Ltd. In-kind sponsors include the Alley Theatre, Commercial Audio/Video, Getty Images, Houston Style Magazine, Newman & Newman, and Ventures Marketing Group. Information on AMA Houston’s Marketer of the Year event is available at www.amahouston.org or http://www.houston.marketingpower2.com/. Tickets are available online at www.regonline.com/MOTY08.

About the American Marketing Association – Houston Chapter

The Houston Chapter of the American Marketing Association is the area’s leading professional marketing organization and the nation’s second largest chapter. AMA Houston is currently Chapter of the Year and has won this national award three times in five years. AMA Houston connects more than 1,000 members with diverse marketing expertise from a variety of industries. For event and membership information, please visit www.amahouston.org.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – ChoiceStream, the premier personalization service provider for the world’s largest retail and entertainment brands, including Tesco, Overstock.com, Borders, Blockbuster, Yahoo!, and AT&T, announced the appointment of industry veteran Darin Hicks to the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO). Hicks joins ChoiceStream from Acxiom Corporation, a global interactive marketing services company, where he served as Vice President and General Manager. Hicks will play an integral role in leading ChoiceStream into performance-based, online advertising, helping the company bring the power of its personalization technology to the advertising market.

“Darin has tremendous experience in managing and growing multiple business lines in markets that are critical to ChoiceStream, most recently in marketing data management systems,” said Steve Johnson, co-founder and CEO of ChoiceStream. “We are pleased to have Darin join ChoiceStream at such a momentous time for our company. Darin will play a critical role helping lead the continued growth of our global personalization and advertising businesses in 2009, and for years to come.”

While at Acxiom, Hicks led an aggressive growth plan for the insurance, high technology and health businesses. He oversaw the development of new products and the growth of Acxiom’s largest global clients in its fastest-growing businesses, leading the company to a top 10 spot in American Banker’s FinTech 100 technology provider rankings. Prior to joining Acxiom in 2004, Hicks was founder and president of Software Leadership Services, a management consulting company providing operating expertise to early stage software companies. Previously, he spent nine years at Trilogy Software in key leadership positions, driving growth from $5 million in revenue and 12 employees to approximately $250 million in revenue with nearly 1,000 employees. Hicks graduated from Stanford University with a degree in industrial engineering.

“I’m excited to be joining ChoiceStream. The company provides the retail industry with cutting-edge personalization technology that drives greater sales and better relationships with their customers,” said Darin Hicks. “The organization is coming off of a successful year, and our new advertising solution positions the company for tremendous growth. I look forward to leveraging my experience to help ChoiceStream develop great relationships in the retail industry, deliver solutions that drive the best value for our customers and build a fantastic place to work.”

About ChoiceStream, Inc.

ChoiceStream delivers dynamic, personalized product recommendations and display ads that increase purchases and customer engagement for today’s biggest brands, including Overstock.com, Tesco, Borders, Blockbuster, AT&T, and Yahoo!. Recently named the company with the “deepest experience of the ‘pure-play’ personalization engines” by a leading independent research firm, ChoiceStream enables retailers to put the right content and products in front of the right people at the right time to maximize the value of every interaction with consumers.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – ChoiceStream, the premier personalization service provider for the world’s largest retail and entertainment brands including Tesco, Overstock.com, Borders, Blockbuster, Yahoo!, and AT&T, today announced the addition of former Yahoo! Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President, Usama Fayyad,to its Board of Directors, former Yahoo! VP Ads, Cheryl Kellond, to its management team, and former WPP executive, Lauren Reiss Frank, to its Advisory Board. The executives – leading media industry experts in online advertising, data analysis, and digital marketing – will help support the company’s growth and expansion into online advertising, where ChoiceStream will apply its proven personalization technology to delivering a new line of high-performance advertising products.

“With Usama, Cheryl and Lauren on board, ChoiceStream gains a deeply-experienced team of media and industry experts to help guide the company’s expansion into online advertising,” said Steve Johnson, co-founder and CEO of ChoiceStream. “We are bringing our industry-leading technology that’s been powering personalized in-store sales for retailers like Tesco, Borders and Overstock to create a powerful new category of personalized advertising. We have shown that when an ad delivers a personalized message – one that speaks to the needs and interests of the individual consumer – it creates a compelling call to action, with several times the sales performance of non-personalized ads. In 2009, ChoiceStream will prove that personalized display advertising can be a powerful way to drive new business in tough economic times.”

Usama Fayyad, Yahoo!’s former Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President, joins ChoiceStream’s Board of Directors after having been a customer of ChoiceStream technology at Yahoo! since 2004. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Dr. Fayyad founded Revenue Science, a behavioral targeting ad network and DMX Group, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2004. Dr. Fayyad brings to ChoiceStream two decades of expertise in data analysis and large-scale systems design and development. At Yahoo!, Dr. Fayyad was in charge of the company’s global data infrastructure, Yahoo!’s data strategy and investments, and the insights and targeting technology that enabled Yahoo! to dramatically increase ad relevance in display and search, as well as increase user engagement. Dr. Fayyad and his team were charged with analyzing the click streams of Yahoo!’s 500 million unique monthly visitors, processing more than 12 Terabytes of data daily, to convert buying habits and response patterns into improved ad performance and content usage. In addition, Fayyad founded and oversaw Yahoo! Research, turning it into the leading internet research lab in new scientific areas, such as community systems, search and information navigation, and computational advertising.

“ChoiceStream has invested nearly a decade in developing the deepest and most comprehensive recommendation and personalization technology I have seen for increasing relevance and user engagement. The application of core personalization to advertising relevance is an exciting development and the results so far have proven to be powerful,” said Usama Fayyad. “My experience and research on clicks and purchases of hundreds of millions of consumers show that the best predictor of a consumers’ future purchases is their prior buying habits, revealing more about what they will be in market for next. I am excited to see Choicestream’s technology for capturing and understanding the commercial events that matter extended from driving personalization and cross-sells to predicting ad relevance and delivering significant revenue increases for retailers.”

Cheryl Kellond also joins the company from Yahoo! and will serve as ChoiceStream’s Senior Vice President of Advertising. Ms. Kellond has strategic and execution responsibility for building the ChoiceStream advertising practice, something she excelled at during her years as Yahoo’s Vice President of Advertiser Product Marketing. In that role, she drove product strategy for search, display and video advertising. She also focused on developing new ad products that helped shift offline budgets online and creating innovative tools for simplifying display advertising for advertisers.

“ChoiceStream’s understanding of shopping data and their proven analytics provide valuable insight into what product a consumer is most likely to buy next and allows the company to generate the click-through rates and sales conversions that display advertisers have been waiting for,” said Cheryl Kellond. “Advertisers will shift their ad spend to the campaigns that deliver the most value and ChoiceStream provides advertisers with a brand new product that uses display advertising’s broad reach and frequency to create new opportunities for consumers to purchase from them. This technology addresses a strong market demand, especially in our current economy, and I look forward to building a successful and innovative advertising business at ChoiceStream.”

In addition to Fayyad and Kellond, Lauren Reiss Frank, currently Director of Marketing and Investor Relations at Value Insight Partners (VIP) is joining ChoiceStream as a member of the Strategic Advisory Board. Prior to her role at VIP, she served as a senior strategy and business development executive for the WPP Group. In that role, she worked on the development of strategy, acquisitions, investments, partnerships and new business opportunities, particularly in the digital marketing and technology areas.

About ChoiceStream, Inc.

ChoiceStream delivers dynamic, personalized product recommendations and display ads that increase purchases and customer engagement for today’s biggest brands, including Overstock.com, Tesco, Borders, Blockbuster, AT&T, and Yahoo!. Recently named the company with the “deepest experience” of the ‘pure-play’ personalization engines” by a leading independent research firm, ChoiceStream enables retailers to put the right content and products in front of the right people at the right time to maximize the value of every interaction with consumers.

HOUSTON – Houston’s Marketer of the Year (MOTY) will be announced March 2, 2009 by the American Marketing Association Houston Chapter at an evening reception being held at the Alley Theatre.

The MOTY is chosen from 33 Houston companies, organizations and institutions that were voted “Best of Category” by the chapter’s more than 1000 members for outstanding marketing efforts in their respective industries.

“Marketing is a strategic and critical function required for any business or organization to be successful,” said Sherri Scott, senior marketing manager at Weatherford International Ltd and current president of AMA Houston. “And our Marketer of the Year event enables us to recognize and congratulate those companies who are ‘best in class’ in their industry for delivering outstanding marketing results for their company and their stakeholders.”

The announcement of the MOTY will be accompanied by keynote speaker Kevin Bertram, the founder and CEO of Distributive Networks, which had a major role in managing mobile marketing for the successful Obama for President campaign. Distributive Networks is one of the nation’s most successful mobile technology companies and has enabled innovative, customized mobile messaging solutions for such clients as Obama for America, AOL, AT&T, Avis Budget Group, BET, Boost Mobile, Cable & Wireless, CBS, D.C. United, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Permanente, MTV, VeriSign, Vodafone, Viacom, Armani Exchange, and the Washington Capitals.

“This year’s presidential campaign was a marketing case study that will be analyzed for years to come,” said Scott. “The era of interactive digital technology is upon us – and marketers must learn how to embrace and leverage these resources. Mr. Bertram will share with the Marketer of the Year event attendees the importance and value of adding this medium to their marketing program.”

The MOTY process began with the nomination of 176 Houston-area firms by local marketing and business leaders and area marketing professors. Voting by AMA-Houston’s members resulted in the selection of the 33 Best of Category winners. Houston’s “2008 Marketer of the Year” is chosen based on an evaluation of finalists’ responses to questions about their marketing programs by a group of marketing experts across the country.

The MOTY Best of Category winners are: Administaff; Blue Bell Creameries; BMC Software; Carrabba’s Italian Grill; CB Richard Ellis; CenterPoint Energy; Continental Airlines; David Taylor Cadillac; David Weekley Homes; El Paso Corporation; Energy Alloys; Fulbright & Jaworski; Gallery Furniture; Greater Houston Partnership; Hotel ZaZa; House of Blues Houston; Houston Business Journal; Houston Food Bank; Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo; Houston Museum of Natural Science; Igloo Products; John Moore Services; Kelsey Seybold Clinic; Martha Turner Properties; MD Anderson Cancer Center; Mieko Mahi Photography & Video; Mustang Engineering; PKF Texas; Rice University; Shell Oil Company; Sterling Bank; Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS); and Weatherford International.

The MOTY event is underwritten in part by the Houston Business Journal, the presenting sponsor. Platinum sponsors include Paladin Staffing and Pierpont Communications; Gold sponsors are Aquent, Brookwoods Group, Continental Airlines, and Sterling Bank. Silver sponsors are BusinessWire, MD Anderson, Sabre Marketing, and Weatherford International Ltd. In-kind sponsors include Commercial Audio/Video, Newman & Newman, and Ventures Marketing Group. Information on AMA Houston’s Marketer of the Year event is available at www.amahouston.org or http://www.houston.marketingpower2.com/. Tickets are available online at www.regonline.com/MOTY08.

About the American Marketing Association – Houston Chapter

The Houston Chapter of the American Marketing Association is the area’s leading professional marketing organization and the nation’s second largest chapter. AMA Houston is currently Chapter of the Year and has won this national award two times in five years. AMA Houston connects more than 1,000 members with diverse marketing expertise from a variety of industries. For event and membership information, please visit www.amahouston.org.

ATLANTA – Air2Web, Inc., a market leader in commercialized text messaging, has been selected to power a text-to-win mobile marketing campaign during the 2009 Super Bowl for Johnsonville Sausage, the number one national brand of brats, Italian sausage, smoked links and breakfast sausage links.

The campaign will run through February 28, 2009 and fans can enter by mailing in an entry form, entering online at www.johnsonville.com/gameday or via SMS on their mobile phone. Fans that enter have the opportunity to win one of three packages sponsored by Johnsonville Sausage and Coleman Outdoor Products.

The Super Bowl is the most watched television event of the year, and Johnsonville Sausage is capitalizing on the event’s high level of visibility for their first foray into mobile. To enter, all fans need to do is text “football” or “gameday” to 48775 on their mobile phone and let the games begin.

“We’re honored to have our leadership in mobile marketing validated by being selected by Johnsonville Sausage to power their 2009 Super Bowl XLIII mobile campaign,” says Curtis Rapp, vice president of sales and marketing for Air2Web.

The campaign will result in ten lucky mobile users winning the Grand Prize of Coleman® Roadtrip® packages that include one Gas Grill LXE, two portable deck chairs, one steel-belted cooler, one blender, and twelve coupons for Johnsonville products. Ten first prizes will also be awarded consisting of one soft-sided cooler and twelve Johnsonville coupons. In addition, one hundred second prizes will be awarded consisting of one hard bottom cooler and four Johnsonville coupons. No purchase is necessary to enter or win and there is a limit of one entry per day per person.

“When we decided we wanted to develop a mobile promotion around the Super Bowl, we looked for mobile marketing providers that had the required technology and the highest level of expertise,” Ron Scherer, National Accounts Manager for Johnsonville, said. “Air2Web was the top contender in both areas and we’ve been extremely pleased with our selection.”

Official rules are available on the Johnsonville Sausage website and in-store at SUPERVALU retail stores including; Albertson’s, Acme, Biggs, Cub Foods, Farm Fresh, Jewel, Shopper’s, Shop ‘N Save and Shaw’s/Star in selected geographic regions.

A comprehensive nationwide consumer support plan includes television ads, online banner ads, ESPN Radio, media tour, FSI drop and POS promotion in January and February.

About Air2Web, Inc.

Launched in 1999, Air2Web helps the world’s biggest and best companies harness the power of mobile to connect with their customers. Over the past 10 years, Air2Web has launched thousands of mobile marketing campaigns and integrated mobile technology into strategic business applications for customer care. Air2Web offers companies the tools and technology to promote products and brands, improve the efficiency of customer service and enable mobile transactions, anytime, anywhere. Air2Web is the trusted mobile resource for some of the largest, most influential brands in the world, including AT&T, Procter & Gamble, WeatherChannel, Starbucks, UPS and many more. For more information on Air2Web, visit www.air2web.com.

About Johnsonville Sausage

Wisconsin-based Johnsonville Sausage is the number one national brand of brats, Italian sausage, smoked-cooked links and fresh breakfast sausage links. Johnsonville Sausage products are available in 27 countries including France, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China and the United States. Johnsonville employs 1,300 members. Each of them takes ownership of product quality to ensure the excellence and “Big Taste” of Johnsonville Sausage. Founded in 1945 by Ralph F. & Alice Stayer, the company remains privately owned today.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – ChoiceStream, the premier recommendations service provider for the world’s largest retail and entertainment brands including Tesco, Overstock.com, Borders, Blockbuster, Yahoo!, and AT&T, today announced the findings of its 2008 Personalization Survey. According to the survey, retailers’ most attractive prospects–those who spend the most money and shop most frequently–are more likely to click on personalized ads than non-personalized ads. Overall, 39 percent of consumers are more likely to click on an ad if it is personalized; of those who shop online at least several times a month that number climbs to 58 percent. The survey also finds that the bigger the spender, the greater the interest in personalized ads with 50 percent of those spending more than $250 online over the past six months indicating that they are more willing to click on ads that are personalized.

“Online consumers are a savvy bunch and it’s not surprising that they’re more likely to tune in to ads personalized to their tastes and interests. What is surprising, though, is the extent to which the higher quality prospects seem to be more interested in personalized ads,” said Cheryl Kellond, senior vice president at ChoiceStream. “Advertisers that are spending premiums to target the biggest spenders and the most frequent shoppers should take note that those shoppers want intelligent ads that speak to their specific needs and shopping intent. The more personalized those ads are the better chance retailers have of connecting with those consumers.”

The survey also finds consumers surprisingly savvy about online advertising in terms of its effect on their behavior. 70 percent of consumers admit that their purchase decisions are at least sometimes influenced by having seen an ad for an item. A smaller, but still significant percent of consumers admit that they are influenced by brand advertising as well, with 39% admitting that they are more likely to buy from vendors or retailers that they have seen advertised than from unrecognized sources. In both cases, the bigger the spender, the more likely they are to admit to being influenced by advertising.

Consumers are also aware of how shopping sites use data to target ads to them. A full 60 percent of shoppers are aware that retailers use information about their online shopping behavior to target advertising to them.

“The results of the 2008 survey clearly show that today’s online consumers are smarter and more sophisticated than ever before. They understand the value of online advertising and know retailers have information about their shopping behavior that can make their experience more relevant,” said Steve Johnson, president and CEO of ChoiceStream. “Especially in these tough economic times, advertisers should be investing in more personalized forms of advertising that attracts high-quality prospects and repeat customers to shop in their stores.”

For information on how ChoiceStream personalization can create measurable results for online retailers, visit our website.

About the ChoiceStream Personalization Survey

The ChoiceStream Personalization Survey provides insight into consumers’ interest in, and perceptions of, personalization. The survey was first fielded in May, 2004. Each year the Survey is re-evaluated and, where appropriate, new questions are added to ensure that the survey stays relevant and addresses the current issues of the day. This year, new questions address advertising and online privacy. Specifically, the Survey delves into the value of personalized advertising; how aware consumers are of advertising’s affect on their purchase decisions; and what types of concerns consumers have about their online privacy with respect to personalized advertising.

The Survey brief provides detailed findings of the study and is available for download.

About ChoiceStream, Inc.

ChoiceStream delivers dynamic, personalized product recommendations and display ads that increase purchases and customer engagement for today’s biggest brands, including Overstock.com, Tesco, Borders, Blockbuster, AT&T, and Yahoo!. Recently named the company with the “deepest experience” of the ‘pure-play’ personalization engines” by a leading independent research firm, ChoiceStream enables retailers to put the right content and products in front of the right people at the right time to maximize the value of every interaction with consumers.

Thomas (Tom) Cotney, Jr. was hired in July of 2008 as the company’s President and CEO. Prior to joining Air2Web, Mr. Cotney founded Marvin Thomas Partners, Inc. a consulting firm that focuses on software and services business models. He is also a veteran of IBM Global Services, where he managed IBM’s Business Process Outsourcing business in the Americas and managed five of IBM’s ten largest outsourcing relationships. Earlier in his career Mr. Cotney also worked at Apple Computer.

“Going forward, what the industry will need to be successful are people who know how to design compelling business solutions and the ability to deliver them. That means you have to have an executive team with a track record of solution development, customer service and sales execution,” says Mr. Cotney. “That is now what we have in place at Air2Web.”

Curtis Rapp joins Air2Web as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing with responsibility for sales execution, account management and marketing strategy. After successful stints leading sales teams at Omnilink, MAPICS and IBM, Mr. Rapp brings a strong background in executive sales management with a proven track record in channel sales development.

Susan Hedrick joins Air2Web as the Vice President of Development and is responsible for leading the company’s development, platform security and quality assurance organization. Ms. Hedrick has more than 20 years in the software development industry including positions with CheckFree Corporation, Sales Technologies, and BellSouth.

Harvey Scholl joins Air2Web as the Vice President of Operations responsible for managing the company’s worldwide customer-facing technical operations and overseeing Air2Web’s global network operation centers. Mr. Scholl served most recently as Executive Director of Data Systems for AT&T’s Yellowpages.com. Prior posts include MCI, Nortel, Simon & Schuster and Fleetcor.

Robert Kostrinski joins Air2Web as the Chief Financial Officer. Formerly with Grant Thornton, Mr. Kostrinski brings over 25 years of financial experience including a stint as CFO with RBSLynk in Atlanta, GA where he was instrumental in the successful sale of the Company to The Royal Bank of Scotland Group for $525 million.

Jay Sheth, a veteran of the wireless industry, is the sole member of the previous management team. Mr. Sheth, the Senior Vice President of Business Development, continues to run Air2Web’s successful operation in India.

Mr. Cotney says, “We’ve been together as a team now for a few short weeks. In that time, we have dramatically raised the level of system performance and customer service that our current customers are receiving. It’s about time to make some noise in the market place with a new offering. Stay tuned.”

About Air2Web, Inc.

Launched in 1999, Air2Web helps the world’s biggest and best companies harness the power of mobile to connect with their customers. Over the past 10 years, Air2Web has launched thousands of mobile marketing campaigns and integrated mobile technology into strategic business applications for customer care. Air2Web offers companies the tools and technology to promote products and brands, improve the efficiency of customer service and enable mobile transactions, anytime, anywhere. Air2Web is the trusted mobile resource for some of the largest, most influential brands in the world, including AT&T, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, UPS and many more. For more information on Air2Web, visit www.air2web.com.

IAB Leadership Forum

LOS ANGELES – Sometrics (http://www.sometrics.com) launched its Virtual Currency Platform – the industry’s first ad server to manage all virtual currency monetization from multiple offer providers.

As the benefits of the incentivized virtual currency revenue model are becoming more apparent, the industry is seeing an influx of providers in the space. Sometrics’ new platform will manage offers from any ad network, including Super Rewards, Offerpal and SocialMedia Networks. Sometrics will measure and report revenue, completion rates and demographic details, to help application developers analyze the effectiveness of each offer network.

Developers are then able to optimize and create new unique offers for all of these networks directly from the Sometrics Virtual Currency Platform.

“Sometrics will optimize existing virtual currency revenue, providing lift with current offer vendors,” said Ian Swanson, Sometrics co-founder and CEO. “Our platform also provides a more transparent and updated dashboard – one place to see all virtual currency revenue, across all apps and offer providers. There’s a host of offer networks available to developers, but most don’t provide much in the way of detailed reporting or transparency of results. Our platform is game-changing as the first solution designed to tackle this problem and give developers a way to optimize revenue streams across the board.”

Developers and publishers of social applications increasingly rely on incentive-based offers to encourage their users to take a particular action – view an ad, for example – ultimately increasing advertising revenue.

More than 1,800 publishers of social applications and communities are now using Sometrics’ social advertising and measurement solutions to increase traffic and boost revenue. Sometrics is the first to tailor its analytics and ad managing solutions to focus on social networking platforms and applications, providing the most relevant and effective audience analysis and social ad targeting available.

For product demos, contact Jennifer or Mickey at demo@sometrics.com.

About Sometrics

Sometrics is pioneering social intelligence – combining deep, relevant social analytics with precision-targeted ad managing/social branding capabilities to help developers and brands monetize the social web. Founded by developers, Sometrics is the first to tailor its analytics and ad managing solutions to focus on social networking platforms and applications. It provides the most relevant and effective audience analysis available, helping developers and brands better understand who’s doing what within the major social networking communities and ultra-targeted niche sites. Sometrics has more than 1,800 developers using its analytics tools across multiple social networks; some have reported 200 percent growth in traffic. Sometrics is the first recipient of capital from The Mail Room Fund, an investment consortium that combines big Hollywood (the William Morris Talent Agency) with Silicon Valley (Accel and Venrock). Its first funding round also included AT&T and Greycroft Partners. Sometrics is based in Los Angeles.

PARK CITY, Utah – Lyris, Inc., the online marketing expert, announced Lyris HQ Mobile, a new SMS texting solution that allows marketers to send timely, relevant and targeted text communications to opt-in audiences. With the introduction of Lyris HQ Mobile into the Lyris HQ integrated online marketing suite, today’s marketers can now streamline online and mobile marketing campaigns within the same rich interface, reducing the cost and complexity of managing campaigns, while increasing ROI.

Marketing channels continue to expand and marketers need to take full advantage of consumers’ busy and active lifestyles. According to the Mobile Marketing Association’s Annual Mobile Attitude and Usage Study, one in four mobile subscribers in the U.S. and Western Europe expressed either strong or moderate interest in mobile marketing efforts.(1) JupiterResearch, a Forrester Research company, predicts that by 2013, there will be 371 million U.S. wireless subscribers, and of those, 201 million will be SMS users.(2)

“Mobile device users are continuing to grow in number which presents significant opportunities for marketers that want to strengthen relationships with their core audiences,” said Blaine Mathieu, chief marketing officer, Lyris, Inc. “Lyris HQ Mobile allows marketers to broaden engagement with prospects and customers, wherever they spend their time.”

In a recent Forrester Research report, David Daniels, vice president and principal analyst confirmed this by writing, “Marketers must consider the impact of emerging communication channels and of increasing favorability of text messages on specific demographic segments.” (3)

Enabling Marketers to Engage Consumers Anytime, Anywhere

With today’s mobile consumer, online marketers have the added pressure of supporting and tracking campaigns with both online and mobile elements. Lyris HQ Mobile allows users to sign up for SMS messages via text message or by completing an opt-in form. Lyris HQ Mobile handles all opt-in requirements set forth by the mobile carriers and provides reports back to marketers in real-time so they are aware of what is working and what needs improvement.

There are many use cases for Lyris HQ Mobile. These include community organizations providing timely updates to their members, promoters who send SMS texts to concert-goers who have opted in to receive messages while attending a show, or tradeshow sponsors who want to drive traffic to a specific location or event within a conference.

Capabilities and features of Lyris HQ Mobile include:

* The ability to send one-time messages immediately, as well as on a scheduled or recurring basis to specific users
* The capability to target messages to individuals or groups of subscribers that provide users with exclusive offers, polls or location/event specific coupons
* Support for a broad range of campaign types including surveys, contests, transactional messages, and promotional copy
* Dedicated, customizable shortcode or shared shortcode options are available
* Query and reporting capabilities that provide marketers with insight such as the status of a message, individual response rates and return of messages sent to bad numbers
* Enforced double opt-in process as required by wireless carriers
* API-based interface allows easy connection to other applications

“Today’s marketers are forced to expand their marketing channels into media like mobile while also increasing their level of reporting and analysis,” said Jim Sterne, chairman of the Web Analytics Association. “Solutions that can integrate these functions and tie results into an overall digital marketing campaign will be a key asset to marketers looking for competitive advantage in today’s economy.”

Availability

Lyris HQ Mobile is available as an API-based solution. Lyris has partnered with Air2Web to help provide SMS to Lyris HQ customers. For more information please visit: http://www.lyris.com.

About Lyris, Inc.

Lyris, Inc. (OTCBB:LYRI) is the online marketing expert delivering the right mix of software technology and industry knowledge to help its customers simplify their marketing efforts and optimize campaign ROI. Through the delivery of the industry’s first on-demand integrated marketing suite, Lyris HQ, and knowledge-sharing community, www.lyrishq.com, to secure and reliable on-premise solutions, including Lyris ListManager, Lyris provides customers the right tools to optimize the management, collaboration and execution of their online and mobile marketing initiatives. These sophisticated, yet easy-to-use tools provide marketers a suite of best-of-breed applications for managing email marketing campaigns, publishing and managing Web site content, creating landing pages, optimizing Web sites and managing pay per click campaigns. Clients include Nokia, Adobe, PalmSource, Johns Hopkins University and JupiterMedia. For more information, please visit www.lyris.com. The company is based in Emeryville, Calif.

About Air2Web, Inc.

Launched in 1999, Air2Web helps marketers harness the power of mobile to engage with their consumers. Over the past 10 years, Air2Web has launched thousands of mobile marketing campaigns. Air2Web offers companies the tools and technology to promote products and brands, improve the efficiency of customer service and enable mobile transactions, anytime, anywhere. Air2Web is the trusted mobile resource for some of the largest, most influential brands in the world, including AT&T, Procter & Gamble, WalMart, Starbucks, UPS and many more. For more information on Air2Web, visit www.air2web.com.

The statements in this news release relating to matters that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements based on management’s beliefs and assumptions using currently available information and expectations as of the date hereof, and are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties, including risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in Lyris Inc.’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission available at www.sec.gov. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot give any assurances that these expectations will prove to be correct. Lyris assumes no duty to publicly update or revise any such statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

1 “MMA: One in four U.S. users interested in mobile marketing,” FierceMobileContent, November 12, 2008. (http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/mma-one-four-u-s-users-interested-mobile-marketing/2008-11-12).

2 “US Wireless Forecast, 2008 to 2013: Reaching the Tipping Point for Mobile Data Services,” JupiterResearch, a Forrester Research Company, July 30, 2008. (http://www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/research:concept/81/id=100473/).

3 “The Social and Portable Inbox: Optimizing E-mail Marketing in the New Era of Communication Tools,” JupiterResearch, a Forrester Research Company, July 10, 2008. (http://www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/research:vision/1103/id=100409/).

- Acumium Acquires Search-Friendly GravityMarket Ecommerce Platform
Dan Costello, founder of Acumium, Madison-based internet technology firm, announced the acquisition of the GravityMarket ecommerce platform from Netconcepts, natural search marketing agency.
“We are happy to add GravityMarket to our suite of ecommerce and content management solutions,” said Costello. “GravityMarket complements our own expertise in online retail best practice and search marketing.”
First developed by Netconcepts in 2001, then re-architected and again released in 2007, the GravityMarket platform includes search engine friendly features like text-based, optimized URLs, unique title tags and keyword-rich content. According to Netconcepts, most clients moved to GravityMarket because their previous websites were virtually invisible to the search engines, making it an expensive proposition to drive online traffic.

“Consumers are looking for a company that provides a tangible value in family plans, a full range of handsets and an outstanding customer experience,” said Bill Morgan, senior vice president of Corporate Marketing for Sprint. “We have all of those, plus the superiority of America’s largest, most dependable 3G network. Sprint’s Now Network means our customers get what they want when they want it.”

Head-to-head savings demonstrated:

- The new ads will be integrated into the current national advertising campaign and will include print, television, online and radio to help tell Sprint’s story. Unique comparison charts will demonstrate how families can save at least $240 and up to $1,000 annually based on comparable rate and service plans offered by Verizon and AT&T.

- With families pressed for cash every month, a $480 savings during the course of two years represents a car payment, a needed appliance, a month’s worth of groceries or a deposit into a child’s college fund. In these times, the Now Network is not just fast and full of wireless data possibilities; it’s also sensitive to the finances of today’s family.

- With the Sprint Everything plan, just $99.99 buys a month’s worth of unlimited talk, Web browsing, email, text, video messaging, picture sharing, GPS, push-to-talk, Sprint TV, Music and exclusive NFL and NASCAR applications.

“Our ads highlight ‘Now’ by showing how we deliver to consumers what they want, when they want it,” continued Morgan, “and with a full-range of handsets and the most affordable, full-service family and data plans available today — all of which provide a solution that financially-savvy consumers really appreciate.”

Simply Everything offers savings for unlimited data — more than $480 annual savings vs. AT&T and Verizon on an individual plan

Earlier this year, Sprint revolutionized unlimited pricing in the wireless industry by moving beyond its competitors to deliver more features for a flat rate of $99.99. Sprint’s Simply Everything plan provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, email, Web browsing, GPS Navigation and much more — all for only $99.99. Comparable yearly messaging and data plans on Verizon and AT&T cost the consumer an additional $480 and $540, respectively.

A great example of the value offered by Sprint is the cost savings available with the Samsung Instinct vs. the iPhone. The Instinct is $70 less than the iPhone after a mail-in rebate, but that is only the start of the savings. When comparing similar rate plans for both phones, customers who purchase an iPhone will pay approximately $1,200 more for similar services during their two-year contract than customers who purchase an Instinct. Sprint’s plans with unlimited data begin at less than $70 per month.

America’s largest, most dependable 3G network

In addition to the value message, the new advertising will highlight the fact that Sprint has America’s largest (based on number of square miles — including roaming, Sprint has four times the coverage of AT&T’s current 3G network) and most dependable 3G network. The dependability statistic is backed up by independent, third-party drive-test data on connection success and session reliability for the top 50 most populous U.S. markets from March to September of this year.

Device lineup second to none

Sprint’s advertising will continue to promote the company’s holiday handset line-up, six of which were highlighted by Forbes.com in its Top 10 best phones for holiday gift-giving. Led by the Samsung Instinct, named by CNET as “Best In Show” at CTIA’s spring show, Sprint also offers the Samsung Rant — named by LAPTOP Magazine as best cell phone at CTIA’s fall show. The Rant is available for $49.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and eligible upgrade or new line activation with a two-year agreement.

Sprint One Click — a user-friendly interface for consumer devices

Sprint One Click is a highly interactive user interface design that gives customers the ability to easily access the features they use most on their non-PDA phone. Offered exclusively by Sprint, it provides a widget-based stand-by screen and the ability to easily access the most-used features on the customer’s wireless phone. Sprint One Click is available on four new phones: LG Lotus, Samsung Highnote, Samsung Rant and Samsung Eclipse.

About Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving nearly 51 million customers at the end of the third quarter 2008; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. For more information, visit www.sprint.com

NEW YORK – Giving advertisers a cost-effective way to acquire brand intelligence that will help them increase ROI across the board, Sometrics (http://www.sometrics.com) unveiled new rich media ad units for the social web that will measure brand perception and ad effectiveness. The company made the announcement at the ad:tech digital marketing conference in New York.

The move expands the value of the social web for advertisers, by harnessing Sometrics’ targeting and measurement capabilities to turn highly engaging social ads into a resource for gaining insight a company can use to make all of its advertising (TV, print, online) more effective.

Sometrics’ new ad units let advertisers target video and other ads based on user demographics and social interests, within social networking and other community sites. Using incentives designed to appeal to the particular audience – like extra points for someone playing an online game – Sometrics encourages people to view the ad and to answer questions about the ad and the brand, ensuring a high level of engagement with the ad itself.

Those questions will measure brand awareness, attitude, favorability, purchase intent and brand preference. Sometrics will couple that brand perception data with user demographics like age, location and gender, along with interests and social actions – to give advertisers a significant amount of actionable intelligence that will help them better understand their audiences and identify which messages are successful.

“We’re giving advertisers the tools for improving ROI across all advertising at a time when every ad dollar spent must be strategic and achieve results,” said Ian Swanson, Sometrics co-founder and CEO. “There are two characteristics of the social web that make it a rich source of information for advertisers – the depth of demographic data we aggregate, and the level of attention that users already give the medium. We’re combining the power of both – using precision-targeting abilities to reach the right audiences, and using incentives to direct their attention our way to help us give advertisers insight that will help them forge stronger connections with their target audiences.”

The intelligence Sometrics provides includes traffic, demographic, social interest, social action, conversion details and brand perception data. It is custom-packaged in reports designed to make it easy for advertisers to make informed decisions about where, when and how to allocate advertising budgets to more effectively reach target audiences.

For product demos, contact Jennifer or Mickey at demo@sometrics.com.

About Sometrics

Sometrics is pioneering social intelligence – combining deep, relevant social analytics with precision-targeted ad managing/social branding capabilities to help developers and brands monetize the social web. Founded by developers, Sometrics is the first to tailor its analytics and ad managing solutions to focus on social networking platforms and applications. It provides the most relevant and effective audience analysis available, helping developers and brands better understand who’s doing what within the major social networking communities and ultra-targeted niche sites. While still in beta, Sometrics has more than 1,700 developers using its analytics tools across multiple social networks; some beta testers have reported 200 percent growth in traffic. Sometrics is the first recipient of capital from The Mail Room Fund, an investment consortium that combines big Hollywood (the William Morris Talent Agency) with Silicon Valley (Accel and Venrock). Its first funding round also included AT&T and Greycroft Partners. Sometrics is based in Los Angeles.

NEW YORK & LONDON & SINGAPORE & SAO PAULO, Brazil – The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) (www.mmaglobal.com) announced the release of an updated version of its global Mobile Advertising Guidelines. The guidelines provide the global formats, guidelines and best practices necessary to implement mobile advertising initiatives in a variety of mobile media channels, including web, messaging, downloadable applications and video. The MMA has published regional ad guidelines since 2005 and globalized the guidelines in April 2008.

Key revisions include:
- Updated Mobile Web Guidelines
- Added recommendation on automatic resizing of Mobile Web banner ads
- Updated Multimedia Messaging (MMS)
- Revised the MMS Ad Unit and Aspect Ratio recommendations
- Updated the Audio Formats best practices
- Revised the Size recommendations

New Mobile Video and TV guidelines including the following:
- Ad Units
- Aspect Ratios

The guidelines are designed to encourage the uptake of mobile marketing worldwide by creating a simplified framework for brands and agencies to deliver mobile advertising in a consistent way. Released every 6 months, the guidelines process ensures that the recommendations are continually updated and reflective of global best practices and industry feedback.

The new set of guidelines are the result of ongoing collaboration between MMA member companies and MMA Mobile Advertising Committee members in the Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America regions and are representative of the entire mobile marketing ecosystem. They have also received industry endorsement from industry associations such as ADMA, BVDW, DMA UK, dotMobi Advisory Group (MAG), IAB UK, Chile and Mexico.

“The continued enhancement of the MMA’s global Mobile Advertising Guidelines ensure that marketers are able to quickly deploy mobile advertising campaigns world-wide in a manner that optimizes screen size and ensures consumer satisfaction. Through our Mobile Advertising Committee, the MMA continues to stay at the forefront of industry leadership for mobile advertising guidelines and education development,” said MMA President Laura Marriott.

The MMA Mobile Advertising Committee member companies include: 4INFO, Inc., AdInfuse, Inc., AT&T Mobility, Buzzd, Google, Golden Gekko Ltd, GoldSpot Media, Greystripe Incorporated, GroupM, JumpTap, Madhouse Inc., MediaFLO USA, Inc., Microsoft (MSN and Windows Live), Millennial Media, Inc., Mobile Posse, MobiTX, Inc., Mobixell Networks (Europe) Ltd, Neustar Inc., News Over Wireless, Nokia Corporation, OpenMarket, Qualcomm, R/GA, Rhythm NewMedia, ScreenTonic, Sensei, Inc. Sharpcards, Smarter Agent, Smaato Inc., State Farm Insurance, Tapioca Mobile, Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S., Unkasoft Advergaming, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone Group Services Ltd., Yahoo!

The latest version of the MMA global Mobile Guidelines can be downloaded from www.mmaglobal.com/mobileadvertising.pdf. The MMA has also published a Mobile Advertising Overview white paper (www.mmaglobal.com/mobileadoverview.pdf) as well as an Applications white paper (http://www.mmaglobal.com/mobileapplications.pdf) for educational purposes.

About the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the premier global non-profit trade association established to lead the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies. The MMA is an action-oriented organization designed to clear obstacles to market development, establish mobile media guidelines and best practices for sustainable growth, and evangelize the use of the mobile channel. The more than 700 member companies, representing over forty countries around the globe, include all members of the mobile media ecosystem. The Mobile Marketing Association’s global headquarters are located in the United States and in 2007 it formed the North America (NA), Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA), Latin American (LATAM) and Asia Pacific (APAC) branches. For more information, please visit www.mmaglobal.com.

NEW YORK & LONDON & SINGAPORE & SAO PAULO, Brazil – The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) (www.mmaglobal.com), which globally promotes the development and sustainability of mobile marketing, today announced the finalists for the MMA’s Fourth Annual Global Mobile Marketing Awards which honors the companies who are successfully utilizing and leading the adoption of the mobile channel for marketing purposes. The awards will be presented at the Annual Global Awards dinner and ceremony on November 13 in San Diego, concluding the MMA’s Mobile Marketing Forum (www.mobilemarketingforum.com).

The MMA received submissions from companies across the globe across 12 categories. Finalists were selected by the MMA Awards Selection Committee comprised of global industry leaders from wireless carriers, technology and content providers, agencies and industry publications.

“The quality of submissions we receive for our awards program continues to increase as the mobile marketing channel matures. The increase in submissions from brands and agencies this year as well as new applications from APAC and LATAM make this a truly global awards program,” said Laura Marriott, president of the MMA. “We appreciate the contribution of all those who submitted applications and congratulate these finalists, each of whom demonstrate innovation, creativity and excellence in their mobile marketing implementations.”

The 2008 MMA awards finalists are:

Best Use of Mobile Marketing, Branding:

APAC

* Group M Media India pvt Ltd., Nokia E66 & Nokia E 71 Launch
* OgilvyOne Worldwide Hong Kong, Guinness Passport to Greatness
* TigerSpike – Virgin Festival Buddy, Virgin Mobile Music Festival 2008

EMEA

* BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty), Lynx Get In There mobile tools
* BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty), Cippis Trump Selecta!
* Mobile Dreams Factory, LA FÁBRICA DE LA FELICIDAD

LATAM

* Okto Tecnologia e Serviços de Informática Ltda, Happiness Factory
* Pontomobi Interactive, Center Norte Christmas
* Unilever, F.biz, Nokia Interactive Advertising, Unilever Seda Teens Shampoo Mobile Marketing Campaign

NA

* Anheuser-Busch, Apology Bot 3000
* AT&T, AT&T and Rock the Vote Go Mobile
* Golden Gekko S.L., Absolut Drinks in Your Mobile

Best Use of Mobile Marketing, Cross-Media Integration:

APAC

* AURA Interactive, Paramount Pictures BlueZone® campaign
* Madhouse Inc., Nike Zoom Mobile Marketing Campaign in China
* The Hyperfactory, United Nations “Voices” Campaign

EMEA

* Mobiento and Initiative Universal Media, Snickers Peanut Power
* Mobile Dreams Factory, TIENES UN PLAN
* MOBILERA Turkey & Mindshare Turkey/NIKE Football Campaign: “Take it to the Next Level”

LATAM

* Mobext Brazil, Media Contacts Brazil and Citroën, Delivering Geo-Target Information
* Pontomobi Interactive, MOVE
* QuickMedia, Pasalo de dedo en dedo

NA

* ABC.com, The Oscars® Mobile program
* HipCricket, TXT4Dummies
* The Hyperfactory, Peyton Manning’s Priceless Pep Talks

Best Use of Mobile Marketing, Direct Response:

APAC

* AURA Interactive, Hoyts BlueZone® network
* GroupM Media India Pvt Ltd, The New HSBC Premier Mobile Handset
* The Hyperfactory, United Nations “Voices” Campaign

EMEA

* Incentivated, Bookstart DRTV Campaign
* Mobile Dreams Factory, Voice Push
* YOC AG and KRAFT FOODS, Jacobs 3für1/2für1

NA

* Cellfire Inc. and Kroger, Cellfire Mobile Grocery Coupons
* MGM Grand, Las Vegas, MGM Grand, Mobile Data Acquisition
* Walmart, Kraft Foods, AT&T, and Single Touch Systems, #MEALS

Best Use of Mobile Marketing, Product/Services Launch:

APAC

* Bharti Airtel Ltd., iPhone Launch on Airtel
* FarEasTone Telecommunication Co., Ltd, Mobile Advertising Campaign: The Unrestrained Spirit
* The Hyperfactory, Nike T90 Kick Off Launch in 3D Augmented Reality on Mobile

EMEA

* iconmobile GmbH, BMW VideoCall
* Mobile Dreams Factory, INFORMATION IN YOUR PHONE
* AKQA, Nike PHOTOiD

LATAM

* F.biz, Seda Teens
* Pontomobi Interactive, One Missed Call
* Pontomobi Interactive, Reach One

NA

* Edelman Mobile, Dove Fresh Takes
* INCENTIVATED, Jaguar Cars NA, Jaguar XF Launch Campaign
* KADOINK, Jason Mraz Mobile Album Premier

Best Use of Mobile Marketing, Promotion:

APAC

* AURA Interactive, Paramount Pictures BlueZone® campaign
* WOLFPAC MOBILE, Inc., Coffee-Mate Challenge
* WOLFPAC MOBILE, Inc., NESCAFE 3in1 Decode Promo

EMEA

* AERODEON, SHOW YOUR EMOTIONS!
* Electric Agency, COCA-COLA EUROCUP 2008 – ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BALL?’
* Mobile Dreams Factory, IDRINKS

LATAM

* HANZO SA, HANZO Online Mobile Marketing Campaigning
* Mobext, ADIDAS FAIRPLAY
* Pontomobi Interactive, Besni in cinemas

NA

* Valassis 1-to-1 Solutions and IKEA, IKEA Catalog “Find It” Mobile Sweepstakes
* Limbo, Verizon Wireless’s The Fight For Gotham City Promotion
* The Weather Channel Mobile, Mobile Month

Best Use of Mobile Marketing, Relationship-Building:

APAC

* AURA Interactive, Hoyts BlueZone® network
* GroupM Media India Pvt Ltd, Pepsi – Youngistaan – A New Cult for Youth!
* TigerSpike – Mobile Warnie, VB Summer of Spin

EMEA

* Mobile Dreams Factory, IDRINKS
* OMD International and Vodafone, Vodafone Mobile – Football
* R/GA, Nokia Urbanista Diaries

NA

* CellTrust Corp., Harlem Case Study
* Edelman Mobile, Dove Fresh Takes
* Obama for America, Obama for America Mobile

Innovation:

EMEA

* Ad Infuse, Strongbow: Turning Virtual Pints into Reality
* AKQA, Nike PHOTOiD
* Praekelt Foundation, TxtAlert

NA

* Cellfire Inc., Cellfire Mobile Grocery Coupons
* Polo Ralph Lauren, Mobile Commerce – Two-dimensional barcodes
* Rhythm NewMedia, vSNAX Videos

Innovation for Creativity in Media

* Mobile Dreams Factory, APLICACION NATIVA PARA IPOD
* Mobile Dreams Factory, INFORMATION IN YOUR PHONE
* Mobile Dreams Factory, THE PARTY PROJECT

Innovation for Creativity in Technology

EMEA

* MOBILE DREAMS FACTORY & VODAFONE, Vodafone Club2020
* Mobile Dreams Factory, IDRINKS
* R/GA, Nokia Urbanista Diaries

NA

* Macrovision / TVGuide, Dynamic mobile ad-network for publishers
* Mobile Accord, Inc., Keep a Child Alive Mobile Donation Campaign
* R/GA, Nike Basketball Ballers Network

The MMA will also announce the winners of the Overall Excellence Award for Company/Committee, Individual and Academic awards. Regional award winners will be eligible to win the Global awards for their category which will also be presented at the awards ceremony.

About the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the premier global non-profit trade association established to lead the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies. The MMA is an action-oriented organization designed to clear obstacles to market development, establish mobile media guidelines and best practices for sustainable growth, and evangelize the use of the mobile channel. The more than 700 member companies, representing over forty countries around the globe, include all members of the mobile media ecosystem. The Mobile Marketing Association’s global headquarters are located in the United States and it has regional chapters including North America (NA), Europe, Latin America (LATAM), Middle East & Africa (MEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC) branches. For more information, please visit www.mmaglobal.com.

NEW YORK – The American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) has joined forces with 25-year veteran career fair producer Shomex Productions to present Diversity in Advertising Career Day (www.diacareerday.com), a daylong advertising career and job fair aimed at helping to increase the level of qualified, mid-career candidates from ethnically and racially diverse backgrounds.

Diversity in Advertising Career Day debuted in 2007 to commemorate the first anniversary of a landmark agreement between New York City and top NYC advertising agencies to not only diversify their ranks, but also to allow City officials to monitor the diversification process. It is the one Industry event that provides a forum for multicultural professionals to network and explore career opportunities in advertising, marketing and communications and for companies to source top-caliber, diverse candidates.

The third annual Career Day will be held at the Hilton Towers in New York City on Wednesday, April 22, 2009.

“One of the fundamental missions of the 4A’s is to improve and strengthen the advertising agency business in the United States by attracting excellent people,” said Nancy Hill, president and CEO, 4A’s. “We consider it a priority to foster a growing community of diverse, talented, committed and exceptional individuals throughout the industry and are thrilled to sponsor Diversity in Advertising Career Day to help to achieve those goals.”

The last New York event, on April 24, 2008, was officially proclaimed as Diversity in Advertising & Public Relations Career Day by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He saluted the one-day job fair and conference saying, “In New York City, 200 languages are spoken, and men and women from every background live side-by-side in mutual respect. We derive our strength from this rich tapestry of cultures, and from residents whose unique abilities, traditions and experiences combine to create the vibrant city we love. We all benefit from a workplace that reflects our diverse city, and the City of New York is proud to celebrate Diversity in Advertising / PR Career Day.”

Lew Shomer, founder and president of Shomex Productions, said, “Diversity in Advertising Career Day provides an exciting and efficient environment for advertising, marketing and communications companies to source employees with many of the skill sets needed for mid- and senior-level positions. We believe that this event has the potential to literally change the face of the advertising industry, by the way in which the industry perceives diversity and realizes its ability to do something about it.”

“An increasingly multicultural workplace is good for business. We welcome the 4A’s as a partner in our efforts help advertising agencies and others to excel by mirroring the diverse communities which they serve,” said Shomer.

Backed by Industry, Community and Educational Leadership

Diversity in Advertising Career Day is backed by an outstanding group of cross- and multi-cultural community, professional and alumni partners. Included are the NAACP’s New York State Conference of Branches, ADCOLOR Industry Coalition, Advertising Research Foundation, Advertising Women in New York, the Asian American Advertising Federation, Center for Communication, Commercial Closet Association, the Council of Public Relations Firms, Echelon Business Media, Ethnic Events, Mediabistro, Minority Professional Network, NAMIC, National Society of Hispanic MBAs, Portada, Public Relations Society of America, Talent Zoo, The Network Journal, City College of New York, Columbia University Business School, Howard University, New York City College of Technology, New York University/NYU Wasserman Center for Career Development, New York Institute of Technology and State University of New York and its Fashion Institute of Technology.

About Shomex Productions

Starting in 1984 with one event, Shomex Productions (www.shomex.com) has emerged as a leader in all its business niches, and has built its Diversity Career Fair brand, presented in partnership with leading diversity organizations, into the leading live diversity recruiting platform in the U.S. Shomex has produced more than 1,000 events from coast to coast, in virtually every major U.S. market, serving dozens of industries including advertising, aerospace, pharmaceutical, healthcare, retail, financial services, computer, telecommunications, media and entertainment. The Shomex client list includes hundreds of America’s leading employers, including AT&T, Bank of America, Blockbuster, Disney/ABC, Lockheed Martin, Merck, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Toyota and Verizon Wireless.

About 4A’s

Founded in 1917, 4A’s is the national trade association representing the advertising agency business in the United States. Its membership produces approximately 80 percent of the total advertising volume placed by agencies nationwide. Although virtually all of the large, multinational agencies are members of the 4A’s, more than 60 percent of our membership bills less than $10 million per year. The 4A’s is a management-oriented association that offers its members the broadest possible services and expertise regarding the advertising agency business including information on how best to recruit diverse talent into its ranks.

For more information about participating in Diversity in Advertising Career Day as an exhibitor or as an attendee seeking job interviews, log onto www.diacareerday.com.

ATLANTA – Launching SMS text mobile marketing campaigns with interactive capabilities is now as easy as 1-2-3, thanks to GO WITH SMS!®, a turnkey Web-based program available exclusively from LSN, Inc., Local Solutions Network, the largest local mobile advertising network in the United States. The GO WITH SMS!® program provides all of the tools companies need to rollout an interactive mobile promotion, at a low cost, within a short timeframe.

Companies simply select a platform from eight promotion categories, using one or more of the LSN short codes, add an exclusive keyword and then write the SMS text message. LSN’s GO WITH SMS!® requires no long-term contracts or sign-up fees and offers three pricing options. Companies can launch a mobile campaign for as little as $199/month with an allocation of 1-1,500 text messages per month. Other plans include 1,501-10,000 text messages per month for only $759/month and 10,001-25,000 text messages per month for only $1599/month.

“We are extremely proud to introduce another innovative mobile marketing application that empowers companies to leverage interactive SMS text messaging to drive brand awareness through consumer adoption and participation,” said David Spear, EVP sales and marketing, LSN. “Since 94% of text messages are read by participants, text mobile marketing is becoming more essential to marketers every day. The GO WITH SMS!® program now gives any company the capability to create an interactive mobile campaign, either by selecting one of our ready-to-go promotion platforms, or by creating their own customized campaign, to reach mobile subscribers, in less than a week!”

GO WITH SMS! ® Highlights

The GO WITH SMS! ® turnkey campaigns are available for contests, voting, offers, news, buying/selling, auto, sports, and information alerts. Customized campaigns are also available.

Access the Go With SMS!® Web portal.
Select a promotion platform, including one of the LSN memorable short codes. Pick a keyword(s) and write your SMS message.
Launch the campaign within two to four business days over LSN’s reliable and scaled text platform.
Review your campaign performance – LSN provides password protected login access to view all data.
Send alerts – GO WITH SMS!® offers clients the capability to send out alerts to all opt-in users, fostering a true interactive exchange between marketer and end user.
Short Message Service (SMS) is a communications protocol allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile devices. SMS text messaging is the most widely used data application today, with 2.4 billion active users, or 74% of all mobile phone subscribers, sending and receiving text messages on their phones.

LSN works with 17 of the top 20 wireless carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and MetroPCS.

About LSN, Inc.

LSN (Local Solutions Network), Inc., 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 contact sales@lsnmobile.com or visit www.lsnmobile.com.

NEW YORK – Sometrics (http://www.sometrics.com) today launched its new Social Ad Manager, designed to help developers and social networking sites easily manage and optimize their entire ad inventories from one place – decreasing costs while increasing revenue.

Sometrics made the announcement at the Social Ad Summit in New York. Sometrics founder and CEO Ian Swanson is participating in the Social Advertising Metrics panel discussion at 2:45 p.m. EDT.

The Social Ad Manager, offered at no charge, aggregates all ad inventory – from third-party ad networks and from the publisher’s own direct ad sales. It eliminates server costs and gives developers and social networks (collectively known as “publishers”) the ability to manage and optimize all inventory in one place.

Sometrics enables publishers to socially target all inventory based on user demographics and social interests, helping them serve ads that their audiences are more likely to be interested in – and therefore more likely to interact with. In addition, the Sometrics Social Ad Manager creates custom reports detailing traffic, making it easy for publishers to package themselves as attractive channels for brands and advertisers wanting to reach the publisher’s audiences.

“We’re making it possible for publishers to apply our social intelligence to their entire ad inventory, to optimize the delivery of their ads and increase revenue,” said Ian Swanson, Sometrics CEO and co-founder. “We’ve built a system that combines analytics, targeting and branding capabilities all designed to help developers and advertisers reach their audiences within the social web. Now our clients can apply this social intelligence to every ad they serve.”

The Sometrics Social Ad Manager includes ad hosting, serving and precision-targeting using the most relevant and effective audience analysis available. The platform is coupled with Sometrics’ groundbreaking social analytics solution, which was created expressly to track and analyze traffic, demographics, interests and actions within the social web.

Available in beta since June 1, the Sometrics Social Ad Manager has been serving tens of millions of ad impressions daily.

For product demos, contact Jennifer Bartlett or Mickey Maher at demo@sometrics.com.

About Sometrics

Sometrics is pioneering social intelligence – combining deep, relevant social analytics with precision-targeted ad serving/social branding capabilities to help developers and brands monetize the social web. Founded by developers, Sometrics is the first to tailor its analytics and ad serving solutions to focus on social networking platforms and applications. It provides the most relevant and effective audience analysis available, helping developers and brands better understand who’s doing what within the major social networking communities and ultra-targeted niche sites. While still in beta, Sometrics has more than 1,200 developers using its analytics tools across multiple social networks; some beta testers have reported 200 percent growth in traffic. Sometrics is the first recipient of capital from The Mail Room Fund, an investment consortium that combines big Hollywood (the William Morris Talent Agency) with Silicon Valley (Accel and Venrock). Its first funding round also included AT&T and Greycroft Partners. Sometrics is based in Los Angeles.

BOSTON – Quattro Wireless (www.quattrowireless.com), North America’s best performing mobile ad network, and uLocate Communications (www.ulocate.com), the world’s leading publisher of mobile location-based services, today announced a partnership that will present brands with unprecedented advertising opportunities to target and serve iPhone owners through an industry-first location-based advertising service. The deal extends Quattro’s In-App Network by leveraging uLocate’s WHERE™ application to deliver location-based overlays for Quattro’s innovative iPhone ad units. In addition, Quattro and uLocate will develop new ad-sponsorships for location-based keyword search, Widgets and Map options within WHERE.

WHERE, one of the most popular location-based applications in Apple’s iPhone App Store, will utilize Quattro’s dynamic ad serving platform to enable highly targeted in-application ads to be served to iPhone users based on contextual, demographic, behavioral and location information. WHERE’s location-based service will be added to Quattro’s industry leading Video, Call, In-Application, iTunes and Popover iPhone ad units. Under the deal, ad inventory for the WHERE application on the iPhone is available exclusively through the Quattro In-App Network and for Quattro’s flagship advertisers such as Toyota, Herbal Essences, Sony, Comcast and LionsGate.

WHERE helps users connect with the people, places and things around them by delivering geographically relevant retail, business and event information, as well as entertainment content. By contextualizing advertising with location through a consumer’s proximity and active search, Quattro and uLocate will create a premium and unprecedented advertising opportunity for brand marketers to elevate the mobile ad market. By example, Quattro and WHERE will enable rich advertising opportunity with:

Search-To-Map Keyword Advertising whereby search results can be paired with contextual advertisements–i.e. Walgreen’s could purchase the keywords “headache” and “Advil” to drive consumers to the closest store.

Widget Sponsorship allows multi-product or multi-channel brands such as Wal-Mart or Staples to highlight their store locations on the widget map home page and provide product specials.

WHERE™ Widget Banners inside BuddyBeacon and Local Search will be targeted to user behavior and widget type as well as provide full “Click To” functionality–ie. Click-To-Maps or Click-To-Video–to extend the interactive advertising experience.

“Our iPhone-exclusive partnership with uLocate is the latest example of Quattro’s leadership in providing advertisers and publishers with unsurpassed access to iPhone users and unprecedented premium advertising opportunities,” said Andrew Miller, CEO of Quattro Wireless. “Quattro has the largest network of adapted Publisher web sites for the iPhone–ranging from NFL to CollegeHumor.com to CBS News–and the addition of WHERE adds a sought after location element and cements our reputation as the go-to partner for brands that want to target the coveted iPhone market.”

“The popularity of WHERE among iPhone users makes it an ideal platform for brands seeking innovative ways to reach a highly relevant and receptive audience,” said Walt Doyle, CEO, uLocate Communications. “Together with Quattro Wireless, we are offering an unprecedented level of context to advertisers as we leverage the power of location to deliver the right message at precisely the right time.”

“Coupling Quattro with location-based service WHERE creates a compelling advertising opportunity on the iPhone. Being able to place one of my client’s ads in front of a consumer headed to a Wal-Mart or a Walgreens is a premium opportunity for Brand in Hand and its clients,” said John Hadl, CEO of Brand In Hand whose clients include Procter & Gamble, American Express and Essurance. “By adding proximity of a consumer’s location to a brand’s media placement, we can invest in media much closer to a moment of truth, a sale.”

A tutorial for the advertising units available through Quattro and WHERE is available at www.QuattroWireless.com.

About Quattro Wireless

Quattro Wireless is North America’s best performing mobile advertising network, specializing in taking wired assets to the wireless world. With the industry’s only pre- and post-click technology platform, Quattro provides category leading Publishers and Premium branded advertisers with a turnkey solution to extend their internet offering to the mobile web. Publishers leverage Quattro’s proprietary mobilization technology and interactive feature set to launch dynamic, ad supported mobile web versions of their wired web sites. Advertisers partner with Quattro to design, develop and serve targeted and interactive campaigns to the highly engaged Quattro Network audience. Quattro Wireless was founded in 2006 by proven mobile pioneers and is headquartered in Waltham, Mass. For more information, please visit http://www.quattrowireless.com.

About WHERETM

WHERE, a service of uLocate Communications, connects consumers with people, places and things through the power of location. Whether finding friends in a crowded city, locating the lowest gas prices, satisfying a craving for a latte or scoring tickets to a local show, it’s all about navigating your world. WHERE lets consumers personalize their mobile experience while exploring and sharing interests with friends. Whatever your pursuits, WHERE delivers the best in local information from Eventful, Yelp, GasBuddy, Zipcar, ShopLocal, Starbucks, Buddy Beacon® and more.

Available on most major carriers including Alltel, AT&T, Boost, Helio, metroPCS and Sprint, the WHERE platform channels the power of location to the latest mobile devices including Nokia, BlackBerry and the iPhone. For more information, please visit www.where.com.

The acquisition of PBJS reaffirms Publicis Groupe’s commitment to pursuing its development through targeted acquisitions in high growth sectors such as marketing services. The newly acquired agency’s interactive expertise further demonstrates Publicis Groupe’s determination to infuse digital capabilities into all of its different businesses, including events management. This move also brings a significant part of Microsoft’s marketing business to Publicis Groupe, given that Microsoft is PBJS’s biggest client.

PBJS will continue to operate autonomously and will be aligned with Publicis Events Worldwide. The acquisition of PBJS brings new multichannel events capabilities to Publicis Events USA, such as video production, webcast and interactive exhibits. PBJS will continue to be managed by its founder and CEO Bob Bejan. Under the new structure, Bob Bejan will now report to John Farrell, President & CEO of SAMS.

Founded in 2003, PBJS employs 26 professionals and services an impressive portfolio of blue chip clients. The company enjoys a long-term and extensive agreement with Microsoft for the production of a variety of both internal and external events. PBJS also has established growing relationships with premier brands such as AT&T, Intel, Smart Balance Foods, Sephora and Boys & Girls Club of America. In addition, PBJS partners with top tier content creators to create a range of branded entertainment experiences on the internet. PBJS took the New York Times number one bestseller The Green Book to a broader audience engagement with expanded content experiences online. The agency also secured distribution with MSN, msnbc.com and MSNBC Cable to launch a cross-channel episodic online extension of Tom Friedman’s best-selling book The World is Flat.

We congratulate PBJS on their relationship with Publicis Groupe. We have worked with PBJS over the past several years on a number of our live experiences, product launches, internal and external communication events, and they will continue to be our valued and experienced partner in these areas,” said Mich Mathews, Senior Vice President, Marketing for the Microsoft Corporation.

John Farrell, President & CEO of SAMS Worldwide, welcomed the news. “Bob Bejan, Jeanette Pigott and Ian Saunders together with their team at PBJS bring an impressive array of credentials to the SAMS offering. Bob is someone who truly understands rapidly evolving technology and its impact on new media consumption patterns. His expertise will be a major asset to further benefit our clients. With this acquisition, we are once again demonstrating our commitment to strengthening our leading position in global events marketing.”

Bob Bejan, CEO of PBJS, “Joining Publicis Groupe is a critical step for us and it means a lot in terms of validating our business model and providing accelerated scale. With this move, we are well-positioned to reap the benefits of being part of a global group while, at the same time, maintaining our identity and remaining true to our roots.”

About PBJS

PBJS has grown from two accounts in 2003 to fifteen accounts in 2007. The agency currently employs 26 full-time employees. PBJS prides itself on developing business through recommendation, referral and preexisting relationships.

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

About Publicis Groupe

Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris: FR0000130577] is the world’s fourth largest communications group. In addition, it is ranked as the world’s second largest media counsel and buying group, and is a global leader in digital and healthcare communications. With activities spanning 104 countries on five continents, the Groupe employs approximately 44,000 professionals.

Web Site: www.publicisgroupe.com

With more then fifteen years of experience, Len has evangelized and sold new technology to key decision makers including online publishers, agencies and clients, in addition to maintaining responsibility for over $40 million in online ad revenue. He has also been recognized by peers and management, winning both quantitative sales awards as well as receiving acknowledgement from colleagues.

Being among the first online sales persons in the digital industry, Len has been written about in BusinessWeek regarding the online advertising marketplace. Additionally, he has consulted with companies including Olive Garden, America Online, Jet Blue, Sony and more. Known for his ability to quickly identify sales opportunities, Len takes great pride in understanding client’s marketing and business goals. He thrives on presenting dynamic products and services that leverage bottom line results. Adopting innovative approaches and concepts, Len demonstrates a solid grasp on revolutionary marketing solutions, delivering groundbreaking ideas that impact heavily on the digital arena.

Prior to joining SpotXchange, Len was national sales director at Knocknock, formerly known as Avant Interactive, where he maintained responsibility for revenue generation and implementation of pioneering digital marketing solutions. His clients included Lifetime, ABC, CBS, NBC, AT& T, Scripps Networks, Honda and Ford, to name a few. Len strongly believes that the key to his success is founded on his ability to build solid relationships with both clients and agencies. In addition to Avant, his career includes time with Scripps Networks, Mobliss, Inc., Claria Corporation and DoubleClick. At DoubleClick he served as senior strategic sales person selling advertising on DoubleClick’s network of over 1100 highly rated web sites.

Based in Colorado and launched in November 2006, SpotXchange is an online video advertising network that provides sophisticated targeting, a hands-on client services team, reporting, and a transparent marketplace that meets publisher and advertisers online video advertising needs.

About SpotXchange
The SpotXchange patent-pending online video advertising platform received the 2007 Streaming Media Readers’ Choice Award for BEST VIDEO AD PLATFORM. The company was spun off from Colorado-based digital marketing and technology company, Booyah Networks in March 2007. Booyah Networks ranked 23rd on the 2006 Inc. 500. Clients and partners include Voxant, Blinkx, Adap.tv, LiveVideo.com, NeoEdge, United Press International and others.

Automotive
Agency: OMD / Client: Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo Music
Agency: Organic, Inc / Client: Jeep Patriot
Agency: Rubin Postaer and Associates / Client: Honda Certified Used Car (HCUC)

Business-to-Business
Agency: Cadient Group / Client: AstraZenica
Agency: OgilvyOne, San Francisco / Client: Barclays Global Investors
Agency: Brief Attention Span Communications / Client: Serena Software, Inc.

Financial Services
Agency: Organic, inc / Client: Bank of America
Agency: Proximity Canada / Client: Royal Bank of Canada
Agency: Smartmoney.com / Client: Genworth Financial

Food/Beverage
Agency: Atmosphere BBDO / Client: Anheuser-Busch/Bud Light
Agency: Element79 / Client: Gatorade
Agency: space150/Modern Media / Client: International Dairy Queen

Media & Entertainment
Agency: Digitas / Client: American Express and AOL Music, “Tour Tracker”
Agency: Tribal DDB / Client: Nokia
Agency: Tribal DDB / Client: Pepsi-Cola North America

Retail/Consumer Products and Services
Agency: Atmosphere BBDO / Client: Target
Agency: MediaVest / Client: Wal-Mart
Agency: Ryan iDirect / Client: Unilever/Dove, “Dove Reality Diaries”

Technology
Agency: Cheil Worldwide / Client: Samsung Telecommunications America/Juke
Agency: IBM / Client: IBM WebSphere
Agency: Javelin Directo / Client: AT&T U-verse

Travel
Agency: Avenue A | Razorfish / Client: Westin Hotels & Resorts
Agency: Digitas / Client: Holiday Inn Express, “The Smart Show”
Agency: RGM / Client: Bombay Sapphire/JustLuxé, “Create Your Summer Escape”

RESTON, VA, August 26, 2008 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its June ranking of the top online display ad publishers and advertisers, based on data from the comScore Ad Metrix service. Fox Interactive Media, which owns MySpace.com, ranked as the top display ad publisher with 15.9 percent of all display ads viewed, while Microsoft was the top display advertiser with 1.7 percent of total views.

comScore Ad Metrix provides detailed reporting of the number and types of online display ads viewed by Internet users in the U.S. market. The syndicated service measures the number of times each advertiser’s ads are viewed and where they are viewed, the demographics of those exposed to the ads, and the reach and frequency of an advertiser’s campaign. Ad Metrix also provides samples of the creative ad units with information on ad sizes.

Fox Interactive Media Ranks as Top Display Ad Publisher in June

Fox Interactive Media ranked as the top display ad publishing property in June, serving 52.3 billion ad views (15.9 percent market share), with MySpace.com accounting for 51 billion of these views. Yahoo! Sites, which ranked second in total ad views with 34.7 billion (10.5 percent share), reached 130 million unique individuals with its ads – reaching more people than any other publisher. AOL LLC ranked third with 19 billion display ads (5.8 percent share), followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.4 billion (4.7 percent share), and Google Sites with 5.1 billion (1.5 percent share).

Top Display Ad Publisher Sites June 2008 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix
Publisher Site	Total Display Ad Views (MM)	Share of Display Ads	Advertising Exposed Unique Visitors (000)
Total Internet	329,828	100.0	180,571
Fox Interactive Media	52,288	15.9	83,714
Yahoo! Sites	34,675	10.5	130,680
AOL LLC	19,004	5.8	96,512
Microsoft Sites	15,485	4.7	87,667
Google Sites	5,075	1.5	81,885
FACEBOOK.COM	3,650	1.1	30,723
eBay	3,512	1.1	52,238
Viacom Digital	3,114	0.9	36,382
COMCAST.NET	2,644	0.8	11,860
Glam Media	2,237	0.7	33,462

Microsoft Ranks as Top Display Advertiser in June

Microsoft was the top display advertiser in June with 5.5 billion display ad views, due in large part to its promotional campaign for Windows Live Search, including ads for Windows Live Search Club games and the new Windows Live Search cashback program. The University of Phoenix, an online university, ranked second with 4.7 billion, followed by Experian (4 billion), which advertises for a variety of sites including LowerMyBills.com and FreeCreditReport.com, and United Online (3.9 billion), which owns the heavily advertised Classmates.com. Several communications providers ranked among the top ten, including Verizon with 3.8 billion, AT&T with3.8 billion, Deutsche Telekom (which owns T-Mobile) with 3.6 billion and Vonage with 3.4 billion.

Top Online Display Advertisers June 2008 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix
Advertiser	Total Display Ad Views (MM)	Share of Display Ads	Advertising Exposed Unique Visitors (000)
Total Internet	329,828	100.0	180,571
Microsoft	5,529	1.7	126,367
University of Phoenix	4,722	1.4	120,475
Experian Interactive	3,968	1.2	137,915
United Online, Inc	3,929	1.2	136,329
Verizon	3,818	1.2	130,839
AT&T, Inc.	3,802	1.2	134,341
Deutsche Telekom	3,594	1.1	129,951
Vonage	3,368	1.0	132,964
Netflix	3,146	1.0	134,554
Ask Network	2,852	0.9	102,565

To request more information on comScore Ad Metrix, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/contact

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate.

“We are interested in the nature and extent to which you engage in such practices, and the impact it could have on consumer privacy,” wrote Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., and ranking Republican Joe Barton of Texas. – Reuters (08/01)

All’s fine and a honorable initiative this is: I would, indeed, be creeped out to find out just how close I’m ‘watched’ by my ISP and the myriad of sites I use. However, I’m having a Carrie moment and cannot help but wonder: are these people (John Dingell and Joe Barton, namely) qualified to run such an investigation or this initiative is just a charade? Who are the advisors doing the actual work of analysing these dotcoms and ISPs?

Sydney – June 17, 2008

Tribal Fusion, the world’s largest independent online advertising network and leading site-representation company, today launches into the Australian marketplace. Through the latest ad serving and optimisation technology, Tribal Fusion delivers advertising solutions to brand and direct marketers and premium publishers by offering customised placements in contextually relevant content. With a significant number of English-speaking users in the Tribal Fusion network and an agency model comparable to North America and Europe, Australia is an ideal market into which Tribal Fusion can expand its offering.

The demand for online display advertising continues to grow as both consumers and advertisers shift from traditional to digital media. Major brand advertisers, in particular, are looking for safe, cost-effective alternatives to buying on portals and marquee sites. Consumers themselves are ever more sophisticated, demanding a more tailored and personal approach to marketing. This has presented a challenge to marketers in the delivery of the right message to the right consumer in a complex and ever expanding online world with increasing audience fragmentation – a challenge which Tribal Fusion addresses in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., India, and now in Australia.

Vicki Lyon, Director of Business Development, Tribal Fusion – Australia, said, “Tribal Fusion has built a successful independent advertising network with its innovative approach and unique technologies, addressing the needs of both online marketers and publishers. We offer site-specific and special placements, and various ways to target users anonymously such as geotargeting and behavioural targeting. Tribal Fusion delivers campaign results with the transparency and quality of sites that advertisers have come to expect.”

To maintain the quality of sites in its network, Tribal Fusion accepts and partners with only six percent of the online publishers who apply. Lyon continued, “Our revenue-share model operates in the best interests of publishers, delivering them multiple ways to monetise content through revenue sharing, free ad serving, and quality advertisers and advertising.”

In Australia, Tribal Fusion has already run successful pilot programs with clients including Microsoft, whose online campaigns are managed by Andrew Davis, Digital Account Manager, Universal McCann – Australia. Davis commented, “Working with Tribal Fusion we have been able to deliver effective online media in a very cost-efficient model for our clients. These are key criteria. We have found Tribal Fusion to be helpful and creative, and their briefs are always developed to offer value to our clients.”.

Dilip DaSilva, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Exponential Interactive, Inc., the parent company of Tribal Fusion, stated, “Tribal Fusion has enjoyed six years of profitable growth, and international expansion is a key strategy to our continuing success. Australia is an exciting market for Tribal Fusion as we see the strong growth in the online sector teamed with a healthy agency culture. Our existing user base of English speaking consumers makes Tribal Fusion a natural fit for both Australian publishers and digital marketers.”

“With the explosion in online media content and advertising, we wanted to ensure that our high-quality advertisers and publishers have access to a broad range of tools to reach their target audiences and increase their revenue potential. Tribal Fusion offers the most robust, dynamic, scalable solutions that leverage our proprietary technology,” DaSilva added.

Tribal Fusion represents over 1500 web publishers worldwide and works with 38 of the top 50 online advertisers including brands such as Microsoft, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard and Sony. Tribal Fusion offers advertisers site-specific and special placements, behavioural targeting, profile targeting, geotargeting, and daypart advertising and tandem ads.

About Tribal Fusion

Tribal Fusion® is the leading site representation company serving over 30 billion monthly impressions to more than 230 million unique users worldwide every month. The company partners with top quality web publishers to provide brand advertisers with targeted ad placements. Offering site-specific, channel-wide, run-of-network ads as well as behavioural and contextual placements, Tribal Fusion delivers results through expert advice and intelligent technology. Tribal Fusion® is owned by Exponential Interactive, Inc.™ – a technology-driven media services company that delivers innovative products and services to meet the demands of advertisers and publishers. Additional information is available at http://www.tribalfusion.com and http://www.exponential.com.