SocialVibe Brings Traditional Trick-or-Treat Charity Efforts to Millions of Global Facebook, MySpace and Twitter Users. 'CLICK 4 GOOD' BRINGS RELIEF TO THOSE IN NEED charity: water, Stand Up 2 Cancer(TM), Keep a Child Alive and The Surfrider Foundation Band Together To Create Change

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 26 // -- SocialVibe (www.socialvibe.com), the leading social media utility that empowers people to benefit their causes by engaging with brands, announced the program "Click 4 Good" today. Expanding real world trick-or-treating online, Click 4 Good is a virtual neighborhood on SocialVibe (www.socialvibe.com/click4good) comprised of houses representing charities, each of which aim to bring relief to those in need.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20091026/LA98369)

Partnerships with charity: water, Stand Up 2 Cancer, Keep A Child Alive and The Surfrider Foundation give millions of users the opportunity to provide relief around the globe without donating their own money. By visiting a house within this virtual cul-de-sac, contributions will be made to fund efforts by the following organizations:

• charity: water: Provides clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
• Stand Up 2 Cancer: Aims to urgently move cancer research forward by advancing technology available to scientists and clinicians.
• Keep a Child Alive: Provides life-saving anti-retroviral treatment, care and support to children and families whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.
• The Surfrider Foundation: Dedicated to protecting and preserving our world's oceans, waves and beaches.
  

Each time a visitor clicks on a virtual house, a donation is made on their behalf to the corresponding charity. SocialVibe users can share their impact with friends on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, bebo, myYearbook and other social properties. For every visitor who earns a treat, a real social impact will be made.

"Social Networks are a powerful platform for social change by empowering millions of users to encourage their friends to get involved," said SocialVibe CEO Jay Samit. "Through Click 4 Good, the focus of Halloween shifts from sharing candy to virally being able to share with those in need."

"I am very excited about Click 4 Good shifting the focus of Halloween from candy to relief for those in need," says 17 year-old SocialViber user Haley Proehl of Reno, Nevada. "I have trick-or-treated for UNICEF in the past, but I am excited about SocialVibe making it easy for me to help out multiple charities!"

Click 4 Good will be live through November 1. To find out more and start trick-or-treating for good, please visit www.socialvibe.com/click4good.

About SocialVibe

SocialVibe (www.socialvibe.com) is the leading social media utility that empowers people to benefit their causes and communities by engaging with brand sponsors and sharing branded content with their social graph. SocialVibe recognizes that in social media individuals hold the key to generating attention and influence that brands need. Through SocialVibe's advertising model, brands have a unique way of interacting with individuals and accessing the content they create. Ranked by Quantcast among the top 200 US web sites, SocialVibe raises money for charities through the extensions of the SocialVibe utility onto sites like Facebook, MySpace, bebo, myYearbook, Twitter, WordPress.com and Blogger.com. SocialVibe is backed by venture capital firms Redpoint Ventures and JAFCO Ventures.

Learn more: www.socialvibe.com

About charity: water

charity: water is a non-profit bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 1 in 6 people on the planet don't have clean water to drink. Dirty water and a lack of basic sanitation kills 4,500 children every day. charity: water is trying to change that.

Learn more: www.charitywater.org

About Stand Up 2 Cancer

Stand Up 2 Cancer is launching a new movement to attack cancer once and for all by pushing promising scientific breakthroughs to the finish. Cancer takes one person every minute. One life in a moment. SU2C is calling on the public to help take matters into our own hands, investing in a revolution that will change the way scientists and clinicians work to understand and treat these diseases. Stand Up 2 Cancer is more than a rallying cry. It is a galvanizing force created to urgently move cancer research forward.

Learn more: www.standup2cancer.org/

About Keep a Child Alive

Keep a Child Alive is dedicated to providing life-saving anti-retroviral treatment, care and support services to children and families whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India by directly engaging the global public in the fight against aids. Keep a Child Alive is committed to direct action, and remains small and bureaucracy-free so that their speed of response is never hampered. KCA offers a very real solution to the problem, all on a personal scale. Since its inception in 2003, Keep a Child Alive has saved more than 50,000 lives. They currently provide funding to 8 clinical and orphan care sites in 5 countries: India, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda.

Learn more: www.keepachildalive.org

About The Surfrider Foundation

The Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit, grassroots environmental organization dedicated to protection and enjoyment of our world's oceans, waves and beaches. Founded in 1984 by a handful of surfers in Malibu, California, the organization has grown to over 50,000 activists and 80 chapters across the world.

Learn more: www.surfrider.org

SOURCE SocialVibe

Susie's Big Adventure Dishes About What Can Happen If Someone Talks About His Sex Life In Saudi Arabia

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 30 // -- Sex is a taboo subject in Saudi Arabia, so much so that for discussing his sex life on television, a Saudi man has been sentenced to five years in prison and 1000 lashes. But how two Saudi women who worked for the satellite TV station that broadcast the show have also been arrested and charged with crimes somehow related to this event boggles her mind.

http://susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com/2009/10/sex-lies-and-videotape.html

Read about Susie's wedding to the man of her dreams on her previous post:

http://susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-perfect-wedding.html

Susie's other blog, Jeddah Daily Photo Journal, offers a peek into life in Saudi Arabia, serving up a new photo every day from the Kingdom ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

http://susieofarabia.wordpress.com/

SOURCE Susie's Big Adventure

PMRA Market Bottom Indicator Successfully Detected 2009 Stock Market Bottom. Protect My Retirement Account.com (www.ProtectMyRetirementAccount.com) has developed an extraordinary new technical indicator called the 'PMRA Market Bottom Indicator' that detects stock market bottoms with amazing accuracy

THE WOODLANDS, Texas, Oct. 26 // -- In the Protect My Retirement Account.com blog entry back on March 21st, 2009 entitled "Forming a Sustainable Bottom," CEO and Chief Technical Analyst, Joseph Soltra, wrote "... our proprietary PMRA Market Bottom Indicator is currently showing a large positive divergence with the S&P 500 Index, indicating that the overall market for stocks is definitely gaining strength. It is just a matter of time before the demand for stocks will begin to drive prices higher, causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the other major market indexes to rise once again over the long term." Now, seven months later, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up almost 38% from that point.

Mr. Soltra stated, "I started Protect My Retirement Account.com because buy-and-hold stock investing just doesn't work anymore. Over the past ten years, investors have been through two of the worst stock market crashes in history and have seen their retirement savings and their retirement dreams disappear -- even investors who were very well diversified."

Continued Mr. Soltra, "In these volatile financial times, diversification is simply not enough. Investors facing retirement who are looking to preserve capital as well as enjoy significant returns are recognizing the severe limitations of traditional buy-and-hold stock investing."

Lily Rodriguez, who has been a subscriber to the PMRA service since August 2009, said, "After losing so much money in my retirement account before deciding to put my savings in a money-market fund, I thought I would never invest in stocks again. Since I subscribed to your service, I'm now invested in stocks at the right time. Thank you!"

Here is a link to the Protect My Retirement Account.com blog so you can check it out for yourself: http://protectmyretirementaccount.wordpress.com/.

Also, check out the PMRA Market Bottom Indicator page at: http://www.protectmyretirementaccount.com/market_bottom_indicator.html

On this page, you can see how the PMRA Market Bottom Indicator also detected the 2002 stock market bottom.

About Protect My Retirement Account.com

The Woodlands, TX -area www.ProtectMyRetirementAccount.com helps investors protect their retirement savings from major stock market declines by providing a subscription based E-mail alert service that advises investors when to be invested in stock based mutual funds and when to be invested in cash equivalents such as money-market mutual funds or stable value mutual funds.

    Contact:

    Joseph Soltra, CEO and Chief Technical Analyst
    Protect My Retirement Account.com
    (713) 401-2836
    jsoltra@comcast.net
    http://www.ProtectMyRetirementAccount.com

SOURCE Protect My Retirement Account.com

StatusNet Closes $875K Seed Financing Round

Delivers first open-source micro-blogging platform

MONTREAL, Oct. 27 // - StatusNet, the company that develops an Open Source micro-blogging platform, has completed an $875,000 financing round. Investors include local venture capital groups Montreal Start Up and iNovia Capital as well as European angel investor Oleg Tscheltzoff of Fotolia.com.

"We're excited by the opportunity for growth this investment brings," says Evan Prodromou, CEO of StatusNet Inc. "We plan to use this capital to build the sales, support and marketing power needed to take our software and services to the marketplace."

Founded in 2008, StatusNet develops the software that runs hundreds of micro-blogging sites across the Web, including the popular Identi.ca community. The StatusNet engine allows companies and communities to set up their own Twitter-like Web site, so that employees, customers or friends can share quick status updates, links, and files. The engine includes APIs and tools to receive and send updates through IM and SMS as well as through Twitter and Facebook.

"StatusNet is ready to take its place in the market as the WordPress of microblogging," says John Stokes, lead partner at Montreal Start Up. "The growth of the Twitter platform has proven the importance of this medium, and we believe that StatusNet can play an important role in bringing this capability to broader audiences."

The company has commercialized the Open Source offering with support, customization services, and a hosting platform at status.net. The hosted service, currently in private beta, is scheduled to launch publicly before the year end. Customers can choose between private sites, similar to yammer.com, and public sites for publishing or community engagement.

"iNovia team recognizes the opportunity to bring micro-blogging to corporate users, media outlets and brands among others," says Josko Bobanovic, principal at iNovia Capital. "Evan and his team have demonstrated they can provide a valuable service while being supported by a strong business model. We look forward to helping this dynamic team further its growth in the ever-changing business market."

For further information see http://status.net or contact Evan Prodromou (evan@status.net)

About StatusNet

Founded in 2008 by CEO Evan Prodromou, StatusNet Inc. develops the Open Source microblogging tool by the same name. Based in Montreal, the nine-person team provides service and support as well as the hosting platform status.net

About Montreal Start Up:

People, ideas, finance, and luck: these four factors are necessary to create any successful company; Montreal Start Up provides start-up finance to people with ideas. For more information, visit www.montrealstartup.com.

About iNovia Capital

iNovia provides venture capital to entrepreneurs who transform innovations into successful companies. The team is comprised of sector experts in information technology, life sciences, and clean tech. In addition, iNovia's extensive network of industry and academic partners provides portfolio companies with unique access to intellectual property. iNovia has $165M under management across two seed and early stage funds. For more information, visit www.inoviacapital.com or follow iNovia on Twitter at http://twitter.com/iNovia

About Oleg Tschertzoff

Oleg Tscheltzoff co-founded http://fotolia.com, the first global online social marketplace for creative digital stock images in 11 languages, where photographers and designers of all levels can store, share and monetize their photographs and illustrations. As CEO, he led the company from inception to its rapid rise to one of the world's largest microstock photography site. On May 21, 2009, Fotolia launched http://photoxpress.com, the world's largest free stock images web site.

SOURCE INOVIA CAPITAL

SEC, CFTC Asked to Investigate Goldman Sachs' Special Privileges Ahead of Cap-and-Trade

POTOMAC, Md., July 27 /-USNewswire/ -- Today Steve Milloy, publisher of JunkScience.com, released a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler asking for an investigation into loopholes in the law which enable Goldman Sachs an unfair securities market advantage and a unique ability to manipulate commodities markets. It is Milloy's concern that Goldman Sachs may similarly exploit any future carbon market created by the cap and trade legislation moving through Congress. The letter may be read here: http://greenhellblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/seccftc-july-24-2009.pdf

Recent news reports have uncovered a securities market rule loophole that enables Goldman Sachs to see incoming market orders ahead of the public in order to "trade ahead" or "front-run" the market. Additionally, it has been revealed that Goldman Sachs received special - and essentially secret - permission from the CFTC to take larger positions in the commodities futures markets than otherwise permitted, which may have helped to cause the 2008 oil bubble. This permission was so secret that the CFTC felt it necessary to obtain Goldman's permission to release the details to Congress. Goldman Sachs is a major owner of the exchanges where carbon allowances would be traded and can also be expected to take significant proprietary positions in the carbon market. Since the first line of regulation in the securities and commodity markets is the self-regulatory organization that operates each particular market, is it reasonable to rely on Goldman to regulate itself?

Milloy said, "If Congress enacts carbon trading through a cap-and-trade scheme, look for Goldman Sachs to figure out how to game the market at our expense. When I was an SEC lawyer, we called this 'trading ahead' or 'front-running' and it was illegal. But apparently, Goldman Sachs and some other traders with powerful computers have obtained special permission to engage in so-called 'high-frequency trading' -- which can only be considered a euphemism for front-running. This is outrageous and it gives Goldman and the other frontrunners an unfair advantage in the market, it can only be called legalized cheating."

Milloy is the founder and publisher of JunkScience.com; a co-founder and portfolio manager of the Free Enterprise Action Fund (the first conservative/libertarian mutual fund); and a long-time columnist for FoxNews.com. He is a frequent advocate for free enterprise/free market principles and policies in conjunction with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Center for Public Policy Research, both of which are supported by individuals, foundations and businesses.

Contact: Audrey Mullen at 703-548-1160

SOURCE JunkScience.com

Susie's Big Adventure Talks About the Banning of Movies and Movie Theaters in Saudi Arabia

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, July 24 // -- One thing that Susie and her teenaged son miss the most living in Saudi Arabia is going to the movies. Why? Because there are no movie theaters. Read about how the Jeddah Film Festival was canceled just hours before it was scheduled to start.

http://susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com/2009/07/film-festival-finished-before-it.html

Treat yourself to a photographic look inside Susie's world at her other blog, Jeddah Daily Photo. Just this past week she featured photos including a little lamb lot, traditional dress, and the interior of a Burger King restaurant. Check it out!

http://susieofarabia.wordpress.com/

SOURCE Susie's Big Adventure

mywedding.com Selects Americas Biggest Groomzilla

After Thousands of Votes Kentucky's Adam Seibert is Crowned top Groomzilla

SEATTLE, May 14 // -- After a nationwide contest Edgewood Kentucky native Adam Seibert was officially crowned America's Biggest Groomzilla (http://www.mywedding.com./apps/public/vote/winners.php). Adam beat out thousands of other hands on husbands to-be, to win the title and the grand prize - a Luxury Included(R) Honeymoon to any Sandals Resorts location in Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia and The Bahamas.

Founded by 4 male entrepreneurs, mywedding.com (http://www.mywedding.com/) launched the Groomzilla contest to celebrate the growing trend of grooms taking over wedding planning tasks. "We were overwhelmed by the response from the public," says mywedding.com Founder and recent newlywed himself Rob Johnsen. Many of the grooms nominated themselves for the top groomzilla title, or in some cases the bride nominated on behalf of her fiance. "As someone who took a very hands-on approach when planning my wedding, we are thrilled to see so many grooms are stepping up to the plate. Bridezillas take note, the Groomzilla is here to stay!" Johnsen adds.

Seibert caught the judges' attention right away with his nomination. He has all possible wedding cake bakers auditioning to see whose cake will rein supreme, including his aunt, a professional baker. It wasn't just the cake Seibert took control of. Unsure he would like the flower arrangements their florist put together, he has ordered the bulbs for hundreds of white, pink and champagne coloured calla lilies and planted them in a greenhouse in the backyard, just in case he needs to redo them. He chose the bridesmaid dresses and accessories, and made invitations for each of their 300 guests by hand.

mywedding.com (http://www.mywedding.com/) called upon some of the top wedding experts in America to assist in selecting the winning groom. The wedding experts casting their votes were Chris Easter from themanregistry.com (http://www.themanregistry.com/), Rudy Hernandez from Bridetide.com (http://www.bridetide.com/), Jaime Haywood from itsajaimething.com (http://justjaime28.wordpress.com/) and Ami Price from elizabethannedesigns.com (http://www.elizabethannedesigns.com/). Taking home $1500 to assist with wedding costs, second place Groomzilla was Justin Langley from Hampton, VA. Third place and winner of $1000 cash was Nick Rose from San Francisco, CA.

About mywedding.com

Founded in 2001, mywedding.com (http://www.mywedding.com/) has quickly become one of the best online wedding planning tools (http://www.mywedding.com/) in the country. As one of the most comprehensive online wedding media channels, mywedding.com offers local wedding guides, free wedding websites (http://www.mywedding.com/) and blogs to its users making it the first and only social networking site for engaged couples. Utilizing proprietary Internet technology for publishing and managing advertising listings, mywedding.com (http://www.mywedding.com/) makes wedding planning easy and fun for couples while providing highly targeted local advertising to wedding vendors.

About Sandals Resorts

Sandals Resorts has earned a worldwide reputation for providing two people in love with the most romantic vacation experience in the Caribbean. Currently, there are 12 Luxury Included(R) Sandals Resorts located in Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia and The Bahamas. Each offers stunning beachfront locations; a choice of a la carte restaurants, from white-glove dining to barefoot elegance; all premium brand wine and spirits, including an exclusive partnership with California's legendary Beringer Vineyards; luxurious accommodations in a range of categories; unrivalled water sports including the Caribbean's largest PADI certification program; Butler Service for truly indulgent pampering; Preston Bailey Signature WeddingMoons(R) and signature Red Lane(R) Spas, with services and treatments inspired by the region. In July 2007, the five-star, all suite Mediterranean Village debuted at Sandals Grande Antigua Resort & Spa, offering two people in love the ultimate romantic getaway.

Sandals Resorts has set the industry standard for the Luxury Included vacation and has been voted the Caribbean's Leading Hotel Brand at the World Travel Awards for 15 years in a row, and World's Leading All-Inclusive Company for 13 years in a row. For more information, call your local travel agent or 1-800-Sandals (1-800-726-3257) or visit www.sandals.com

SOURCE mywedding.com

Susie's Big Adventure Explores Plastic Surgery In Saudi Arabia

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Aug. 7 // -- Women around the world want to feel beautiful and good about themselves, and Saudi women are no exception. But is unnecessary plastic surgery contradictory to Islam, which is such a strong guiding force in the kingdom? Read about how plastic surgery has gained popularity in this strict Muslim country.

http://susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com/2009/08/plastic-surgery-in-saudi-arabia.html

Susie's other blog, Jeddah Daily Photo, publishes a new photo every day from Saudi Arabia. This past week's entries include peeks inside several different businesses. http://susieofarabia.wordpress.com/

SOURCE Susie's Big Adventure

Susie's Big Adventure Takes You On An Airplane Ride With a Clearly Undesirable Seatmate

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 11 // -- We've all sat next to them on an airplane - the grubby looking man who desperately needs a shower, or the person whose breath is so noxious it makes you gag. Join Susie and her teenaged son as she recounts a recent plane ride sitting next to the seatmate from hell on Susie's Big Adventure.

http://susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com/2009/09/man-on-plane.htmlhttp://susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-havent-these-caught-on-in-america.html

Jeddah Daily Photo Journal offers a photographic glimpse into every day life in Saudi Arabia. Ramadan habits and a clown in a mall are some of the photos featured in this past week's offerings.

http://susieofarabia.wordpress.com/

SOURCE Susie's Big Adventure

On Susie's Big Adventure, Susie Talks About Familial Relationships in Saudi Arabia

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, June 19 // -- We all grow up and become adults, and there are many changes that we go through in becoming young men and women. Familial relationships also evolve. Read Susie's post as she shares her struggle to understand and adjust to a relationship with her young Saudi nephew that keeps getting chipped away. http://susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com/2009/06/from-hugging-to-handshake-to-hello.html

Click over to Susie of Arabia's Jeddah Daily Photo and discover Saudi Arabia as you've never seen it. This past week she featured several photos of the beautiful old buildings and architecture of the old part of Jeddah called Al Balad, a lovely restaurant interior, and an unusual mirrored door. Check it out! http://susieofarabia.wordpress.com/

SOURCE Susie's Big Adventure

Susie's Big Adventure Discusses Her Idea of Paradise While She's On Vacation In The States

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, July 10 // -- What is your idea of paradise? Susie writes this week about her own idea of paradise as she gets a break from the heat in Saudi Arabia and continues her summer vacation in the states.

http://susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com/2009/07/in-paradise.html

http://susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com/2009/07/reverse-culture-shock-nah.htmlh

Click on over to Susie of Arabia's Jeddah Daily Photo and discover Saudi Arabia as you've never seen it. This past week's featured photos included a soccer practise, Bedouin style furnishings, and a mirrored mosaic sun. Check it out!

http://susieofarabia.wordpress.com/

SOURCE Susie's Big Adventure

SocialVibe and Automattic Bring Power to the Publishers

LOS ANGELES, June 15 // -- SocialVibe, a social media utility that connects brands and people across social media, and Automattic, the company which leads the WordPress Open Source project and runs WordPress.com, announced today they have partnered to allow WordPress.com's 7M+ bloggers to benefit from the content they are creating and the audience they are attracting. The partnership allows WordPress.com bloggers to "get sponsored" in a way that is both rewarding and helps further engage the bloggers' audience by a paying brand and earn real money for their charity of choice.

SocialVibe was founded on the principle of empowering personal publishers (better known as people) in social media. Now more than ever, brands are looking for ways to partner with people creating social media content who are influencing the consumer marketplace. This new partnership gives WordPress.com bloggers a tool to take that power and create benefit for themselves and their causes by partnering with brands.

The partnership includes the implementation of a side bar widget that takes just a few moments to add and provides readers the unique opportunity to complete a brand engagement (such as rating a video), thus earning money for charity. Each time an engagement is made with a sponsor such as TNT or Sprint, the blog publisher earns a micro-donation to his or her chosen charity.

That impact is immediately visible on the widget, i.e., for a blogger who has chosen to support charity: water their SocialVibe badge might read 'My blog has provided 63 cups of clean water for people in need'. Users can switch their cause and sponsor as often as they like, and receive regular updates from their charity about goal progress and impact.

"We're excited about the addition of SocialVibe to the WordPress.com widget library," says Raanan Bar-Cohen, Vice President Media Services for Automattic. "This will give our customers the valuable opportunity to utilize their blogs for their choice of benefit."

For the brands involved, this platform provides a golden opportunity to get unique endorsements in a highly engaging manner within social media. For the WordPress.com community, it is a way to pool their individual influences to create positive change in the world.

"We are thrilled to be launching SocialVibe on WordPress.com", says Joe Marchese, President, SocialVibe. "SocialVibe continues to see tremendous growth as we provide more value to people and our brand partners. Automattic is an ideal partner for us, and we are excited to give their community a direct connection to major brands and the opportunity to receive benefit from those brands for their blogging."

Through the SocialVibe system, people have raised close to half a million dollars for charities in just over a year's time. Everyday, members are sharing their brand sponsors with millions of friends on social platforms such as MySpace, Facebook, and now WordPress.com. Members can select from an expanding and varied rosters of brand sponsors, including Sony Pictures, Colgate and Kraft Foods, to benefit one of more than 30 non-profit organizations, such as World Wildlife Fund, DonorsChoose and charity: water.

For more info about the SocialVibe widget, check out the WordPress blog.

For self-hosted WordPress sites SocialVibe has also released an Open Source widget which is available from the WordPress.org Plugin directory and can be 1-click installed from the WordPress dashboard by searching for "SocialVibe". For an example of the widget in action, please see leading entertainment blog JustJared.com.

Learn about how else you can use SocialVibe on your social networks by visiting SocialVibe.com.

About SocialVibe:

SocialVibe recognizes that individuals hold the key to generating attention and wielding influence in social media. It's a powerful new way for brands to interact with people and change the way brands participate in social media. SocialVibe allows people to choose a brand to endorse, earning opportunities to get brand perks and points. The points that members earn are then turned into funds for the charitable cause of their choice.

SocialVibe received $8 million in Series B funding led by JAFCO Ventures in December 2008, bringing its total raised to just over $12 million. Previous investor Redpoint Ventures also participated in the funding.

SOURCE SocialVibe

SharedBook Celebrates Major Milestones: Doubles Customer Base to 45 Leading Content Brands, Signs With Largest Christian Publisher Thomas Nelson, Increases Book Sales 70%

Company Shows Accelerated Momentum as Book Publishing Transforms and Consumer Demand Continues to Shift Towards Personalized and Customized Content

New Products and Technology Enhancements Announced

NEW YORK, May 4 // -- SharedBook Inc., the Custom Publishing Platform provider, today celebrates its five year anniversary with significant momentum in all metrics including business performance, customer growth with leading publishing brands, and the recent unveiling of multiple new product and technology enhancements across its portfolio of customized and personalized book offerings.

"In this economic environment, content owners are laser-focused on ways to drive new revenue streams, reduce costs, and speed time to market. In parallel, consumer spending is shifting away from commodity products to more lasting and meaningful, value-added offerings," said Caroline Vanderlip, Chief Executive Officer of SharedBook. "SharedBook is at the heart of this transformation as we create new business models that help change the economics of the publishing business. We've created a technology platform that changes the entire model of how a book gets created, published and delivered to customers, while addressing the shifting consumer demand for more personalized and on-demand content."

In the past year the company has doubled its customer base to now serve more than 45 leading content brands and publishers. In business performance, SharedBook experienced 60 percent year-over-year revenue growth in 2008. Its book unit volumes have increased a whopping 70 percent and order volume is up by 56 percent. Other business milestones include:

• Today the company announces its first affiliate program for both its Blog2Print platform and its book personalization web site, Inscribe-it.com (more information on both is below). Through this exclusive program, web sites can link to these SharedBook platforms and earn revenue from purchases. Initial affiliates include FirstBook.org, grandparents.com, ClassBrain.com, kidmondo.com, and scrappingsimply.com.
  

• The latest two agreements include a partnership with Thomas Nelson, the largest Christian publisher in the country, to deliver personalized books with expansion into customized product offerings. Learn2Grow, a leading online gardening community resource, will be launching with SharedBook to enable gardening aficionados to create their own customized gardening books.
  

• In April, SharedBook unveiled its patented annotation technology platform with Our Energy Policy Foundation, a new online initiative for the nation's energy policy leaders. Using SharedBook's contextual annotation Our Energy Policy Foundation aims to enhance the development of U.S. energy policy through discussion by experts in the field from industry, academia, non-profit organizations, government, and elsewhere.
  

• In March, SharedBook launched its newly enhanced book personalization Web site, Inscribe-it.com, to offer books with customized inscriptions, special messages and even photographs, with advanced features to personalize books for all occasions.
  

• In February, SharedBook launched its Smart Button technology, with implementations with longtime partner Legacy.com and new partners Encyclopaedia Britannica and SOHO Publishing. Smart Button is a streamlined implementation of the SharedBook platform that allows partners to apply SharedBook's customized creation capabilities with minimal resource application and maximum flexibility, delivering new revenue sources.
  

• Recently, SharedBook expanded its Blog2Print platform for anyone who has ever wished to have a permanent copy of a favorite blog. With the Blog2Print platform, users of all three major consumer services, Google's Blogger, WordPress and Six Apart's TypePad, are now able to create well-formatted books of their blogs.
  

"SharedBook is demonstrating significant company growth and success as we celebrate our fifth anniversary. We are capitalizing on the economic environment by enabling content owners to capture new revenue without substantial additional investment. This is an exciting time to be part of the fast-changing publishing marketplace and to be helping both traditional publishers and content library owners embrace new business models in the digital era," added Caroline Vanderlip.

About SharedBook

SharedBook's Custom Publishing Platform allows customized and personalized books to be created dynamically and then displayed as flipbooks on the Web, downloaded as PDFs, or professionally printed. SharedBook specializes in integrating and publishing data from various sources through its own proprietary tools, which dramatically change the economics of book publishing. SharedBook's platform supports the traditional publisher's interest in personalization, and allows Web content providers to become publishers. SharedBook partners include Allrecipes.com, Bloomsbury, CaringBridge, CBS College Sports, DK Publishing, FuneralNet, Hachette Filipacci, HarperCollins Publishers, Legacy.com, The Officer Down Memorial Page, Penguin USA, ProfessionalTravelGuide.com, Random House, Inc., Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Regnery Publishing, SOHO Publishing, Steamboat Ski Resort, and Sterling Publishing, among others. For more information, please go to www.sharedbook.com or http://blog.sharedbook.com.

SOURCE SharedBook Inc.