Synacor Greatly Expands Its Network Of Premium Content And Value-Added Services

Addition of Many Popular Subscription Online Music, Games, Sports, Security and Lifestyle Services Enables MSOs, Telcos and ISPs to Bundle a Wide Variety of Premium Subscription Services

February 11th 2004

BUFFALO, NY – February 11, 2004 – Synacor, the leading provider of technology supporting the delivery of bundled online services, has formalized agreements to partner with many of the most popular online subscription services for delivery in Synacor’s unique platform, Portelus. These 19 new partners join Synacor’s existing roster of sublicensing agreements of premium services including Walt Disney Internet Group, FOX Sports Videos, CinemaNow and Experian Consumer Direct. These services represent the industry’s largest group of integrated online media and value-added services available to ISPs for their bundled premium tiers.
These new partners include American Greetings, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, and National Hockey League: NHL Highlight Machine and NHL Game Notes, Salon.com, Shockwave GameBlast, Sporting News Fantasy Sports, Clipart.com, children’s educational products from Clever Island, IGN.com, MusicNet, MusicNow, MyComicsPage.com, ThePuzzleSociety.com, STATS Inc., Snapfish.com, Rivals.com, Weather.com and Freedom Security products from Zero-Knowledge.

Synacor’s unique software platform, Portelus, enables all partnered digital media and services to be bundled, delivered and billed directly to an ISP’s customer, seamlessly without the submission of additional personal or credit card information. The subscriptions are billed through each Internet user’s ISP.

“This is a new distribution model that will expand the reach of these products and significantly reduce systemic costs associated with their marketing and customer support. We are truly appreciative of the unprecedented support our system has received by the content and subscription service community,” said Ron Frankel, President and CEO of Synacor.

With the deployment of Synacor’s Portelus, ISPs can offer a wide variety of Internet subscription services in easily delivered bundles and receive attendant increases in revenue and margin per customer. Because of the bundling, consumers receive greater value and more services at a reasonable price.

According to the Online Publishers Association, U.S. consumers spent $748 million on online content during the first half of 2003, representing a 23 percent increase over the same period in 2002.

About Synacor’s newest partners:

American Greetings provides hundreds of e-cards for all occasions. Users can either send cards online or create and print greeting cards. Membership includes cards, projects for kids, envelopes, stickers, posters, screensavers and wallpaper. Users can include an address book and a reminder service to never forget another birthday.

Clever Island teaches children the fundamental skills they need to know in order to succeed in school…and in life. Children explore, interact and learn on this award winning, self contained educational website, where characters come alive and learning becomes fun. In this magical world, the animations, colors and sound effects will guarantee hours of individualized learning and quality fun time for children ages 3-8.

ClipArt.com the largest subscription based graphics resource on the Web, provides subscribers with unlimited access to more than 2.5 million clipart images, animations, photos, fonts and sounds.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online provides users with unlimited access to the full, updated 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate and Student dictionaries and thesauruses and more. Membership also includes access to research tools, a world atlas, timelines, and rich multimedia – all in an advertising-free environment.

IGN.com has become the Internet’s leading information and entertainment destination for teen and young adult gamers by becoming the best source for game news, reviews and previews. IGN.com’s two premium subscriptions, IGN.com Insider and IGN.com Turbo Downloads provides gamers with exclusive information and top priority for access to coveted downloads.

MusicNet provides users with a full Music-on-Demand service giving access to over 500,000 tracks from all five major record labels (BMG, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and the Warner Music Group) and a host of independents with rights in the United States and Canada. The huge library of music covers all genres, the majority of the Billboard Top 200 and pre-street date tracks as well content too… all of which is available in CD quality audio for burning or downloading to a personal device.

MusicNow is a legal digital music service with more than 40 channels of original music programming and content from all five major labels – BMG, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and the Warner Music Group. Users have access to the MusicNow library of more than 300,000 songs, as well as the ability to read artist biographies, album details and purchase individual songs for burning to a CD or personal device.

MyComicsPage.com gives readers the comics they love in a cutting-edge service that’s unavailable anywhere else on the Web. Subscribers can create custom comics pages from more than 130 nationally syndicated comics, browse through thousands of archives, view comics on the same day they appear in newspapers and email comic strips as a postcard to friends and family.

National Hockey League – NHL Highlight Machine allows users to create customized highlight reels of the most exciting plays from the current NHL season. Users have all the goals, the biggest hits and greatest saves at their fingertips. Subscribers can use multiple search methods to explore the NHL’s database and create and save their favorite clips. Users can also enter a roster of their favorite players and check back daily to see how they did in last night’s action. Why settle for reading statistics on their fantasy team when they can see their players putting pucks in the net? NHL Highlight Machine delivers the best of NHL action.
National Hockey League – NHL Game Notes give subscribers rink side seats to the NHL with detailed game notes, the latest stats and news angles, post game summaries, press releases, game schedules, and more on the subscriber’s favorite NHL team and their opponents.

ThePuzzleSociety.com provides subscribers with access to nationally syndicated crosswords, Jumbles, jigsaws, word games and other puzzles. More than 70 new puzzles are added each week and over 7,000 puzzles are archived for subscriber access.

Rivals.com is the nation’s leading network of college, high school and recruiting web sites. Based in Brentwood, Tenn. and published by a group of college team site and recruiting content experts, Rivals.com owns and operates a proprietary technology platform that delivers an unmatched community experience integrated with content culled from its network of more than 100 sites covering everything from college sports, high school sports and football, basketball and baseball recruiting.

Salon.com is a respected and renowned online publication, providing a wide variety of topical, original content covering news, politics, technology and business, arts & entertainment, books, sex, life, people, comics and more. The service offers complete access to all content and benefits, including the option to read Salon content without ads.

Shockwave.com GameBlast delivers 24-7 access to a collection of more than 60 premium games, including Collapse, Wild Card Football and Nothin’ But Net 3D Basketball. Each game offers exclusive features including extra levels, full-screen play, bonus difficulty settings and more.

Snapfish is the leading online photo service. Helping over 7 million digital and film camera owners to share, print and store their most important photo memories at prices that cannot be equaled – online or off. Snapfish enhances the experience of photography, whether you use a film camera or are one of the growing number of those who’ve “gone digital”. Snapfish makes it easier to share all their photos with friends and family worldwide, right from their computer.

Sporting News Fantasy Sports is the nation’s oldest sports publication. It keeps fans in touch with everything happening in the world of sports. Subscribers enjoy access to updated players news, customizable player watch lists, player rankings, expert picks on who’s hot and who’s not each week, tons of stats, injury watch charts, ballpark statistics and data, expert insight from the pros and more.

STATS, Inc. gives you two great products: Fantasy Advantage Football and Fantasy Advantage Baseball. STATS Fantasy Advantage is the ticket to incredible MLB, NFL and college football coverage! It is a complete fantasy resource for Real-time Scoreboard, STATS Player Portfolios, Injury Reports and Box Scores.

Weather.com provides a package of rich media local weather content including 3-day local and regional video forecasts for the United States. The site also features Extreme Weather, featuring video clips of key global weather events including expert analysis and forecasting from The Weather Channel and Weather Archives, providing a searchable video database of historical storms.

Zero-Knowledge is a leading provider of security services technology and value-added security services including: anti virus, firewall, parental controls and pop-up blocker. Zero-Knowledge has integrated the most demanded security services into one user interface. ZKs’ security services solution enables ISPs to increase revenue, attract and retain customers, and reduce customer service calls.

About Synacor
Synacor offers customizable content, security and privacy services delivered in a unified platform, called Portelus that drives increased revenues and customer retention for high-speed ISPs. Synacor is not branded to the consumer, enabling each ISP to private label and customize bundled premium tiers from more than 25 leading online services. Portelus’ ease of implementation and back end billing solutions provide an elegant turnkey solution that can be immediately integrated into any portal. For information visit www.synacor.com.

Editorial Contact:

Keith Swenson
Bob Gold & Associates for Synacor
310-320-2010
keith@bobgoldpr.com