FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., July 26, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Tralliance Corporation, the .travel Registry, has announced the appointment of Edward A. Cespedes as Chief Executive Officer. Cespedes is a veteran of the online marketing industry and also serves as president of Tralliance Corporation's parent company theglobe.com (OTCBB:TGLO).
Ron Andruff, founder of the company, will continue in his role as president, leading the company's global business development and external affairs initiatives.
The move comes six months after the official launch of the new Internet domain dedicated exclusively to the travel and tourism industry, and further positions the company to sharpen its focus on expanding the consumer benefits for the .travel Top Level Domain globally.
According to Cespedes, since the official launch of .travel in January of 2006, the company has achieved a number of critical milestones including:
-- 140 travel trade associations, from 9 industry sectors and 73
countries, have joined The Travel Partnership Corporation, a
Washington D.C. non-profit corporation formed to promote the
.travel top-level domain.
-- More than 30 travel trade associations are successfully providing
authentication services (validating that a business applying for
a .travel domain is a bona fide travel-related company with a legal
claim to the .travel domain names they apply to register) and
report that applicants have embraced the procedure.
-- The Canadian Tourism Commission has established a new model for
destination marketing by registering hundreds of .travel domain
names for Canada's provinces, cities, and other destinations, with
the goal to have every Canadian destination registered with a
.travel domain through the new www.canada.travel Internet portal.
-- In the United States, the Department of Commerce worked with the
.travel Registry in honor of National Tourism Week to challenge
states, cities and tourism entities across America to protect their
tourism assets by registering their .travel Internet domain names.
Dialogue has been opened with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in
anticipation of an outreach program to every chamber across the
nation.
-- The UNWTO continues to actively promote .travel and communicate
to all 150 World Tourism Organization member nations. .travel has
been presented at regional meetings from Mali (Africa) to
Argentina, and most recently in Uruguay, where 30 Ministers from
Latin American states were briefed.
-- ASEANTA (the association of all travel agents, hotels, airlines
and government NTO's of Brunei, Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and
Vietnam) is leading the way with www.aseanta.travel. At their 2007
Congress, they will utilize all .travel addresses for online
communications and promote the domain to all attendees. Singapore
and Malaysia are already using their .travel addresses for their
nation's portals.
-- The Indian Tourism Ministry is working with Tralliance to organize
a tour of all of India's 25 states to present and promote .travel
to tourism officials in those regions in the last half of 2006.
-- In concert with Tralliance, the EuroChambre, the association of
all of Europe's Chambers of Commerce, is developing an outreach
plan to build awareness of the global migration of the industry
to .travel, so that European Chambers, in turn, can bring this
to the attention of their respective members.
-- More than 150 tourism leaders attended the Middle East North
Africa .travel Forum, hosted by the Egyptian Tourism Authority
(www.egypt.travel) and regional industry leader, Emeco. The
symposium served as a platform for discussion and strategic
planning which will result in the development of a working plan
to register place names throughout the Middle East and Africa.
Tralliance further reports that roughly 50 percent of .travel domain registrations to date are from North America and 50 percent from the rest of the world, reflecting the same pattern as the organic growth of the Internet over the last 10 years.
Cespedes adds, "In an online world dominated by search engine rankings, travel businesses cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and wait for their competitors to make a move before they register their own .travel domain names. The Internet community, and the way consumers search on the web, is about to undergo a paradigm shift," says Cespedes. "And when this fundamental change occurs, the playing field will be leveled."
For more information on registering .travel domains visit www.travel.travel.
About Tralliance Corporation
Tralliance Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of theglobe.com (otcbb:tglo) that, as the .travel Registry, develops products and services to promote the efficiencies and convenience of e-commerce for travel and tourism companies on the Internet. Designed to serve the global travel and tourism community, the major aims of the .travel sponsored Top Level Domain (sTLD) are improved Internet identity, creation of advanced distribution channels, and the establishment of a strong trust factor between the industry and its customers. For more information visit www.tralliance.travel, or www.travel.travel.
Safe Harbor
This press release includes forward-looking statements related to theglobe.com, inc. that involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, risks and uncertainties relating to integration of newly acquired businesses and assets, product delivery, product launch dates, risks relating to the Internet, development and protection of technology, the availability of financing or other capital to fund its plans and operations, the management of growth, market acceptance of our products, our ability to compete successfully against established competitors with greater resources, the uncertainty of future governmental regulation (particularly as it pertains to the Internet), pending litigation and other risks. These forward-looking statements are made in reliance on the "Safe Harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For further information about these and other factors that could affect theglobe.com's future results and business plans, please see the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in particular our Annual Report on Form 10-KSB for the year ended December 31, 2005 and our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended March 30, 2006. Copies of these filings are available online at http://www.sec.gov. Prospective investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance. Actual results may differ materially and adversely from management expectations.