SAN JOSE, Calif., May 8, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Me.com., the leading solution provider for building branded, customizable, online communities, today announced the launch of its turnkey Social Networking Application Platform, or SNAPP(tm), product family -- that includes more than 40 integrated social networking features. Me.com is a social networking platform solution provider enabling community builders of all sizes to rapidly deploy, customize, administer and monetize online communities.
"Community is becoming must-have feature for consumer Internet sites and is finding increasing adoption in the enterprise," said Greg Sterling, founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence. "The SNAPP platform is an impressively simple way to create private or public social networks -- and potentially monetize them."
Me.com is built around a "Connected Community" model that enables community builders to extend the reach of their branded community beyond the boundaries of a single URL. This is because Me.com's SNAPP-powered communities are connected together in the same way a shopping center has anchor tenants, specialty retailers and shared common areas. The connected community approach offers new communities the leverage of plugging into a built-in traffic base while enabling community members to easily move their profile, pictures and posts between different communities in the Me.com "universe."
"We created SNAPP for the thousands of communities that don't want to be force fitted into the 'MySpace Generation' bucket," said Mark Sigal, chief executive officer of Me.com. "Our customers have consistently told us of the need for a solution that 'connects the dots' required for them to rapidly customize, deploy, administer and monetize a social network tailored to their target audience. Me.com is the place to go in order to build great online communities and in turn, make money doing so."
SNAPP is a complete community building solution that includes:
* Community Builder Modules: 40+ content, community and communication services, including photos and albums, RSS feeds, blog posts, poll and quiz building tools, event planning and calendar functions, customizable community landing pages, ratings and tagging, chat room, instant messaging, email, deep user profiles and profile "skin builder" capabilities. * Structured Databases: Built-in databases of high schools, universities, cities and zips, pets, cars, vineyards, churches and synagogues make it easy to define rich community contexts that are searchable. * Ad Management Tools and Ad Network Integration: Monetize your community instantly! * Hosted Infrastructure: Uploading/hosting service, user registration and simple wallet functions are all included. * Web-based Community Administration: Granular control over active modules, login, look and feel, tracking of users and usage statistics. * Localization support for other languages: Target other nationalities and geographies.
There are three SNAPP solution offerings, enabling community builders of all sizes to make money by launching social networks and online communities:
1. SNAPP Free -- a free solution targeted at affinity groups, such as
sports, religion, fan sites, and health related communities.
2. SNAPP PRO -- a professional solution targeted at small businesses
with existing user bases.
3. SNAPP Network - an enterprise offering tailored for companies
rolling out standalone social networks.
"We needed an out of the box solution that could integrate with our existing site, get up and running quickly and was extensible," said Jochen Fisher, Vice President of Technology at Batanga, a leading Hispanic media and entertainment company and SNAPP Network Customer. "After an exhaustive search of competing vendors, we chose Me.com's SNAPP platform, and are delighted with our partnership."
While pricing on both the PRO and Network solutions is based on a combination of monthly fees and sharing of advertising revenues, SNAPP Free is 100% ad-supported, and in fact, Me.com shares half of the ad revenues generated in a community with the community builder, a first in the social networking landscape. All three SNAPP solutions enable community builders big or small to monetize their efforts without deep commitments of infrastructure resources, technical know how or a costly ad sales force.
Ad Revenue Sharing and AdSense API Integration
In tandem with the launch of SNAPP, Me.com today announced that through a partnership with Google AdSense(tm), it has integrated Google's new AdSense API into the SNAPP platform. This functionality, which is immediately available, provides support for Google AdSense within SNAPP, enabling community builders to automatically ad-enable and monetize their community-building efforts. Google manages the ad network and financial aspects, and community builders can manage their accounts and view ad performance and earnings reports via the AdSense interface.
In addition, because Me.com recognizes how integral great community builders are to its success, the company is actually splitting the ad revenues generated in each SNAPP Free community with the individual community builder -- a 50/50 split and an industry first. SNAPP PRO and Network customers receive even higher splits.
"We applaud Me.com's initiative to reward community builders and publishers, and that is why we are thrilled to be working with them as an early adopter of the Google AdSense API," said Kim Malone Google's director of online sales and operations. "This is a unique opportunity for community builders that target every interest and every niche to earn revenue on the relevant ads that appear on their social networks."
Sales and Partnership Inquiries
For those interested in enhancing marketing campaigns and partnership information, contact Me.com sales and business development at sales@snapp.me.com or call us at (408) 938.5792.
About Me Dot Com, Inc.
Me.com is a social networking platform solution provider enabling community builders of all sizes to rapidly deploy, customize and administer online communities around a connected community model that extends the reach of brands beyond a single Web site. Founded in 2005 and privately held with financial backing by noted angel Kimball Small and Brainstorm Ventures, Me.com is headquartered in San Jose, CA. For more information, please visit our Web site at http://www.me.com.
Me.com and SNAPP are trademarks of Me Dot Com, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.