The McKinley's Magellan Internet Directory Lists One Million Sites and Draws One Million Users; The McKinley Group improves its comprehensive Internet directory with new interface, begins accepting advertising and strengthens management team

Business Wire, Oct 4, 1995

SAUSALITO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 4, 1995--One million users can't be wrong.

Since its debut in August, The McKinley Group's expertly rated Internet directory has attracted that many users to its location on the World Wide Web. Today, The McKinley Group reveals the powerful navigational guide's new name, new look and new features, and expects its volume of "hits" to grow even faster.

McKinley's newly named Magellan Internet Directory (http://www.mckinley.com) contains listings for more than one million Internet resources, with over 30,000 described, reviewed and rated resources, including Telnet, Gopher, FTP, World Wide Web sites, mailing lists and news groups. It also offers an enhanced user interface and easier navigational features -- all requested by user focus groups.

Due to overwhelming demand from users to keep the service free, McKinley has begun to accept advertising within its Magellan database providing targeted placement of ads that match user queries. McKinley will utilize data from Internet Profile, leading independent auditors of Web traffic to measure user hits to its sites and ads.

About Magellan

Named after Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese navigator whose 16th century expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe, the Magellan will soon have listings for nearly every site on the ever-expanding global network of computer networks, making it the world's most comprehensive Internet directory.

"We are bringing order to chaos," says David Hayden, President and CEO of The McKinley Group. "We have already indexed one million sites on the Internet. They are being reviewed and rated as we speak, and this is just the tip of the iceberg."

Using their powerful search technology, researchers at The McKinley Group can explore vast portions of the Internet very rapidly. Acquired data are automatically sorted, abstracted and organized under Magellan's easy-to-use indexing structure. The information is divided into 15 major categories, ranging from Business & Economics to Sports & Recreation, with hundreds of subcategories.

McKinley uniquely couples machine intelligence with human intelligence to analyze and catalogue Internet resources. New sites are pored over by teams of subject matter experts and information technology specialists. Promising sites are reviewed, rated and described in Magellan, which now contains more than 30,000 rated sites and one million unrated sites.

A revised rating scheme has been introduced covering three new areas. Rated sites are awarded one to four stars for overall quality, based on the following criteria:

o Depth, accuracy and timeliness of information;

o Organization and ease of access; and

o "Net appeal" -- is the site innovative? Does it appeal to

the eye and ear? Is it funny, hip, cool, and/or thought-

provoking?

Listings include site title, address (URL), hot links, keyword and audience descriptors, and a full text description of the resource and its contents. Also listed are the resource producer and complete contact information. Concise, clear and consistent, McKinley ratings tell the user what's inside a resource before they access it, saving them time and effort.

Strengthened Management Team

To guide the company through its next stage of growth, The McKinley Group has a hired trio of marketing, sales and publishing executives. Cindy Martin, vice president of marketing and sales, joins the group from AT&T's Internet Services Division, where she was responsible for business development with content providers. Paul Campbell joins as director of sales from Personal Library Software. Brenda Kienan, formerly a development editor at Sybex, Inc., joins as associate publisher.

Accessing Magellan

Magellan can be accessed by pointing with any standard Web browser, including Netscape, Mosaic and Lynx, at http://www.mckinley.com.

About The McKinley Group

Headquartered in Sausalito, Calif., The McKinley group was founded in 1993 by a team of international publishers, technologists and information specialists, committed to delivering the best navigational and informational directory for the Internet.

Magellan, the company's innovative on-line Internet directory, is available to Internet providers worldwide as a rated and reviewed resource for Internet users, experts and novices alike. Unlike anything else on the market today, Magellan helps Internet users to first preview detailed descriptions of the sites of their choice and allows the user to make informed decisions as to those sites they choose to access. Using Magellan makes for a much more effective browsing experience, to say nothing of the time saved. -0-

Note to Editors: The McKinley Group, Magellan and The McKinley Group logo are trademarks of The McKinley Group, Inc.

CONTACT: The McKinley Group

Helene Atkin, 415/331-1884

hfa@mckinley.com

or

Access Public Relations

Zoe Arden/Nicol Davis, 415/904-7070, ext. 287/281

zarden@accesspr.com

ndavis@accesspr.com