The Publishing Company of North America, Inc. - PCNA - Announces Plans for Internet Legal Portal

Business Wire, Jan 21, 1999

LAKE HELEN, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 21, 1999--

-- PCNA's Portal to Provide Comprehensive Law-Related

Goods and Services to the Legal Community --

The Publishing Company of North America, Inc. (Nasdaq:PCNA), the nation's leading publisher of official bar association membership directories, announced today that it has entered into a strategic alliance with Photobooks, Inc. (Atlanta, GA), to host and maintain PCNA's new Internet portal, designed to serve the nation's legal community.

Peter S. Balise, Chairman and CEO of PCNA, said "PCNA is exceptionally well-positioned to both market and promote its new site. This new site will be heavily promoted within each print directory that we publish as well as through our existing distribution and mailing systems, thus saving significant marketing costs and shifting these savings to the Company's bottom line."

The new portal is scheduled to debut late in the second quarter, prior to the annual meeting of the American Bar Association (ABA) to be held in Atlanta, Georgia. PCNA participates in the meeting as a sponsor of the National Association of Bar Executives (NABE), the National Conference of Bar Presidents (NCBP) and the National Conference of Bar Foundations (NCBF). PCNA is also the official publisher of the annual membership directory of the National Association of Bar Executives.

PCNA's new site is being designed to achieve segment dominance by targeting members of the legal profession. It is not being designed to be promoted as the next America Online (AOL), Yahoo (YHOO), Lycos (LCOS), or Excite (XCIT). Planned features include a variety of law related material including content, law related links, free email (similar to Microsoft's (MSFT) Hotmail) as well as "free" home pages to attorneys nationwide. PCNA also is planning to feature an on-line shopping mall. This mall will differ from those of Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), CDnow (CDNW), and ONSALE, Inc. (ONSL) in that it will be specifically tailored to meet the needs of the legal profession. A search engine, differentiated from those by companies such as Netscape Communications Corporation (NSCP) or Infoseek Corporation (SEEK), is also planned to help locate specifically law related topics. PCNA plans to begin realizing revenues from its new site in the form of law related advertising, targeting its existing base of many thousands of clients, as well as other revenue sharing ventures.

The Publishing Company of North America, Inc. is an integrated full service provider of specialty publishing for bar associations, medical associations and other organizations, focusing principally on directories and related products and services.

"Safe Harbor" Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: The statements in the press release that relate to achieving segment dominance and to planned features of the Internet site are forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The results anticipated by any or all of these forward-looking statements may not occur. Important factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements include the following: (1) the Company's and Photobooks' ability to successfully achieve the technical requirements of the site as intended; (2) the Company's ability to successfully negotiate and contract with other Internet site providers for the availability of their goods and / or services at or through the Company's site and (3) the Company's ability to successfully gain recognition and usage of its site by the legal community.