NWsource.com Now Carried On AT&T@Home

Business Wire, July 24, 2000

Business Editors, High-Tech Writers

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 24, 2000

The Seattle Times Company, in alliance with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and InfoSpace, recently launched NWsource.com, an online destination site for people who live in, visit or have an interest in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

AT&T has now added NWsource.com as their local content provider to over 25,000 @Home customers in the Puget Sound region, with plans to add more Northwest markets.

"NWsource is the perfect match for AT&T@Home, because nine out of 10 times our customers say they would much rather get their local content from trusted sources like The Seattle Times and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer than from a national provider in some distant city," said Jan Wachholz, Marketing Director for AT&T@Home in the Northwest.

NWsource.com, the major "go-to" site for the Pacific Northwest, is an Internet resource both residents and visitors can use as home base for regional Web search, local and regional news, sports, classified ads, and other information relevant to the Pacific Northwest.

NWsource.com allows users to customize the site for personal use. Each user can set up an individualized e-mail account, address book, calendar, stock portfolio and other information, and access their personal information and a wide range of other resources in one convenient spot.

The site offers a searchable Web directory of URLs relevant to the Pacific Northwest; a classified channel with a comprehensive database of auto, job and real estate listings; a regional travel guide; a city guide; message boards and chat forums; calendars for community organizations; up-to-the-minute weather and traffic information; Yellow Pages and local deals of the week for online shoppers. Other services and partnerships will be developed over time.

The Seattle Times Company, in alliance with the Seattle Post Intelligencer, is uniquely suited to provide a regional destination site. According to Nancy Bruner, Vice President of New Media for The Seattle Times Company, "The market wants a destination site that provides both breadth and depth of coverage for our region. No company is better positioned to offer this site than The Seattle Times Company. We start with the strength of The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as anchor content providers, and we bring a comprehensive local-regional database of classified listings to the site. We know how to create and aggregate content, how to distribute content across different media and how to connect to community. We also have a long history of bringing buyers and sellers together. Over time, we will continue to seek out the best-of-breed content, information and tool providers to meet our customers' needs for convenience and utility."

The Seattle Times Company selected InfoSpace as a partner in the development of the destination site. InfoSpace is a leading provider of infrastructure services for consumers, merchants and wireless devices. The company's affiliate network consists of more than 2,100 Web sites, including America Online, Microsoft, Disney/Infoseek's GO Network, NBC's SNAP, Lycos and others.

"The Seattle Times chose to partner with InfoSpace because we provide the most comprehensive suite of services that enable merchants to conduct business on wireless and wireline devices," said John Arnold, Vice President, Business Development, InfoSpace. "Our relationships with the top wireless carriers, together with our extensive infrastructure, allow service and product based merchants to take advantage of reaching the consumer from any location and on any device."

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which traces its Seattle roots to 1863, operates seattleP-I.com and is a unit of the Hearst Corporation. The Hearst Corporation (www.hearstcorp.com) is one of the nation's largest diversified communications companies. The Hearst Corporation's major interests include magazine, newspaper and business publishing, cable networks, television and radio broadcasting, Internet businesses, television production and distribution, newspapers features distribution and real estate. Under a Joint Operating Agreement, The Seattle Times Company manages the advertising, production, marketing and circulation of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper.

"At NWsource you can get a great deal of useful information about your interests and this community every day that will help you deal with a busy schedule, find some bargains -- and have a little fun," said Roger Oglesby, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editor and Publisher. "We recognize with NWsource that there is more to life than news. Still, you can link to the strongest news organizations in the region from NWsource when news is what you want."

The Seattle Times Company is a 104-year-old locally owned family business. Founded in 1886 by Alden J. Blethen, The Seattle Times has been continuously operated by four generations of the Blethen family. The family's largest newspaper, The Seattle Times, is the largest daily newspaper in Washington state (220,000) and the largest Sunday newspaper in the Northwest (500,000). Other Washington state newspapers owned by the company are the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, the Yakima Herald-Republic and the Issaquah Press. The company also owns the Blethen Maine Newspapers: The Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram; Kennebec Journal, in Augusta; Morning Sentinel, in Waterville; and Coastal Journal, in Bath. The company owns four Web sites: seattletimes.com, NWclassifieds.com, NWsource.com and MaineToday.com.