Released on: March 6, 2008, 7:02 am

Press Release Author: Caroline Langley

Industry: Internet & Online

Press Release Summary: Network of "Community Webspaces" Provides a Better Way for
People
To Find and Share Local Content Online

Press Release Body: FAIRFIELD, CT, March 5, 2008 - AmericanTowns.com LLC today
raised the bar in the hyperlocal space by launching a new version of
AmericanTowns.com. This version, which features a new and unique "community
webspace" for each town in America, lets local residents find and share an
unprecedented combination of local information: community events, local news, train
schedules, charitable organizations, local videos, farmers' markets, jobs, real
estate, privacy protection, "sales and savings," local services and a host of online
and previously offline community resources.

Each "community webspace" is accessible at AmericanTowns.com and features new
content, new partners, a new user interface and a new technology framework -- all
built on AmericanTowns' established strength in community events and other
hyper-local information.

"We're introducing a new way for people to find and share local information," said
Jim Maglione, co-president of Community, AmericanTowns. "There's a lot of good local
content on the web and offline, but it's not always easy to find. We've collected
and organized this information for every town in America, and made it easy for each
community to add to, edit or share as they wish."

New Features

In addition to having the nation's most extensive calendar of hyper-local community
events, with more than 1 million new events added per month, AmericanTowns.com now
includes the following new features for each town in America:

. A "hometown" map, with links to maps of homes for sale, local restaurants,
farmers' markets, aerial views of each town, and more;

. News stories from local media, and links to discussions of hot topics, as well as
press releases from local community organizations;

. An updated collection of Internet videos on town events and activities, which
users can easily add to, using popular video-sharing sites;

. Access to 10 million business profiles, which supplement the basic listings of
more than 17 million small and mid-size local businesses; and

. An expanded "Community Resources" area that now also offers train schedules,
traffic information, local sales, ways to protect your privacy, an environment
section, and a guide to key community links and online resources; plus more depth in
each section - for example, the new real estate section features recent sales,
photos of homes for sale, the sales records of local real estate agents, local
market trends, local neighborhood information, apartments for rent, and information
about local foreclosures.

Each of these new features allow users to add their own content or to suggest new
sources or links for their town's unique "community webspace." Similarly, towns with
no previous presence on the Internet can now post community information online, or
can change their town's "radius" setting to find events in nearby towns.

Improving User Experience

To accommodate the growth of content, features, and site usage, AmericanTowns has
increased its server capacity, streamlined its database and created a brand new user
interface.

"To enhance user experience, each community webspace has a clean, warm, more visual
presentation, and straightforward ways for users to sort information by the type of
content," explained Edward Panian, AmericanTowns' co-president of Technology. "Our
new interface gets people quickly and easily to the local information they are
seeking in their everyday life."

AmericanTowns' new technology framework also pulls in useful local information from
selected industry "verticals," such as Topix, Traffic.com, Alliance Reservations,
CareerBuilder, Trulia.com, and Verizon's yellow pages provider, Superpages.com. At
the same time, the site helps community organizations promote their initiatives to
local media, through a free "one-click PR" tool, and to other websites such as
Superpages.com, which recently integrated AmericanTowns' community calendar into its
site. Additional content-sharing initiatives are in development.

"AmericanTowns is moving 'local' beyond the standard search model that favors
content with the best SEO work, to a 'community webspace' model that organizes the
most useful information around the unique needs of real communities and is shaped
over time by each community's input," said Ted Buerger, chairman of AmericanTowns.

About AmericanTowns.com
AmericanTowns is a national network of community-based websites where residents can
find and share local information. For every town in America, AmericanTowns has
created a "community webspace" that brings together the nation\'s most extensive
online database of community events, community groups, news, local resources and
special tools for organizations. Dedicated to connecting citizens, community
organizations and locally-focused businesses and strengthening the bonds of our
nation\'s communities, AmericanTowns has featured more than 10 million community
events in the last 12 months, and offers powerful tools to help more than 120,000
listed community organizations interact more effectively with local citizens.
Founded in 2000, AmericanTowns is headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut. Visit
www.AmericanTowns.com.

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Web Site: http://www.americantowns.com

Contact Details: Alfred Leach, al@LeachCommunications.com, 212-481-2826