NewsGator to Deliver Advanced Social Networking Capabilities for the Enterprise

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - March 3, 2008) - NewsGator today announced several new Social Sites features that will add advanced social network and community capabilities to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. With these features, NewsGator will deliver enhanced social networking capabilities for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that facilitate employee collaboration and simplify information discovery -- enabling enterprises to drive innovation, increase worker knowledge and improve productivity.

"More and more businesses are looking to bring the benefits provided by consumer-based social networking sites into the context of the enterprise," said Tom Rizzo, Director, SharePoint at Microsoft. "The latest release of Social Sites, combined with SharePoint Server 2007, enables businesses to implement social computing capabilities within the secure, firewall-protected environment of the enterprise -- making it easier for their employees to collaborate, discover information and locate internal subject matter experts. NewsGator's innovative product features help Microsoft customers more easily embrace Enterprise 2.0 technologies thereby increasing SharePoint Server 2007 adoption and usage."

First introduced in October 2007, Social Sites turns SharePoint Server 2007 into an Enterprise 2.0 hub for businesses by adding a collection of site templates, Web parts, profiles and infrastructure into SharePoint Server 2007's existing architecture and security models. Social Sites enhances SharePoint Server 2007's social computing features by offering collaboration tools, enhanced tagging, RSS feed subscriptions and management, colleague tracking features and content mash-up capabilities.

The new release of Social Sites will make it easier for people to discover relevant information and experts within an enterprise by providing a graphical display of a person's social network based on both explicit and implied connections with others. Social Sites' advanced social network capabilities will display a user's strongest colleague connections, recommend additional connections based on common content and interests and suggest the best ways to connect with new colleagues.

The Social Sites release will also enhance employee collaboration by enabling users to create, discover and join ad hoc communities that span organization boundaries to connect people with common projects, areas of expertise, activities and interests. These communities will facilitate collaboration by providing rich discussion capabilities, centralized document management features and the use of tags, relevance data and RSS feeds to keep all members up-to-date on their communities' latest news and activities.

"Social Sites lets workers harness the social and collaborative aspect of their jobs and use each other's knowledge as a competitive advantage," said Dave Keller, GM, Enterprise at NewsGator. "SharePoint Server 2007 is a tremendously popular and effective tool for business collaboration and adding rich social networking capabilities that connect people with content only enhances the effectiveness of SharePoint Server 2007. We've seen a tremendous amount of interest in Social Sites from enterprises looking to easily integrate Web 2.0 capabilities into their organization's day-to-day processes. With Social Sites, companies are able to better leverage the broad capabilities of SharePoint Server 2007 thereby driving SharePoint Server 2007 adoption and maximizing the return on their SharePoint Server 2007 investment."

Companies interested in beta testing the upcoming Social Sites release should visit NewsGator's booth at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2008, or visit http://www.newsgator.com/business/socialsites.

About NewsGator Technologies, Inc.

NewsGator Technologies is a pioneer in RSS and Enterprise 2.0 technologies. Headquartered in Denver, Colo., NewsGator develops and markets RSS aggregation solutions for individual end users, enterprises and online content providers. Using NewsGator products and solutions, businesses and consumers can subscribe to news, information, podcasts and other relevant content more efficiently and effectively than with traditional channels. With NewsGator, users have access to RSS information via the Web, Microsoft Outlook, mobile devices and both Windows- and Mac-based desktop clients. All NewsGator products synchronize seamlessly, enabling users to read their RSS feeds anywhere, anytime, with any device. For more information, visit www.newsgator.com.

Contact Information: Contact Information Laura Farrelly NewsGator 303-552-2046 lauraf(at)newsgator(dot)com Jennifer Gazin or Corey Lewis LaunchSquad 415.625.8555 newsgator(at)launchsquad(dot)com