SEVL + GCTY, check out SEVL, 3 5/8 x 3 5/16, premarket vol =250 K
GeoCities in Pact to Promote 7th Level Animated Character Technology
Business Wire - December 04, 1998 07:35
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 1998--
Starts with Free Digital Santa that Members Can Use
To Create Talking Animations for Their Websites
7th Level, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEVL) and GeoCities (NASDAQ: GCTY) announced that GeoCities -- the world's largest and fastest growing community of personal websites -- is offering exclusively to GeoCities members a special text-to-speech version of 7th Level's Agent 7 animated character technology.
The special holiday version of Agent 7 enables GeoCities members to create reusable animations of Santa Claus and six other seasonal characters. Members can lip-synch the characters using text-to-speech synthesis in a variety of different voices to create -- within seconds -- an unlimited number of animations for their personal web sites.
This unique version of Agent 7, offered as a free download to all GeoCities members, marks the beginning of a marketing relationship between GeoCities and 7th Level to promote the complete line of 7th Level enhanced communications applications. Plans include special promotions for Mail 7, Present 7 and a variety of special character pack offerings later this year and in early 1999.
GeoCities is supporting the marketing effort with integrated text mentions and rotating banners throughout the GeoCities community from now through February 1999. In addition, 7th Level will actively participate in the GeoCities House Warming program, featuring targeted emails to the 12,000 new members that join GeoCities every day.
The special version of Agent 7 is being promoted on GeoCities' first "Holiday Member Tools Showcase" of festive animations, backgrounds and graphic add-ons. The page (http://www.geocities.com/members/addons/7thlevel/) also features links to 7th Level's www.7thlevel.com, where members can get more information on 7th Level's interactive animated character applications.
"The spirit of the holidays provides the perfect opportunity for us to offer a gift from 7th Level and GeoCities to our rapidly growing member base," said Michael Barrett, GeoCities Vice President of Advertising Sales. "Our members are quickly adopting enhanced communications for their web sites, emails and messages, and we are pleased to work with 7th Level in growing this expanding business."
Donald Schupak, Chairman of 7th Level, said the GeoCities agreement marks the beginning of web community expansion for 7th Level's enhanced communications technology throughout the Internet. "As the Internet consolidates, through combinations like America Online and Netscape, users will consolidate into web communities like GeoCities, which have become some of the hottest growth areas on the Net," he explained.
"Enhanced communications technology will play an increasing role in differentiating online services and communities by expanding use for current members and attracting new customers," he said. "A recent report from Forrester Research, for example, predicted that 25% of all personal email by the year 2001 will contain some form of enhanced multimedia functionality."
Richard Merrick, CEO of 7th Level, noted that the GeoCities agreement follows 7th Level's first major technology adoption agreement in which RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) will market and support a version of 7th Level's Agent 7 that enables RealNetworks' new G2 Internet multimedia technology to feature interactive, talking animated characters.
"By working closely with GeoCities on our marketing efforts, we can offer their members true differentiation for their web sites, email and instant messaging needs," Mr. Merrick said. "We look forward to a long relationship with GeoCities and its members."
About GeoCities
Based in Marina Del Rey, Calif., with advertising sales offices in London, New York and San Francisco, GeoCities (www.geocities.com) is the world's largest and fastest growing community of personal Web Sites on the Internet. 2.9 million GeoCities Homesteaders, members who have built personal Web Sites, have created an estimated 22 million pages of personalized content. In September 1998, the GeoCities site generated more than 1.4 billion page views according to Nielsen I/PRO, and in October 1998, the site attracted over 19.2 million unique visitors, according to Media Metrix. GeoCities was the fifth most trafficked Web Site on the Internet in October 1998, according to Media Metrix.
About 7th Level
7th Level, Inc., based in Dallas, Texas, is the leading provider of enhanced communications technology for creating interactive animated characters to expand the effectiveness and reduce the cost of media-rich webpages, emails and presentations for a wide variety of online and desktop applications.
For professional developers and consumers who want to increase the effectiveness and reduce the cost of media rich presentations and communications, 7th Level technology has become the industry standard for quickly and inexpensively producing broadcast quality, lip-synched interactive, animated characters for Internet and Windows 95/98 applications. Unlike costly and time-consuming traditional methods of producing frame-based animation, 7th Level's voice-activated characters can be used to create an unlimited number of interactive, animated sequences in seconds.
For more information, visit the 7th Level website at www.7thlevel.com.
CONTACT: 7th Level, New York
Gary Fishman or Kimberly Boshara, 212/527-4808
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