AmericanTowns.com Launches Local Community Websites

Fairfield, CT - Forget the Blackberry or phone book: residents of 5000 towns across the United States are just clicks away from the newest way to navigate daily life. Between now and December 31,

AmericanTowns.com (www.americantowns.com) is launching its trademarked "community webspace" to serve communities totaling 150 million people, including the top 30 DMA’s.

Each community site is designed as a central destination to organize everything from special school events to the new rain date for the Little League playoffs, the latest on key town issues and more.

Already released in "Beta" test version, the site brings together community organizations, an extensive calendar of local events, and a broad set of local resources into one space. More importantly, this new webspace encourages participation: community organizations can submit their own content, such as news, events, press releases and more.

"Our team has operated this model successfully for five years with community sites serving 3 million people," explained Ted Buerger, Chairman and co-founder of AmericanTowns. "Community organizations love the ability to post their events to the community calendar, and to create their own news coverage of their efforts; they can also post alerts and cancellations, such as rainouts, real time. Citizens like all the information and resources in one place, and contribute their own ideas to the site. Schools and government use the site to reach a broader local audience than their official publications."

The site also provides free listings and free websites for local community groups, including for new initiatives. "We provide the sophisticated technology framework, core content and a pro-community orientation," explained Jim Maglione, Co-President, Community, "but the community defines how the site evolves and is used. It’s different in every town."

The site is supported by business advertising. "Advertising is highly targeted by town and area of interest and therefore very effective and affordable," explained Buerger. "At the same time, good advertising - discounts, a new service in town - is content valued by local users. Everybody wins," he added.


About AmericanTowns: AmericanTowns.com, L.L.C. (www.americantowns.com), which has operated community websites serving 3 million people in the Northeast for five years, was founded in 2000 by Ted Buerger (chairman) and Michael J. Kelly (now President, AOL Media Networks) "to bring the power of the Internet to people’s daily lives". In 2006, led by Co-Presidents Jim Maglione and Edward Panian, the Company embarked on an effort to update its site, technology and content offering, and bring its established website capabilities to citizens across the United States.

With over 1.5 million events in its local database and 30,000 listed local organizations, AmericanTowns is launching sites for half the country (including the top 30 DMA’s) by the end of December, with the balance of the United States targeted by March 31, 2007.


Partnering with AmericanTowns:

AmericanTowns mission is to strengthen the bonds of local community; therefore it happily partners with other community-oriented local media. These partnerships can be in the form of cross-promotion, cross-links, content sharing or ad-sharing.

AmericanTowns will also provide its framework on a licensing basis to local media or individuals wishing to assertively develop a community webspace for their town. AmericanTowns does provide revenue shares to sources of material traffic or to content providers; it does not have a direct sales force, but will pay a significant commission to other local media with that capability.

(For further information visit http://www.americantowns.com or email your interests and credentials to media@americantowns.com)