Glam Media Partners with Global Grind to Launch New Hip-Hop Vertical Network on Glam Entertainment

Glam Media Partners with Global Grind to Launch New Hip-Hop Vertical Network on Glam Entertainment

Global Grind To Utilize Glam Media's Turnkey Platform That Allows Media Companies To Launch Dedicated Vertical Networks

BRISBANE, Calif. and NEW YORK, June 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Glam Media, Inc., (www.GlamMedia.com), the pioneer of vertical content networks and number one in reach for women online, and Global Grind, (www.GlobalGrind.com), the premier online social site offering a new way to engage and mobilize the hip-hop audience, today launched a Managed Vertical Network (MVN) of sites and blogs for the hip-hop community anchored by Global Grind as a part of Glam Media's Entertainment Channel. This hip-hop based vertical network will have extensive content from Global Grind and will also include other hip-hop based blogs and websites. Global Grind will recruit the best sites and blogs to the co-branded publisher network, while the Digital Primetime(TM) brand ads will be managed by Glam Media.

"The partnership between Global Grind and Glam Media is another step in Global Grind's mission to be a platform that allows the hip-hop audience to show its depth and breadth," said Navarrow Wright, president and CEO of Global Grind. "By allowing its talented and diverse members a place to find all the content that's important to them, and giving creative entrepreneurs a place to monetize their content and showcase it to largest audience possible. This network will be a significant value to advertisers who are eager to reach this unique audience in a targeted and meaningful way."

"I've long been inspired by Glam Media and their take on the Internet space along with their creative use of technology. Glam has influenced our work here at Global Grind," said Russell Simmons, president and chairman of RUSH Communications and financial backer of Global Grind. "We are excited to go into this partnership to create opportunities by providing the platform for creative individuals."

"We look forward to adding to Glam Entertainment's highly select network of publishers and bloggers with Global Grind's targeted network," said Samir Arora, chairman and CEO of Glam Media. "This vertical network focused on the hip-hop community is a key example of Glam's total commitment to bringing audiences the content they want and bringing advertisers multiple vehicles for reaching those audiences."

Glam Media's MVN platform is designed to rapidly and effectively develop, manage and monetize dedicated vertical networks. Lifetime Networks was the first company to leverage Glam's MVN platform to extend their reach online by launching a vertical network with Glam.

"We are very excited to bring Global Grind into the Glam Entertainment offering," said John Trimble, EVP of new markets sales at Glam Media. "Global Grind provides our advertisers premium distribution within the hip-hop community and delivers key audiences to brands targeting the Global Grind network within the Glam Entertainment channel."

Global Grind and Glam will be launching a hip-hop "Be Discovered" competition in October 2008 to help new talent emerge online. Details and judges will be announced shortly. This will be the third "Be Discovered" competition for Glam, which began the contest in 2007 with handbag designers and recently held a Design a Dress competition in partnership with MSN.

The Glam Managed Vertical Network (MVN) platform leverages the years of development and successful operations of Glam Media's own 500-strong publisher network, number one in reach for women. The Glam MVN platform offers media companies the necessary infrastructure and tool set to create a successful vertical network. With the Glam MVN, media companies can easily recruit publishers, manage inventory, set pricing, serve and optimize campaigns, support multiple billing systems, and offer both publishers and advertisers a wide range of reports and technical support.

The partnership also leverages Glam Media's new flagship service GlamTV, unveiled last week, which allows publishers in the Glam Network to access rights-cleared content and indie videos tightly packaged with brand advertising for their websites.

About Glam Media

Glam Media pioneered the vertical content network model and is the fastest growing Top 20 Media Company in the US. With a total reach of 35 million unique monthly visitors in the US and 64 million global uniques (comScore MediaMetrix), Glam Media provides a compelling mix of fresh, original content created in-house on its owned & operated web sites and the carefully curated Glam Publishing Network of more than 500 popular and influential lifestyle Web sites, blogs and magazines. For premium national brand advertisers, Glam Media offers an unprecedented array of reach and targeting that are singularly attractive to both upscale and aspirational consumers. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital. Glam Media is based in New York City and Brisbane, California.

About Global Grind

Global Grind is a community based website allowing people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web, by linking to, voting for, and commenting on each others content, in a social and democratic way. To view the content in full, Global Grind links to the website that published the story, therefore driving traffic to that website and creating a larger market for sites that publish their own news stories, photos, and videos. Voting submitted content up and down is the cornerstone functionality of the website, and is respectively referred to as grinding and trashing. Headquartered in New York City, Global Grind is a privately held firm funded by Accel Partners and Russell Simmons.

    Contact information:     Abbe Patterson    Glam Media    650-270-2158    abbep@GlamMedia.com     Lane Buschel    The Morris + King Company for Glam Media    212-561-7454    lane.buschel@morris-king.com     Nicole Alexander    Global Grind    917-459-0778    nalexander@globalgrind.com  

Source: Glam Media, Inc.

CONTACT: Abbe Patterson of Glam Media, +1-650-270-2158,
abbep@GlamMedia.com; or Lane Buschel of The Morris + King Company for Glam
Media, +1-212-561-7454, lane.buschel@morris-king.com; or Nicole Alexander of
Global Grind, +1-917-459-0778, nalexander@globalgrind.com

Web site: http://www.glammedia.com/
http://www.globalgrind.com/

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Profile: International Entertainment