SOURCE: WebVisible

October 23, 2007 08:05 ET

MerchantCircle and WebVisible Partner to Bring Local Business Owners Unrivaled Online Advertising Options

Deal Gives the Largest and Fastest Growing Network of Local Merchants Increased Visibility on Top Search Engines Including Google and Yahoo!

LOS ALTOS, CA--(Marketwire - October 23, 2007) - MerchantCircle, the nation's largest online business network, and WebVisible, the leading technology provider to the local online advertising industry, today announced a partnership that will provide local business owners with increased and more effective online advertising options. The deal exemplifies MerchantCircle's continued commitment to providing local merchants with simple, scalable solutions to harness the power of the internet to attract new customers

"WebVisible's successful partnerships with AT&T and New York Times Company prove that they have the expertise to deliver effective, scalable advertising solutions," said Ben T. Smith, IV, Chairman and Co-Founder of MerchantCircle. "This partnership instantly provides a turn-key advertising solution to MerchantCircle's 250,000 merchants, and represents our commitment to connect local business owners with more customers."

The addition of WebVisible-supported advertising services further bolsters MerchantCircle's innovative product lineup. In addition to search engine advertising, MerchantCircle recently launched their Web Identity Manager (WIM), aggregating reviews from several consumer related sites, so that merchants can view them on their MerchantCircle page.

"WebVisible and MerchantCircle are like-minds on the value of localized online advertising to small businesses," said Kirsten Mangers, Co-Founder and CEO of WebVisible. "Our partnership with MerchantCircle gives us tremendous marketing strength, but if there is one thing our partners look for in us -- it's scalability in a software platform."

WebVisible's software platform and services team manage the entire lifecycle of order management, ad creation, deployment and optimization, ensuring a small business is effectively represented on Google, Yahoo!, MSN and other valuable Internet audience locations.

Details of the deal include:

--  Search Engine Marketing -- MerchantCircle will launch three search
    engine marketing packages that allow merchants to advertise Google, Yahoo!,
    MSN, Ask.com and 30 other search engine networks. Subscription levels offer
    increasing levels of visibility and clicks.
--  Listing Submission -- Automatically lists customer web pages in
    algorithmic search results for all major local internet directories.
--  Custom Budget -- Provides merchants a custom budget plan based on
    their category & geography to maximize advertising results.
    

About MerchantCircle

Founded in 2005, MerchantCircle is the largest online network of small business owners in the nation, combining social networking aspects with a customizable web listing that allows merchants to attract new customers. More than 14 million MerchantCircle business listings across the country are easily accessed on major search engines. Currently, over 250,000 merchants on the MerchantCircle network upload pictures, blog, build coupons, and newsletters, while also connecting with other business owners. MerchantCircle also gives business owners the power to manage their online reputation by aggregating reviews and increasing visibility across the web. MerchantCircle is located on Main St. in downtown Los Altos, Calif., and is funded by Rustic Canyon Partners, Scale Venture Partners and Disney's Steamboat Ventures. Learn more at www.merchantcircle.com.

About WebVisible, Inc.

Established in 2001, WebVisible is the fastest growing name in local interactive advertising and recipient of the 2007 Emerging Software Company of the Year award by the Technology Council of Southern California.

Our business philosophy is that local business owners are too busy minding their stores to successfully navigate the complexities of buying and managing their own online advertising, whether pay-per-click, banner ads, call-based products or ROI measurement tools. WebVisible solves this problem by offering turn-key, fully managed software solutions that support interactive advertising with predictable pricing and guaranteed results.

WebVisible has captured the attention of the Internet's biggest companies (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, etc) and brought them together with some of the largest media companies (International Yellow Pages, Newspapers and online service providers), enabling sales channels to package and sell local Internet advertising in a meaningful, scalable way. By providing this bridge we have established ourselves as a true expert in bringing the Internet as an advertising and customer acquisition medium to small businesses around the world.

All products are privately branded and sold by a growing list of resellers in the yellow pages, newspaper and online marketing industries, including Earthlink, British Telecom, MediaNews Group, McClatchy Company, Homestead.com, Yellow Pages Group of Canada, and more.

For more information, please visit www.webvisible.com or call (949) 502-5766.