MIDDLETON, Mass. (Oct. 1, 1996) -- Shopping on the Web became easier and more enjoyable today with the new release of BigYellow^SM, featuring a host of major content enhancements that extend BigYellow’s leadership as the most valuable and most used on-line shopping service on the Internet. The service is free of charge to consumers at www.bigyellow.com.

To go along with its 16 million business listings and 5,000 advertisers, more than any other site on the World Wide Web, BigYellow now helps people make more informed decisions when shopping in popular categories, such as computers, dining, travel, entertainment and finance.

In addition, BigYellow now features 75 million residential listings, as well as a directory of 7.5 million E-mail addresses. These two new features will help people locate and communicate with home-based businesses and individuals, as well as larger merchants.

"These BigYellow enhancements provide Internet shoppers with more useful information to help them make informed purchase decisions and easily find exactly what they want, whenever and wherever they want it," said Mat Stover, president and chief executive officer of NYNEX Information Resources Co., parent company of the unit that created BigYellow.

"Internet shoppers have asked us for more easy-to-use information about the products and services of most interest to them and BigYellow is delivering,” Stover added. “BigYellow’s new residential and E-mail directories are icing on the cake.”

The enhancements to BigYellow include:

--Residential and E-mail directories, provided in partnership with Four11, the most comprehensive resource for Internet address information. This feature includes interoperability between BigYellow and Four11. The benefit for users is that they can click easily back and forth to find phone numbers, addresses, and E-mail addresses, as needed.

“Today’s announcement means that two market leaders are coming together to provide a complete directory application to Internet users that will be unequaled by anything on the Web,” said Michael Santullo, president of Four11 Corporation, “We are proud of the work we have done together in creating this relationship to make life easier for Web users.”

--Enhanced information for popular topics, including dining, entertainment, health care, computers, travel, finance, education, home improvement, real estate, automotive, legal and home-based businesses. The sections included in BigYellow’s new BigTopics section provide access to additional content supplied by 23 related companies (see attached list).

Each BigTopic area also links directly to a counterpart in InfoseekR, where more shopping information can be obtained. Users can easily toggle back and forth between the related BigTopics information and the Infoseek Guide information to get what they need.
“Topical interoperability between BigYellow and Infoseek responds to customers’ desires to find more information about products when they’re shopping, and to find a place to buy things for which they are browsing,” said Bill Wise, president of NYNEX Information Technologies, developer of BigYellow.

Added Robin Johnson, president and CEO of Infoseek Corporation: “We continue to work in partnership with BigYellow to provide Internet users with an easy way to find what they’re looking for on the Web and to find the people who can provide it to them.”

--Enhanced international directories: BigYellow’s connections to international directories include 32 countries and more than 30 million listings. Each country connection now includes complementary content that travelers will find helpful, include breaking news, weather and travel tips.

Launched on the Web in March, BigYellow is the leader in on-line shopping services with more advertisers and with nearly double the visitors of any other shopping service. Businesses may purchase advertising on BigYellow through their advertising agency representatives or directly by accessing the site at www.bigyellow.com or by calling toll-free, 1 888 BIG-YELLOW (1 888 244-9355). BigYellow also designs and hosts Web pages and sites for its customers.

John Joseph, president of Ketchum Directory Advertising, one of the world’s largest national directory advertising agencies, said: “BigYellow is a great shopping tool and we’ve had a good deal of success with our clients on the site. BigYellow’s enhancements and its relationship with Infoseek makes it even more attractive for advertisers.”

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