Guardian Partners with Pluck to Enable Enhanced Social Media across Its Network of Leading Online Properties: UK's Premiere Online Newspaper to Bring Audience Participation and Community to More Than 18 Million Monthly Visitors

Pluck(R) Corporation, the foremost provider of social media capabilities to publishers, brands and retailers, announces that Guardian News and Media, publisher of the Guardian and Observer newspapers, and the Guardian Unlimited website, has selected Pluck's SiteLife Social Media Platform to power reader interaction and community services across the Guardian's market leading network of online web properties.

LONDON & AUSTIN, Texas (Business Wire EON) January 6, 2008 -- Pluck® Corporation, the foremost provider of social media capabilities to publishers, brands and retailers, announces that Guardian News and Media, publisher of the Guardian and Observer newspapers, and the Guardian Unlimited website, has selected Pluck’s SiteLife Social Media Platform to power reader interaction and community services across the Guardian’s market leading network of online web properties.

Selecting and working in partnership with Pluck is another major step in our strategy to extend the Guardian's industry-leading web presence. We are building a more broadly-based, global web service for people to read, discuss and interact with the Guardian's independent and progressive journalism.

Attracting more unique visitors than any other UK newspaper website, the Guardian is in a unique position to bring Pluck-powered social media experiences to a large and growing audience of British and international internet users. Pluck SiteLife is the industry’s preeminent social media toolset for blogs, photos, videos, comments, recommendations, reviews, ratings and a plethora of other specialized forms of participation. SiteLife powers more than 1 billion social media interactions every month, and is in use by many of the world’s leading publishers, brands and retailers including The Washington Post, Reuters, Circuit City, Saturn and The Economist.

Dave Panos, CEO of Pluck says: “The Guardian has an unsurpassed reputation both for editorial trust and online innovation. We are very proud and eager to deploy SiteLife’s social media capabilities as a cornerstone of The Guardian’s online future.”

Tom Turcan, Guardian’s General Manager, Digital says: “Selecting and working in partnership with Pluck is another major step in our strategy to extend the Guardian’s industry-leading web presence. We are building a more broadly-based, global web service for people to read, discuss and interact with the Guardian’s independent and progressive journalism.”

About The Guardian

The Guardian launched its network of websites, Guardian Unlimited, in 1999 and is recognised as the UK’s most popular newspaper website. For the past three years it has been voted the best newspaper on the web at the 2007 Webby Awards. Guardian Unlimited recorded record traffic of 18,407,758 unique users in October 2007 (ABCe). The highest-ever monthly user figure for a UK newspaper site.

About Pluck Corporation

Pluck Corporation social media solutions empower leading media companies, brand marketers, and retailers to integrate open content, community and social networking into their web properties driving audience traffic and revenue. Clients include CBC, Circuit City, Cox, The Economist, FOX News, Gannett, Scotts, and The Washington Post. Awards include a Red Herring 100 and AlwaysOn Media 100. The privately held company is based in Austin, Texas with funding from Austin Ventures, Mayfield Fund and Reuters. More information on Pluck offerings can be found at www.pluck.com.

Pluck is a registered trademark and BlogBurst and SiteLife are trademarks of Pluck Corp. All other company and product names mentioned are used only for identification and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.