McClatchy and Webvisible to Provide Search Engine Marketing to Local Retailers

April 28, 2006; 02:04 AM

IRVINE, Calif. & SACRAMENTO, Calif. - WebVisible, a provider of local online advertising products and services, is announcing a partnership with The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI) at this week's AD-TECH expo in San Francisco. The deal would bring WebVisible's "white label" local search advertising products to many of the publishing giant's regional newspaper advertisers.

WebVisible's proprietary software, Geneva, acts as an exchange between resellers of its local search advertising products and search engine giants such as Google and Yahoo!, creating the largest independent exchange of its kind. WebVisible will manage the back-end of annual, guaranteed "click" packages, sold under McClatchy's trusted brand by McClatchy's regional newspapers' sales force. Advertisers benefit as WebVisible places ads across search engines that drive measured traffic to their respective websites, over the course of a contracted term.

In an effort to bring an easy to use product and additional value to their local business customer base, McClatchy's respective local market advertising customers can now put their websites in the sponsored search results of Google, Yahoo! and others, reaching over 95% of online searchers. Online local search is responsible for nearly 450 million commerce driven searches each month in the U.S. Industry experts predict online advertising to be a $9 billion dollar industry in 2007.

"The McClatchy Company is looking to take the complexity out of offering local search on a large, guaranteed scale to their customers," said WebVisible's Marketing VP, Christopher Tippie. "As an exchange, WebVisible is designed to do just that."

Newspapers owned by The McClatchy Company in selected cities will be rolling out sales later this year.

About WebVisible(SM)

WebVisible's local advertising products & services, sold by the local ad sales professionals of yellow pages, newspapers and online marketers, bring visibility to millions of local business websites that would otherwise be lost in a vast Internet landscape. The WebVisible service suite includes local search, locally targeted banner advertising, Pay-Per-Call and Click-to-Call services. In addition, the WebVisible service provides a web based proprietary order entry and campaign reporting application, affording easy self-management of order input, processing and reporting.

The service supports local resellers with sales training, product positioning and merchandising to increase reseller's product line, revenue and consumer loyalty.

A service of SME Global Solutions (incorporated in September 2001), WebVisible evolved in 2005 as a collective of local market professionals with more than 150 years experience in local market advertising and product development. The service is sold by Fortune 500 companies, including Bell Operating Companies, newspaper publishers and ISPs worldwide.

SME Global Solutions, Inc. is a privately held company with funding from Redpoint Ventures.

WebVisible, A Service of SME Global Solutions, Inc., is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., with offices in Atlanta, Georgia.

For more information, please visit www.webvisible.com or call 949-502-5757.

About The McClatchy Company

The McClatchy Company, headquartered in Sacramento, Calif., is a leading newspaper and internet publisher. It publishes 12 daily and 16 non-daily newspapers located in western coastal states, North and South Carolina, and the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul. McClatchy has daily circulation of 1.4 million and Sunday circulation of 1.8 million.

McClatchy's newspapers include, among others, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, The Sacramento Bee, The Fresno Bee and The Modesto Bee in California, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.), the Anchorage Daily News and Vida en el Valle, a bilingual Spanish weekly newspaper distributed throughout California's Central Valley. McClatchy also operates leading local websites in each of its daily newspaper markets, offering readers information, comprehensive news, advertising, e-commerce and other services, and owns and operates McClatchy Interactive, an interactive operation that provides websites with content, publishing tools and software development.

McClatchy is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol (MNI).