LONDON, March 9, 2000 - Yahoo! UK & Ireland today launched Yahoo! Clubs (http://uk.clubs.yahoo.com), a new community building service that enables people to create their own personal Web communities and interact on a regular basis with friends, relatives, colleagues and anyone who shares a similar interest.

Yahoo! Clubs gives users a unique communications centre on the Web, combining some of Yahoo!'s most popular community tools - message boards, chat, profiles and personalisation services. Yahoo! Clubs is an ideal community platform for groups of all types, including workgroups, families, investment clubs, associations, fan clubs and school and student organisations.

"With all of the new communications tools available on the Internet, people have been looking for a way to bring it all together into one place," said Lloyd Shepherd, Senior Producer at Yahoo! UK & Ireland. "By establishing a personal Web community through Yahoo! Clubs, people have their own place on the Web that they can participate in and keep coming back to on an ongoing basis. Yahoo! Clubs gives people an opportunity to develop and grow relationships with others who share a common interest."

Getting Started

Creating a club is simple - Yahoo! Clubs requires no special software or technical skills to get started. People can begin by going to http://uk.clubs.yahoo.com, where they can browse hundreds of categories and choose the one that best suits the club they want to create. Individuals then select their club name and choose whether they'd like an Unlisted club (only for people they invite) or Listed club (available to the all web users).

Yahoo! provides the club founder with the tools and features needed to create and maintain the club. Founders are also given the administrative rights to moderate and modify their clubs and can opt to share these rights with other individuals.

Club Features

Yahoo! Clubs features some of Yahoo!'s most popular communications and community tools - brought together in one convenient location for individuals and organisations to use and create their own meeting place on the Web. Key features include:

Message Boards - Post messages, voice opinions, respond to other users and invite other club members to events.

Member Profiles - check out other member's profile pages, where they can upload a picture of themselves and tell everybody about their hobbies and interests.

Photo Album - club members can create photo albums and upload pictures they want to share with other members.

Club Calendar - All club members can share a calendar where they can post important events related to the club, like scheduled chats, their team's fixtures or anything else. These events then also appear in their personal Yahoo! Calendar.

Chat - Engage in private, real-time chat with other members of the club using Yahoo! Chat.

Club Statistics - See how many people have visited or joined your club and how many pageviews it has received.

Web Links - Share favourite Web links with other members

Activities

Friends and Family - Yahoo! Clubs offers a perfect way for relatives and friends to keep each other updated. Family members can write messages for the grandparents about the kids' soccer games, post reminders of important dates so no-one forgets Dad's birthday, send a message to all family members or friends at one time, chat with other family members in real-time to get the latest news in everyone's lives. Old college friends who now live all around the world can create a club where they can keep in touch with each other and continue to take part in each other's lives in an immediate and ongoing basis.

Organisations - Fan clubs, investment groups, student associations, business organisations, non-profits - any type of group can take advantage of Yahoo! Clubs by using the community services to keep each other abreast of the latest events and news within the organisation. For example, Yahoo! Clubs can act as the community bulletin board for different organisations or already established clubs. Fans can create their own clubs for their favourite celebrities and get together with other people who share the same passion.

Business-to-Business Uses - For businesses and workgroups, Yahoo! Clubs provides an ideal way for people collaborating on a project to pose questions, share thoughts and resources, stay current on progress, provide updates - all in one central location, accessible at anytime, anyplace there is a Web-connected computer.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Europe provides commerce, communication and media services throughout Europe to meet the needs of local consumers. Yahoo! Europe is comprised of the Yahoo! sites for the UK & Ireland (http://www.yahoo.co.uk/), France (http://www.yahoo.fr/), Germany (http://www.yahoo.de/), Italy (http://www.yahoo.it/), Spain (http://www.yahoo.es/), Sweden (http://www.yahoo.se/), Norway (http://www.yahoo.no/), and Denmark (http://www.yahoo.dk/).

During the month of December 1999, 18 million unique users in Western Europe visited the Yahoo! Europe network. The Yahoo! offices in London, Paris, Munich, Milan, Madrid, Stockholm and Copenhagen are staffed by local nationals and Yahoo! Europe is headquartered in central London.

Yahoo! Europe is part of Yahoo! Inc.,a global Internet communications, commerce and media company that offers a comprehensive branded network of services to 120 million users each month worldwide. As the first online navigational guide to the Web, http://www.yahoo.com/ is the leading guide in terms of traffic, advertising, household and business user reach, and is one of the most recognised brands associated with the Internet.

The company also provides online business services designed to enhance Yahoo!'s clients' Web services, including audio and video streaming, store hosting and management, and Web site tools and services. The company's global Web network includes 21 World properties. Yahoo! has offices in Europe, the Asia, Pacific, Latin America, Canada and the United States, and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.

All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Media Contacts:

Alison Fennah, Yahoo! UK & Ireland 0207 368 3848 alison@uk.yahoo-inc.com Sue Jackson, Yahoo! UK & Ireland 0207 368 3876 suej@uk.yahoo-inc.com