Caltech "Young Turks" develop site that wins NII best business site award.

PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 13, 1995--On Wednesday night, July 12, the National Materials Exchange Network (NMEN), a client of Presence Information Design, received the National Information Infrastructure Award for best business site on the Internet World Wide Web or an online information service.

Its site is the best example of electronic commerce on the Web; tens of thousands of dollars have been poured into its backend database technology.

NMEN has beaten out GE Plastics, First Virtual and even the Mercury Center (i.e., San Jose Mercury News -- recipient of the best site award from Interactive Age in April) for best business site honors.

In all likelihood, Presence is the only Web site developer based in Southern California that will be receiving one of the six awards; and, as stated earlier, Presence Information Design is receiving the best business site award.

Company Background

Presence was started about a year ago by "Young Turks" out of Caltech. The parent company has been developing instrumentation for NASA Deep Space Program probes since 1987. It's one of the largest Web design firms with 10 or so full-time employees and several others on a regular part-time or contract basis.

The company launched Web sites for a chili sauce distributor (Hot Hot Hot), the movie "First Knight," and several other firms. (Each is listed on its home page: http://www.presence.com/)

Presence is also developing sites for Irvine, Calif.-based NetSoft, and, most importantly, for id Software, the team behind Doom, Heretic and Quake. id Software will be Presence's flagship site when it is launched next month.

And, if you can believe this from a team essentially out of Caltech, the company is launching the first fashion/lifestyle magazine on the Web early next month. (Actually, this is a 50 percent/50 percent joint venture.) The magazine, titled "You," will launch as a quarterly and include 100 percent original editorial content.

Presence's focus is on human interface technologies, although it has excellent design (i.e., graphics) capabilities in-house. Its focus on the user interface differentiates the company from other Web design firms which are typically Adobe Photoshop houses. It has all the "high-tech" goodies at its disposal; and Presence truly lives on the bleeding-edge of technology. (But what else would you expect from a bunch of youthful propeller heads out of Caltech?)

Presence is developing a Web-based product for enterprise collaborative computing; it's their key product in development. And that's not all: How about providing users access to large-scale, complex, realtime, unpredictable virtual environments? (That's in the three-to-five year planning horizon.)

If you'd like to arrange to do a feature on Presence, the facility looks like WiReD's; it should make a good photo. And the team of brilliant "Young Turks" (average age 25 or so) with long hair and sometimes with no shoes, combined with a shot of the video arcade machines in the loft (for mid-afternoon/late evening R&R, of course), should serve as a good photo supplement. Presence has an eclectic team and an eclectic facility. Bottom line: It's a cool, fun company.

For more information contact David Scott Lewis, president & chief executive officer, Presence Information Design, Web site design services, implementation & toolkit development, E-Mail: [e-mail], URL: http://www.presence.com/, Telephone: [phone], fax: [phone], pager: 818/542-0302, 175 S. Fair Oaks Ave. (2 blocks south of Colorado Boulevard), Pasadena, Calif., 91105.

CONTACT: Presence Information Design, Pasadena

David Scott Lewis, 818/405-9971; 818/542-0302 (pager)