Calypso.com Blends Community and Commerce in a Fun, Free Web Site Building Service.Business &Technology Editors STERLING, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 2, 2000 calypso Calypso, in Greek mythology Calypso (kəlĭp`sō), nymph, daughter of Atlas, in Homer's Odyssey. She lived on the island of Ogygia and there entertained Odysseus for seven years. .com Receives $5M in Funding From Electric Ventures, Euclid Partners, New River Capital Partners and AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. Investments Calypso Online today announced the launch of calypso.com, the new web page building service that has e-commerce integrated into it from the ground up. By simply typing your text and pointing &clicking, a user can create a web page and make money with it. calypso.com members raise money for events, clubs, organizations or even themselves. calypso.com provides members with a way to stay in touch with friends and family and to share their life experiences. Scollay Petry, founder and president of Calypso, spent five years at America Online See AOL. where he helped create large-scale marketing, usage reporting and ad serving systems and developed the company's formal market research department. Petry also launched marketing and sales programs for Greenhouse/AOL Studios and ICQ ("I Seek You") A conferencing program for the Internet from Mirabilis, Tel Aviv, Israel (www.icq.com). It provides interactive chat, e-mail and file transfer and can alert you when someone on your predefined list has also come online. . Petry realized that the world of affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is a method of promoting web businesses (merchants/advertisers) in which an affiliate (publisher) is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale provided through his/her efforts. was tailored for &uot;tech-heads&uot;, not a mainstream consumer Web audience. &uot;With calypso.com, I created a new category that embraces everyday people who are seeking a place to build a compelling web page and also sell products to benefit themselves, their school, church, synagogue, club or other organization,&uot; said Petry. Investors supported calypso.com, and endorsed their grassroots &uot;everyday people&uot; positioning through capital investment. &uot;calypso.com has created a tool set that allows various communities, who share common interests, to quickly and easily build a hassle-free web site,&uot; stated Randy Maslow, Electric Ventures. &uot;calypso.com empowers individuals to interact with their communities using new Internet See Web 2.0 and Internet2. technologies. Moreover, calypso.com allows individuals and communities to make or raise money for their respective causes. It's the new digital bake sale “Bake Sale” redirects here. For the episode from the TV show 8 Simple Rules, see List of 8 Simple Rules episodes. A bake sale is a fundraising activity where baked goods such as doughnuts, cupcakes and cookies, sometimes along with ethnic foods, are sold. .&uot; Graham Anderson Graham Leslie Anderson, FRHSC is a Canadian heraldic scholar and officer of arms. Anderson was formerly a student of Shawnigan Lake School and he began teaching at the School in 1957. Currently, he is the longest serving staff member at Shawnigan. , General Partner at Euclid Partners agrees with Maslow. &uot;The natural sense of kinship that this site creates will quickly spread throughout organizations, clubs and communities.&uot; &uot;calypso.com is focusing on reaching an under-served, untapped marketplace of online users who are seeking a fun and easy way to connect with others by creating web pages that artfully blend commerce with community,&uot; said Mr. Ron Peele, AOL Investments. Using &uot;micro-community commerce&uot;, calypso.com avoids the &uot;technology enabler&uot; label of affiliate marketing programs and successfully embraces the grassroots &uot;human enabler&uot; market. calypso.com provides members with the tools needed to create unique, personalized per·son·al·ize tr.v. per·son·al·ized, per·son·al·iz·ing, per·son·al·iz·es 1. To take (a general remark or characterization) in a personal manner. 2. To attribute human or personal qualities to; personify. web sites. With over 30 different design templates, hundreds of fully developed topics and easy, point-and-click page building tools, members can create a page in less than 10 minutes. In addition to creating pages, members can also add products from participating merchant partners. calypso.com's merchant partners to-date include Barnesandnoble.com, toysmart.com, americasbaby.com, Fridgedoor.com, Barewalls.com, bigstar.com, ProFlowers.com, Publisher's Clearing House Publishers Clearing House (or PCH) is a multi-channel direct marketing company, that offers discounted magazine subscriptions and household merchandise to consumers with the chance to enter to win one of many ongoing sweepstakes. , Giftworld.com, Hammetts.com, AllThingsJewish.com, Treats4Pets.com and ShopInPrivate.com. calypso.com's members may browse through the partner's sites, for a selection of high quality, reputable products to sell. This merchant program provides members with varying commission programs with commissions ranging from 5%-12%. Members register once with calypso.com and are given instant access to all of the site's merchant partners. This is in contrast to most affiliate programs on the Internet that require participants to register with and be approved by each merchant they would like to work with. In addition, even the smallest of commissions from all of calypso.com's merchants will be pooled into a single account, making payments easier and more efficient for members and merchants. calypso.com is funded by New River Capital, Euclid Partners, Electric Ventures and AOL Investments. About Calypso.com Based in Sterling, Virginia Sterling, Virginia is an unincorporated Washington, D.C. suburb, northwest of Herndon, east of Ashburn, and west of Reston, close to Dulles International Airport in Loudoun County. , calypso.com was founded in July 1999 by former veteran AOL executive, Scollay Petry. calypso.com is a free online community where people can confidently create web pages that are e-commerce enabled. Following proprietary step-by-step instructions, ten minutes to type, point and click is all you need to create a web site that includes products from known and trusted merchants, without any of the fulfillment hassle. Members of calypso.com raise money for events, clubs, organizations or even themselves by earning commissions on sales. Shoppers benefit from member experience and product recommendation or from knowing that their online shopping supports a grassroots effort. For more information, please visit www.calypso.com. About Electric Ventures Electric Ventures is a New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of City-based network of angel investors An individual who invests his or her own money in a private company, which is typically a startup. An angel investor is not an employee or member of a bank, venture capital firm or other financial institution that normally makes such investments. who band together to make collective investments in early-stage Internet companies. The organization was founded by Randy Maslow who, prior to forming Electric Ventures, was a core part of the original management team at Concentric Network Corp. (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on : &uot;CNCX&uot;). About Euclid Partners Founded in 1970, Euclid Partners has helped create leading information and medical technology companies for almost 30 years and today currently manages over $150 million in early-stage venture capital. One of the original US venture capital firms Name Location Founding date Managing Partners/Directors Specialty Capital managed 5AM Ventures Menlo Park, CA; Waltham, MA 2002 John Diekman, PhD (managing partner), Scott Rocklage, PhD (managing partner), Andrew Schwab (managing partner) life sciences $200M [1] still committed to early-stage investing, Euclid Partners seeks entrepreneurs with a demonstrated commitment to building real businesses through personal investment and involvement. In addition to Calypso Online, Inc., Euclid Partners has invested in leading Internet companies such as Multex.com, IntraLinks, Inc. and Ironside Technologies, Inc. About New River Capital Partners New River Capital is a private equity fund focused on partnering with talented entrepreneurs to build great companies. Their disciplined investing strategy is focused primarily on fundamental themes that they believe will shape companies in the new millennium, including business services, consumer brands, education and the Internet. |
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