Clearway's FireSite Increases Site Scalability and Speed for LiveUpdate.

Business/Technology Editors

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 27, 2000

Next-Generation CDN Automatically Reduces Server Load by 75%

And Easily Supports Flash Crowds for Streaming Music Player Site

Clearway Technologies, LLC, the only provider of Web performance solutions for businesses of all sizes, announced today that LiveUpdate (www.liveupdate.com), a leading provider of Internet music players, has selected Clearway's next-generation content delivery service, FireSite(TM), to ensure site scalability and speed and support flash crowds.

LiveUpdate is a leading producer of music players for the Internet. Its Crescendo streaming MIDI and MP3 player has more than 10 million installed users worldwide and is a featured player on more than 10,000 Web sites, including Excite's leading e-card site, Blue Mountain Arts.

Since installing Clearway's FireSite, LiveUpdate has reduced its Web server load by 75% and gained the equivalent throughput of two T3 connections without upgrading their T1. With new capacity now available, LiveUpdate can handle its traffic with ease. Recently, LiveUpdate relied on Clearway's FireSite to automatically scale its bandwidth to handle several instances of surge crowds 60% above the site's typical daily volume.

FireSite serves LiveUpdate's high-bandwidth files--especially Crescendo download files--directly to users from Clearway's high-performance network of content servers. LiveUpdate simply installed FireSite's intelligent software agent on its Web server, a process that took less than half an hour. FireSite then automatically pushed LiveUpdate's high-bandwidth content to Clearway's network of content servers. FireSite observes LiveUpdate's traffic--hit by hit--in real time, and automatically rewrites tags on LiveUpdate's Web pages to direct each browser to access LiveUpdate's high-bandwidth content from the best possible Clearway content server.

"Clearway's FireSite allowed us to handle an extraordinary amount of traffic during a recent major release of our Crescendo product line," said Bill Moline, president and co-founder, LiveUpdate. "Now, we don't have to worry when visitors swarm our site. With FireSite, we can handle the traffic we have today and we're prepared for the traffic we expect tomorrow. FireSite installed easily, runs transparently, and handles the difficult task of content selection automatically for us. Even after we made radical changes to our site, we were able to just sit back and watch FireSite do its stuff."

"Clearway is excited to play such a strategic role in LiveUpdate's success," said Alexander Globus, CEO and chairman, Clearway Technologies. "LiveUpdate's business goal is to use the power of the Internet to place its Crescendo music player into as many hands as possible. By giving LiveUpdate an easy way to increase its scalability and speed, FireSite has removed the technical barriers that used to keep companies like LiveUpdate from achieving their business goals."

About LiveUpdate

The creators of Crescendo, LiveUpdate is the leading producer of streaming MIDI music players for the Internet, with more than 10 million installed users worldwide and 10,000 Web sites that are "Best Heard with Crescendo." Based in Andover, Massachusetts, LiveUpdate was founded in January of 1996.

About Clearway Technologies, LLC

A rapidly growing, pre-IPO firm headquartered in Boston, Clearway Technologies, LLC delivers technologies and services that liberate Internet-dependent businesses from the technical burdens of Web performance, enabling them to focus resources on innovation and growing profitable Web-based businesses. The Company was founded in 1996, when the Company invented and applied for the patent on the core technology that enables all of today's principal methods of content delivery. The patent was granted to Clearway in 1999.

A privately owned company, Clearway employs more than 130 people and is backed by significant funding from prestigious organizations, including YankeeTek, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and Comcast Interactive Capital. For more information, please visit the Clearway Technologies Web site at http://www.clearway.com.

FireSite is a trademark of Clearway Technologies, LLC in the United States and other countries. All other names are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.