Columbia Records Launches New Improved Website; ColumbiaRecords.com "3.0" Comes Fully-Loaded.

NEW YORK--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--March 12, 1999--Columbia Records' Online & Emerging Technologies has unveiled version 3.0 of the Columbia Records website, a dynamic state-of-the-art interface linking the 21st century to the heritage of the label.

Founded in the mid-1880's as a cultural subsidiary of the American Graphophone Company, Columbia Records has, for more than a century, merged artistic integrity with technological innovation. The company's founders -- Chichester A. Bell (a chemical engineer and cousin of Alexander Graham Bell) and scientist Charles S. Tainter -- had invented the graphophone, an invention which introduced the moveable stylus to the infant world of recording technology. The first artist signed to the label was John Philip Sousa, America's "march king." By 1891, Columbia's roster had grown to where the company could issue a 10-page catalog of its recordings. In 1902, Columbia switched from wax cylinders to disks and, on June 21, 1948, introduced the world to the first long-playing album; holding eight times as much music as a 78rpm disk, the LP turned high-fidelity music listening into a national obsession.

With the launch of the newly-designed Columbia website, the label's long-standing commitment to breakthrough technologies is continuing into the future, portending new avenues of musical expression, access, and enjoyment.

Featuring a cleanly-designed, easy-to-navigate visually active home-page, the new Columbia site opens up into seven different realms: artists, news, release schedule, appearances, here and now, associated labels, and the store. Each time the home page is opened, reloaded, or revisited, a full-screen photograph of a Columbia artist, chosen at random from an archived pool, appears as the background of the page.

Arranged in a handy a-to-z, the artists section is your jump-off point to the homepages of the label's artists including Aerosmith, Mariah Carey, Bob Dylan, Lauryn Hill, Billy Joel, Maxwell, Savage Garden, Will Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, and many more. News brings you up-to-the-minute information on everything from tour dates to in-store appearances to behind-the-scenes escapades; the Daily Dish news service is fully-archived and is available, through free subscription at the site, on email. The release schedule tells you what's hot and when it hits the stores. The appearances section is your key to live online events and who's on-stage today; the section has its own tour search engine which allows you to view dates either by artist or location.

The here and now section debuts the Columbia Video Channel: jam-packed with new streaming video clips (using the Microsoft mediaplayer) of your favorite Columbia artists. Here is where you'll also find top audio selections and a coming soon tip-off to the hottest artists and sounds of tomorrow.

The associated section guides you to the sites of the Columbia Records Group family of labels: C2, RuffHouse, So So Def, American Recordings, Creation, Nude, Roc-A-Blok, Ovum Recordings, Aware, and more. Looking under insider's information, you'll find your links to Columbia Jazz, Global Soul (a sister site devoted to the burgeoning hip-hop nation), and video promotion. A visit to the store section open up the Independent Retail Directory, Total E, and [e-mail].

The 20th century is the first to be fully-documented. Columbia Records not only recorded that century, it made those recordings possible. With the arrival of 3.0, Columbia Records has opened a new window on the future.