Compete, Inc. and the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future Announce Strategic Partnership; Collaboration Will Deliver Leading-Edge Insights into the Impact of the Internet.

BOSTON and LOS ANGELES -- Compete, Inc., the leading online market research firm, and the Center for the Digital Future (CDF), the influential research and policy institute at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, today announced a strategic partnership. The partnership will combine the unique strengths of each organization to create new insights for consumers, businesses, and policymakers. The extensive expertise of each organization will be featured in collaborative studies, executive briefings and joint presentations regarding the use of Internet technology and its impact on the daily lives of Americans.

Consumer data published by CDF and Compete highlight how consumer use of the Internet has changed over recent years. CDF has been tracking a representative sample of Internet users and non-users over the past six years in its study, Surveying the Digital Future, completely capturing the rise of broadband at home, online media, wireless Internet, blogging and other user-generated content, and the emergence of social networking. CDF views this as the study of the Internet that should have been conducted of television in the 1940s. The project, which began in 2000 in the U.S., is now conducted in 24 countries around the world. Highlights from the study can be found at http://www.digitalcenter.org/pdf/Center-for-the-Digital-Future-2005- Highlights.pdf. (This URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

Compete's recent Customer Day 2006 marketing roundtable (http://www.compete.com/ news_events/ events/) underscored the central role that the Internet plays in the daily lives of individuals. Participants concluded that marketers' success hinges on their ability to connect with consumers online and in a way that is relevant and meaningful. In particular, marketers identified the need for a creative solution to the current "digital disequilibrium" in which only 9% of advertising dollars are spent online - a disproportionate amount given that consumers spend 35% of their time on the Internet.

"Through our strategic partnership with Compete combining a whole range of research methodologies and styles, we will be able to create a unique and comprehensive picture of the ways in which Internet and wireless technologies are transforming all the activities of our lives," said CDF Director Jeffrey Cole.

"As the Internet evolves from a transactional channel to a social platform, there is an opportunity for consumers and brands to engage in a new way," said Compete CEO Don McLagan. "I look forward to joining forces to produce the industry's most comprehensive perspective for designing digital strategies. Our joint insights will show how consumers express themselves online, manage their daily lives and influence one another about the decisions they make, the brands they trust and the products they use."

The collaboration between the two organizations fuses the unique expertise each brings to the table. For more than six years, CDF has been tracking the American populace, observing as people move online and incorporate the Internet into their daily lives. With a permission-based panel of more than 2 million U.S. consumers, Compete is the leading online consumer market research firm, offering unrivaled insight into what consumers research and purchase as well as their participation in blogs and social communities. Together, Compete and the CDF are well positioned as the most powerful consumer listening device for marketers about consumers.

About Compete

Compete, Inc. extends online market research to transform the way consumers and brands communicate. By combining permission marketing, predictive analytics and the industry's largest consumer behavior database, Compete helps marketers identify and reach their target consumers. Compete delivers conversant marketing solutions that increase profitability and customer loyalty and result in measurable and effective marketing programs. Compete delivers these solutions to leading brands such as Carlson Hotels Worldwide, DaimlerChrysler, Hyundai Motor America, Teva Neuroscience, Toyota Financial Services and Upromise(R), among others. Compete is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with offices throughout the US. For more information, please visit http://www.compete.com.

About the Center for the Digital Future

The Center is a research and policy institute committed to doing work that has a real and beneficial effect on people's lives, while seeking to maximize the positive potential of the mass media and our rapidly evolving communication technologies. To further its mission of supporting optimal policy-making in the digital era, CDF undertakes and supports rigorous domestic and international research, holds conferences and public events, and provides specialized briefings to assist a wide range of leaders and policy makers in making the best possible decisions. In addition to its flagship surveys of America's involvement with the Internet and digital media, CDF administers the complementary World Internet Project in two dozen countries, manages the Annenberg School's On-line Communities Program, and is surveying Internet use by military personnel for the U.S. Defense Department. For more information, please visit http://digitalcenter.org.