Decibel Rocks With Ektron; Magazine's New Web Site Achieves Goals for Branding, Traffic and Web Standards Using Ektron CMS400.NET.

AMHERST, N.H. -- Ektron Inc., an innovator in web content management software, today announced the company's CMS400.NET powers Decibel Magazine's new standards-based website, DecibelMagazine.com. Decibel, an underground hard rock and extreme heavy metal music magazine published by Red Flag Media, chose CMS400.NET to streamline editorial processes, build brand identity and drive more site traffic.

"The Web increasingly is the primary source of how our readers get their information. It is important to us to be on the forefront of how our content is delivered," says Robert Roberts-Jolly, chief information officer, Red Flag Media. "In this business, it's all about timeliness, getting recognized and building brand awareness. We were impressed that we were able to get so much content onto the site in such a short period of time."

When Decibel launched in 2004, the magazine limited its web content in order to focus on establishing the print publication, but it didn't take long for its readership, a web-savvy audience mostly between 18 and 35, to demand the site offer more. Red Flag Media also saw a need for a single system that could handle editorial and publishing processes for the web and, eventually, print. The publication identified CMS400.NET, Ektron's all-in-one platform for rapidly creating, deploying and managing interactive web, extranet and intranet sites, as its content management solution and hired Pixelworthy, a web development agency with deep experience building standards-based sites, to redesign the site and integrate Ektron's system.

The new DecibelMagazine.com launched with more than 2,000 articles and reviews and will soon include the complete article archives. By publishing more stories on the site, Decibel has:

--Improved brand awareness and recognition - site visitors are linking to Decibel's online articles from other sites, blogs and message boards

--Generated better search engine results - within just a few weeks of launching, Decibel moved up in the natural search rankings on Google, in part due to Ektron's support for search engine optimization 

--Dramatically increased site traffic - visitors to DecibelMagazine.com grew nearly 100 times from what it was before the redesigned site

As the central source of content for both print and web, Ektron CMS400.NET makes it easier for Decibel to manage the entire editorial process, which involves in-house editors and many freelancers. Writing, editing and approving the final print-ready copy can all be done online. For the website, content is properly formatted using cascading style sheets (CSS), and all the articles have a consistent look that can be changed by updating a single file. Leveraging Ektron's support of XML, Pixelworthy ensured the site generates XHTML 1.0 strict content. Influential sites, such as CSS Beauty and Web Standards Awards, have recognized DecibelMagazine.com for this adherence to web design standards, and it is a finalist for the South by Southwest Interactive Festival's 2006 Web Awards.

"Publishers of all kinds, whether they are print, online or both, are trying to use the Web in new ways to better serve their readerships and build their brands," said David Aponovich, director of marketing, Ektron. "Decibel and Pixelworthy have set a great example building a visually appealing site, adhering to web standards and using a robust web content management system to deliver the relevant content their audience wants online."

More detailed information about the Decibel Magazine implementation can be found at www.ektron.com/pr/decibel.

About Ektron

Ektron is a market and technology leader in cost-effective web content management and authoring tools. The company's innovative software solution, Ektron CMS400.NET, gives medium to large organizations all the tools they need to rapidly create, deploy and manage their websites, extranets and intranets in a single application. Non-technical users can easily author and publish content, documents, images and forms, while webmasters and developers have the features they need to ensure consistent look-and-feel and optimize site operation. Using Ektron CMS400.NET's advanced registration capabilities, organizations offer their site visitors more personalized, interactive communication that keeps them coming back. Ektron is headquartered in Amherst, N.H., and has more than 15,000 customer implementations worldwide, including Unilever, Intel and Pfizer. For more information, visit http://www.ektron.com.

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