weather.com(R) Provides Local Golf Courses With a Unique Advertising Opportunity

weather.com(R) Provides Local Golf Courses With a Unique Advertising Opportunity
Press Release

ATLANTA, June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Local golf courses across the country can now ensure that their course stands out among the 18,000 featured in weather.com's Golf section. To help course owners more effectively reach weather.com's extensive audience of frequent golfers, the top online news and information site and the Web site of The Weather Channel(R), today announces the launch of its new Local Golf Marketplace, a pay-for-placement advertising product developed in conjunction with an enhanced version of weather.com's interactive Golf section.

weather.com has been an expert source of information for golfers since 2001, when it began featuring details about golf courses across the country, along with specific and timely weather forecasts. Today, the site reaches 1.5 million golfers each month. These active, loyal users can quickly receive an extensive list of nearby courses, along with a rating that indicates how favorable local weather conditions are for golfers, by simply entering a zip code or city name. With the launch of this highly effective advertising product, courses can now control their position within the search results for their specific geographic location. In addition to receiving prominent placement, courses that purchase this unique service will also have the ability to display their logo, link directly to their Web site and allow golfers to easily book tee times online -- if available.

"As an extremely localized site, one of the things that weather.com does best is to deliver relevant listings of popular attractions in specific areas, along with constantly updated weather forecasts, to help people more effectively plan for their passions," said Tom Flournoy, vice president of product management for weather.com. "It was a logical extension of our business to provide course owners with an opportunity that allows them to control the order in which these highly-engaged consumers view their information. As we continue to make changes and additions to other sections of our site, we will consider expanding this program and look forward to working with business owners across the country."

All courses within the site's Golf Course Conditions feature share important details with potential golfers, including greens fees, dates of open season, number of holes and more. Additionally, weather.com visitors can now quickly link to courses to schedule tee times online; determine which courses offer GPS receivers; and do a little comparison shopping to see how a course's fees stack up against others in the area. Also new to weather.com's Golf section this year is a listing of Top Golf Destinations based on the site's extensive collection of course-specific weather data. The feature recommends courses across the country that are currently experiencing ideal weather conditions for golf.

weather.com worked with Amazing Media and utilized customized software to design and implement this impactful advertising product, which can be accessed by logging onto http://www.weather.com/courses.

About weather.com
weather.com, a product of The Weather Channel Interactive and the Web site of The Weather Channel(R), is the ultimate source of weather on the Web. The site helps users plan their lives by delivering timely current conditions, expert forecasts and relevant lifestyle content for 98,000 locations worldwide. weather.com averages 25 million unique users each month and is consistently ranked the most popular source of online weather information, among the Top 15 of all Web domains and the top news and information site according to Nielsen//NetRatings. The Weather Channel Interactive is the leading provider of broadband and wireless weather products and also provides consumers with unique and customizable products such as Desktop Weather by The Weather Channel and Notify! by The Weather Channel, a personalized weather alert service. The company's partnerships include America Online, Yahoo!, Excite Networks, MSNBC.com, USAToday.com, AT&T WorldNet, ABCNews.com, Digital City, Road Runner, Verizon Wireless, Cingular, AT&T Wireless, Sprint, Nextel and Palm Computing.