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Yahoo! Search Marketing Kicks Off "Think Big" Contest

Yahoo! Teams Up With Sir Richard Branson To Award 10 Million Free Yahoo! Ads To One Business

Pasadena, CA -- April 28, 2005 -- Yahoo! Search Marketing, formerly Overture Services, announced the launch of its "Think Big" contest, which will award one small business with 10 million free ad impressions across the Yahoo! network. Sir Richard Branson, world renowned entrepreneur and founder of Virgin Group, will serve as the official contest judge and will hand select the winning company based on its business plan and proven ability to "think big."
"Yahoo! created the 'Think Big' contest to offer a business owner a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take their business to the next level by leveraging the power of the Yahoo! network," said Todd Daum, vice president, Yahoo! Search Marketing. "We are honored to have Sir Richard Branson, one of the world's most successful businessmen, help us to select a winner that truly 'thinks big.'"

Hotel Booking According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), there are currently 25 million small businesses in the United States, representing approximately 99.7 percent of all employers. Nearly half of those businesses have a presence online, says the Kelsey Group, and can benefit from Yahoo! Search Marketing's offerings.

Groople (www.groople.com), the leading online group travel booking and planning site, has partnered with Hotel Hotline (www.hotelhotline.com), an online hotel reservation site including the properties HotelHotline.com and HotelsCheap.org. Groople provides Hotel Hotline customers with the ability to search for and book group hotels that are appropriate for their group type. Groople's private label solution offers Hotel Hotline with a customized booking solution that satisfies the needs of their users. "Partnering with Groople gives Hotel Hotline access to dependable group booking technology and professional group travel customer service, " said Mike Stacy, CEO of Groople. "HotelsCheap knows the size and growth of the group market and sees Groople as the best way to tap into that market"

Travel Agency The winning business owner will receive his or her own Yahoo! Search Marketing account team, which will help the winner create specially customized, targeted online advertising campaigns. Drawing from its wide array of sponsored search, contextual ads and local listings products, coupled with Yahoo! graphical ads, Yahoo! Search Marketing will help the winning business owner market his or her products and services to millions of U.S. Internet users.

Are you running an online travel site or travel agency and looking for a professional partner for online hotel bookings Then follow the example of more than 12, 000 of your colleagues and join our attractive affiliate programme and benefit from the growing segment of hotel reservations on the internet! As an online hotel reservation service, TravelRes has the speaking countries. Each day, more than one million customers make thousands of hotel bookings with our unique service covering over 210, 000 hotels throughout the world. based vicinity search.

Cheap Hotel Yahoo! Search Marketing will accept contest entries between April 28 and May 20 online at http://thinkbig.yahoo.com. Rules for contest eligibility are also available at the contest website.

8mong many firsts for the group market, the new technology platform enables consumers to do something that other sites haven k allowed to book travel and accommodations for more than five rooms in a single online session. Featuring more than 56, 000 hotels, including 7, time group rates, Groople is primed to become the industry largest automated solution for unmanaged group leisure travel, a market estimated at $18 billion to $24 billion. Under its hosted inventory and commission models, Groople generates group bookings niche by niche for hotels and plans to add air, car, cruise, bus and rail later this year.

Flight Booking "I've succeeded in business with big ideas and big exposure. Virgin started out with only three people and grew to become a global company through unique advertising and marketing opportunities," said Sir Richard Branson. "Yahoo! Search Marketing's 'Think Big' Contest is a great opportunity for one business to be launched into the big time!"

If you have a concern that a search term associated with an advertiser's listing is an improper use of a term that is a trademark, Yahoo! Search Marketing will review the advertiser's listing for compliance with our relevancy guidelines and, if appropriate, Yahoo! Search Marketing will remove the advertiser's listing or the content of the listing's title or description will be modified. In order to assist Yahoo! Search Marketing in expeditiously addressing your concern,

Travel Agent Sir Richard Branson founded Virgin in 1970 as a mail order record retailer, which led to the opening his first record shop in London. The Virgin Group has now expanded into international music Megastores, air travel (Virgin Atlantic Airways is the second largest British long haul international airline), mobile, financial, retail, music, internet, drinks, rail, hotels and leisure, with nearly 200 companies in over 30 countries. More information about The Virgin Group is available at http://www.virgin.com.

As group travel gurus, we take our group expertise and combine it with some technical knowhow to bring you hotel searches that are best suited for your group type. We understand that different groups have different needs in a hotel. That why we ask for your group type upfront. We use that information to deliver hotels in your search that represent the best combination of amenities, hotel class, location, and price. The hotels that appear first are the hotels best matched for your group.

Hotel Chicago In addition to his own business activities, Sir Richard is a trustee of several charities including Virgin Unite and has been involved in a number of world record-breaking attempts since 1985, from crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest ever recorded time to an epic hot air balloon crossing of the same ocean in "Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer." In December 1999, Sir Richard was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Millennium New Year's Honours List for "services to entrepreneurship."

Online Booking Yahoo! will announce the Think Big contest winner and provide details about the award event in June.

Travel Health Insurance Yahoo! Search Marketing, formerly Overture Services, changed its brand in the U.S. on April 18. To learn more about Yahoo! Search Marketing, please visit: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com.

Hotel Reservation About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - News) is a leading provider of comprehensive online products and services to consumers and businesses worldwide. Yahoo! is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Yahoo!'s global network includes 25 world properties and is available in 13 languages.

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