Meta4 Networks announces partnerships with ESPN STAR China, HiNet, and China Times

Hong Kong – 8 August 2005 – Meta4 Networks, the leader in private label Online Personals services in Asia, announced that it has signed partnership agreements with several major website operators in Greater China including ESPN STAR China, operator of the ESPN STAR website in China, HiNet, the dominant Internet Service Provider in Taiwan and part of Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd., and China Times Interactive, the online arm of one of Taiwan’s biggest media groups. Meta4 Networks and its partners intend to collaborate to provide their millions of Internet users with a unique and fast-growing online friend-finder service. Under the agreements, partners focus on marketing their own customized friend-finder services while Meta4 Networks is focused on operating the back end operations, providing high quality customer service, and developing exciting new features. All partners are connected to one shared pool of users, offering a much larger and more diverse community than any partner could generate on its own. Meta4 Networks has signed agreements with 150 partners in 18 countries, of which 100 have already launched.

Users join the partners’ friend-finder service free-of-charge, and can easily make detailed searches of the user base by specifying dozens of criteria including profession, ethnicity, language ability, looks, personal interests, height, weight, athleticism, and even eye color. Users can also simply browse more than 60,000 photos of other users. Each user gets a weekly recommendation of five potential new friends who seem to be compatible in a “two-way match”. When users find someone they would like to contact, they can do so anonymously so that their privacy and security is protected.

“We’re proud to be working with our new partners who are all well-known leaders in their respective sectors. This demonstrates Meta4 Networks’ ability to deliver a high quality and very responsibly managed service to large partners,” said Dominic Penaloza, founder and chief executive officer of Meta4 Networks. “In addition, our partners’ choice of the private label approach also highlights the unique benefits of our approach, namely the boost to site loyalty enjoyed by our partners and the increased user satisfaction created by the shared user base.”

About ESPN STAR China
ESPN STAR Sports is a 50:50 joint venture between two of the world's leading cable and satellite broadcasters, ESPN Inc. and STAR, combining the strengths and resources of its ultimate parent companies, Walt Disney (ESPN, Inc.) and News Corporation Limited (STAR). ESPNSTAR Multimedia, China operates the http://www.espnstar.com.cn website, interacting with millions of users providing them with in-depth sports news, results and competitions.



About HiNet
HiNet is the ISP unit of Chunghwa Telecom's Data Communication Business Group and is one of the world's largest broadband providers with more than 1,600,000 ADSL subscribers. Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd. is the dominant telecommunication company in Taiwan. HiNet's website, http://www.hinet.net is one of the world’s most popular websites, ranked in the top 100 by Alexa Internet Inc.


About China Times Interactive
As the pioneer Internet content provider for Chinese communities in the world, ChinaTimes.com attracts almost five million page views per day. It is a business unit of China Times Group, the leading publishing company in Taiwan. Visit http://www.chinatimes.com for more information.


About Meta4 Group Ltd. and Meta4 Networks
Meta4 Group Ltd. is a privately-held company whose shareholders include several prominent global investors. Meta4 Group Ltd. operates Meta4 Networks, the world’s only multi-lingual private label Online Personals service. Meta4 Networks helps the people of the world to meet new friends with common interests in a fun, easy and time-effective way. Meta4 Networks is rapidly expanding and currently partnered with 150 companies globally. Meta4 Group operates from offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. For more information, please visit http://www.meta4networks.com/.

Our 150 partners include:
• So-Net (Sony’s portal/ISP, Alexa #294)
• MyRice.com (Top 10 Chinese Website, Alexa #339)
• Mail.com (A major international provider of web-mail services, Alexa #452)
• Tok2.com (Japan #50 website, like GeoCities)
• Fresheye.com (Japan search portal, subsidiary of Toshiba Group, Alexa #3195)
• MediaCorp (Singapore's largest and most established broadcaster)
• Manila Times (The longest-established newspaper in the Philippines, Alexa #20,039)
• Japan.com (Online unit of LINC Media, publisher of Japan, Inc. magazine)


# # #

Media Contacts:

Meta4 Group Ltd.
Aron Chan
+852.2581.1979
aron@meta4-group.com