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In First for a Local Political Campaign, Userplane Powers Live Video Webchat for Philadelphia Mayoral Candidate Dwight Evans

Posted on: Wednesday, 7 March 2007, 09:00 CST

Userplane (www.userplane.com), the premier communication platform for online communities and a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, today announced that Dwight Evans (www.evansformayor.com), a Democratic candidate for Philadelphia mayor, is deploying Userplane Webchat to conduct weekly live video chats. The Pennsylvania State Representative is the first candidate in a high-profile local race to connect with voters in this way.

Political candidates are just beginning to embrace Web 2.0 interactivity and online video to best advantage. Live video chat is a new campaign tool that 2008 presidential candidates John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, among others, have recently exploited. To date, however, virtually all of the deployments have occurred in national and state races.

"My campaign is about engaging Philadelphians in a discussion about the future of our city," said Evans. "The live webchat is a unique and innovative way to have these conversations with Philadelphians from every corner of the city, in the comfort of their own homes."

Userplane Webchat powers Evans' events, leveraging Macromedia's Flash Communication Server technology to enable real-time text messaging and streaming audio/video communication for any website.

The inaugural event, entitled "A Safer Philadelphia -- Block by Block," took place Feb. 13 and enabled Evans to interact live with more than 250 constituents. Users typed questions about Evans' vision for Philadelphia, and the candidate answered via video, for all to see in real time. Footage was later posted to a variety of sites.

"Userplane's chat and instant messaging technology is all about creating real-time dialogue, and nowhere is this dialogue more important than in our political process," said Michael Jones, CEO of Userplane and vice president of AOL. "Our technology makes it easy for political candidates at all levels to interact directly with voters -- no matter how big their war chest is or how technologically savvy they are."

Evans plans to continue the weekly live video chats until the May 15 Democratic mayoral primary. If he is elected mayor, Evans has pledged to conduct live webchats with constituents throughout his term in office.

"For other campaigns that want to use video chat to expand their base, I can't think of a better company to do it with than Userplane," said Maurice Daniel, Evans for Mayor campaign manager.

More than 150,000 online communities use Userplane tools, from MySpace to tiny niche sites. Userplane Webchat is available in an Instant Install version, a one-line script that can be copied and pasted into a site's HTML code, and in an Integrated version, which uses XML to integrate the tool with a site's user databases and structures.

About Userplane

A wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, Userplane is the world's premier communication platform for online communities. The company's hosted applications enable instant community and communication for websites of any scale and audience. The combination of instant and elegant with robust and powerful has made the platform a must-have for thriving sites worldwide -- supporting millions of daily users. Founded in 2001 by long-time partners Michael Jones, Nate Thelen, and Javier Hall, Userplane is a diverse and talented team headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif.

Source: Business Wire

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