Federated Media, Microsoft and Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival Launch CrowdFire

SAUSALITO, Calif. — Aug. 4, 2008 — Federated Media Publishing (FM), Microsoft Corp. and Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival today announced CrowdFire, an online and onsite destination where music, culture and technology enthusiasts participate in a massive, crowdsourced act of digital media creation.

The CrowdFire experience begins with an online community in which participants share their favorite images, video and text with each other. In continuing the collaboration, Outside Lands concertgoers will have the opportunity to participate in the CrowdFire experience by uploading their digital content to CrowdFire pavilion kiosks. Through a variety of content creation and social networking tools available at the kiosks, participants’ creative output will be fused into a real-time digital media mashup displayed on both screens at the festival and on the CrowdFire Web site.

“CrowdFire is a new way to establish community, connect people and share experiences,” said Bill Capodanno, director of digital marcom planning and effectiveness at Microsoft. “Windows provides a common language and a seamless experience for concertgoers to engage in the CrowdFire community, whether they are interacting online, on kiosk PCs or using their mobile phones. Microsoft can provide a full array of software and services to make CrowdFire a powerful expression of community.”

The CrowdFire pavilion will showcase the next generation of PCs and mobile devices along with the ultimate Windows-powered living room, vintage Fillmore-style rock poster creation, an Xbox 360 gaming contest area and a Zune interactive area featuring the tracks of their favorite Outside Lands performers. Among the many technologies available, CrowdFire participants will receive news and information about Outside Lands via Windows Live Alerts, learn more about their favorite bands on Windows Live Spaces, and can let everyone know how far they’ve traveled to attend the festival with Microsoft Virtual Earth.

“At FM, we love nothing more than supporting the communities that form around great content,” said John Battelle, CEO of Federated Media. “CrowdFire takes it a step further by culminating all that online activity and digital media-sharing with a real-world, face-to-face collaborative creation. I can’t wait to dig in and see what we can all create together.”

“CrowdFire is a first-of-its-kind fusion of digital media, fan participation, social networking and digital technology,” said Rick Farman, co-founder of Superfly Productions, creators of Outside Lands and co-creators of the Bonnaroo Music Festival. “Our fans and concertgoers are incredibly digitally savvy, but they’re also incredibly socially active. They want a place to bring the two together. This is the perfect synthesis of music, online networking and face-to-face fun.”

About Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival

Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival takes place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco on August 22-24, 2008, featuring Beck, Radiohead, Wilco, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and many more. For more information, please go to http://www.sfoutsidelands.com.

About Federated Media

At FM, we believe great voices attract great audiences. We’re in the business of supporting those voices by connecting them to great marketers, as well as providing a suite of services that let authors focus on what they do best: make compelling media. In so doing, we are creating federations of respected voices that prosper on their own terms. Current federations include Sports, Technology, Automotive, Business & Marketing, Media & Entertainment, Video Gaming, Graphics Arts, News 2.0, Lifestyle, Parenting and Green. For more information, please go to http://www.federatedmedia.net.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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