SightSpeed Announces Major New Release of Its Award-Winning Personal Video Services

March 5, 2007; 08:59 AM
SightSpeed, the leading provider of personal video services over the Internet, today officially launches a major new release of its award-winning online-communications services. With today’s announcement, SightSpeed version 6.0 is now available for free download.

Following are the major new features and upgrades in SightSpeed 6.0, which continue SightSpeed’s long tradition of listening to its members and out-innovating the competition in the IP communications sector:

• An all-new, streamlined and more elegant user interface (UI) with an intuitive tabular layout. This makes SightSpeed more fun, more aesthetically pleasing and easier to use than ever before.
• A 25 percent improvement in SightSpeed’s already best-in-class video quality. Get better, clearer, perfectly synchronized video and audio at all broadband connection speeds, from DSL and cable to T1 and LAN.

• An all-new “very high” resolution mode for advanced cameras (640 x 480 pixels).
• A revolutionary new feature for business and power users that offers the ability to record live SightSpeed calls on the fly (both video and audio), store them locally and play them back with a choice of presentation layouts. Pro users can now record audio only or both audio and video together and easily present a true “interview” playback experience on their Web site or blog, in addition to archiving their important calls.
• Faster loading time for video mail and video blog recording. Play and watch your friends’ videos much faster.
• New video inbox functionality, with the ability to play back received video and audio messages inside the UI’s video window. Easily reply to your messages with the click of a mouse without leaving the SightSpeed application.
• Significantly improved and intuitive instant-messaging capabilities with separate IM boxes for each participant. Set up multiple IM sessions on the fly and receive pop-up notices for new messages from your friends.
• And behind the scenes, SightSpeed has completed its conversion to an all-new, highly scalable and robust SIP architecture, setting the stage for exciting partnership and interoperability opportunities in the coming months (including IP calling to hardware devices like SIP-enabled telephones, video phones and mobile phones).

“We’ve put a lot of work into SightSpeed 6.0 to make it better, more flexible and functional, yet easier to use than ever before,” said SightSpeed CEO Peter Csathy. “As we always do, we’ve listened first and foremost to our customers and made improvements that they requested, including making the already best quality video experience significantly better. Our SIP conversion alone represents an important milestone both for the company and our users, as SIP opens up exciting new possibilities in the months ahead — including the ability to use SightSpeed to make Internet calls to, and receive Internet calls from, SIP-enabled hardware devices like telephones, video phones and even mobile phones.

“We can’t and won’t stand still despite the wide industry acclaim we received in 2006. SightSpeed 6.0 enables our members to be even more creative and collaborative, whether they’re consumers communicating one-to-one or business users reaching out to each other or to expand their audiences,” said Csathy.

Version 6.0 builds upon SightSpeed’s reputation as the provider of the first complete suite of personal video services delivered over the Internet. The services are available for both Windows PCs and Macintosh personal computers, and are interoperable between both.

SightSpeed has seen explosive growth during the past year, with a tripling in the number of members and with usage growing five-fold to more than 1 billion minutes.

SightSpeed has been universally hailed as best in class throughout 2006 and into the new year, garnering PC Magazine’s coveted Editor’s Choice Award, Internet Telephony magazine’s product of the year award for 2006, and Frost & Sullivan’s 2007 North American IP Communication Services Company of the Year Award.

“SightSpeed continues to lead the market in delivering online video services,” said Frost & Sullivan Analyst Lynda Starr. “The quality continues to be the best, and the new features will delight everyone, from the casual caller to the tech-savvy video enthusiast. As I’ve said before, SightSpeed has its finger on the pulse of future communications.”

Through SightSpeed, users with webcams can place free video calls, leave video messages or post videos to their blogs or personal Web pages. SightSpeed also offers unlimited PC-to-PC voice-only calling (works great for Macs, too), and provides calling to and from traditional and cell phones.

To learn more about SightSpeed or to download SightSpeed for Windows or Mac, visit www.SightSpeed.com.

About SightSpeed

SightSpeed offers consumers and small businesses the most complete and compelling suite of personal video services over the Internet. SightSpeed’s award-winning free and premium services include best-in-class video and voice over IP (VVoIP), voice over IP (VoIP) and text messaging (IM). SightSpeed offers advanced community features, including a public directory and an easy-to-use video creation platform that gives users the ability to record and publish original user-generated content to blogs, Web sites and e-mails. SightSpeed also offers SightSpeedTV place shifting features, as well as support for mobile personal video. SightSpeed’s suite of industry-leading video services offers unique opportunities for video-enabled advertising and e-commerce, in addition to communications, content creation and publishing.

Founded in 2001 and based in Berkeley, California, SightSpeed is a privately held company funded by The Roda Group, best known for launching Ask Jeeves and PolyServe. For more information about SightSpeed, visit www.sightspeed.com and visit a whole new and different side of SightSpeed at www.vlip.com.