ASTERPIX LAUNCHES, INTRODUCING INTERACTIVE VIDEO FOR ALL

New Web Application and Online Community Lets Anyone

View, Create and Share Interactive Video

SAN JOSE, Calif. - December 3, 2007 --  After three months in beta, Asterpix today formally announced the public debut of www.asterpix.com, the first site that lets users easily create hypervideos -- interactive videos with links that allow viewers to navigate into and out of objects - and share them through websites, blogs and e-mail.

In the same way that hypertext turns words into clickable links that allow readers to navigate to other pages, documents and sites, hypervideo allows objects in videos - people, cars, animals, buildings - to become hyperlinks, even as they move around in scenes and throughout the video.  Viewers click on these links, or "hot spots" - which Asterpix identifies with a configurable marker such as a flashing circle or dotted rectangle - to navigate the video and get more information on objects of interest, just as they do with hyperlinks in text pages.

"With Asterpix, video is woven into the full fabric of the Internet for the first time," said Nat Kausik, Asterpix CEO. "Hypervideo really represents the next generation of online video.  The Internet is all about interacting with content, creating your own experience and navigating the online world on your own terms.  Until now, the Web has been merely a delivery channel for traditional video.  Asterpix hypervideo is what Web video should be, and our mission is to provide the application that will make hypervideo pervasive."

Asterpix - Interactive Video for All

Asterpix requires no desktop software installation or offline production services.  It's a free Web application that is easy-to-use and lets anyone instantly create hypervideos from their favorite video sources, including YouTube, MySpace, DailyMotion, ESPN, and Google.

-       Browse/interact

The Asterpix hypervideo browser allows viewers to interact with video much like traditional browsers navigate through Web pages.  Users simply click on the video's hyperlinked "hotspots" to get more information.  They can also navigate directly to scenes that contain objects of interest, or navigate across videos in a browser-like experience. Asterpix's hypervideo browser includes features such as a location bar, "forward" and "back" buttons, history, viewer-selectable hotspot markers and fast random access to hotspot selections in the video.

-       Create

Asterpix lets users create their own hypervideos quickly, easily and without downloading any software or tools.  On Asterpix, a user can convert a web video into an interactive video by first searching for videos on supported sites; then as the video is playing, he can click on any object in the video to create an interactive "hotspot," adding a description, tag and target link for the object.  The "hotspots" will track their objects even as they move around in the video.  Authors can even make their "hotspots" link to another video, and viewers can use the Asterpix browser to navigate forward and back through the videos just like they would through Web pages. With these capabilities, Asterpix lets users combine non-linear navigation and entertainment to thread videos into intricately linked narratives. Learn more about how to create interactive video.

-       Share

Asterpix makes it easy for authors and users to share hypervideos.  The Asterpix video browser includes a share button that lets users share hypervideos or links to specific notes and scenes within the video. Asterpix also enables users to easily embed their hypervideos in blogs, social network pages or other websites. The Asterpix embeddable player enables bloggers to more effectively tell a story by allowing them to link directly from blog text to relevant parts of the video and from hotspots to other videos or websites.

Asterpix was founded in October 2006, and has raised $4M in venture funding from New Enterprise Associates. Today, Asterpix supports nine of the Internet's top video sites. Since Asterpix launched its beta application in September, users have created more than a thousand hypervideos, with sports, educational and "how to" videos topping the list of most popular genres.  To see examples of hypervideos, please visit the following links:

Sports: Maverick surfer on the big waves off Jaws beach.

http://www.asterpix.com/console?avi=7648411

Sports: Ronaldinho, Brazilian soccer star.

http://www.asterpix.com/console?avi=7695561

How to: Five easy steps to saving money on gas

http://www.asterpix.com/console?avi=7715201

How to: How to get a pay raise

http://www.asterpix.com/console?avi=7716961

About Asterpix

Asterpix (www.asterpix.com) was founded in October 2006 with the mission of making interactive video pervasive.  Asterpix is a Web application and online video community that enables anyone to easily create interactive videos, or hypervideos, and share them through Websites, blogs and e-mail. Analogous to hypertext, hypervideo provides an interactive experience by allowing users to navigate videos in the same way they do Web pages by creating and clicking on links to more information and other videos. Backed by New Enterprise Associates and led by a seasoned team of video enthusiasts, Asterpix is headquartered in San Jose, Calif.