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Social Networking Put to Work for Local Businesses Tying in Friend-to-Friend Recommendations with Donation Rewards

Genuosity Inc. introduces the first social network for social good – the first social network designed to provide a way for local businesses to increase sales from referrals from happy customers by offering donation rewards to the referrer’s favorite nonprofit organization.

San Diego, CA April 6, 2004 -- Genuosity Inc., a leader in small business social network marketing technology, is pleased to announce the launch of two new tools that benefit consumers, their network of friends, their favorite local small businesses and their favorite non-profit organization. OrderGenerator (http://www.ordergenerator.com) provides small businesses with an automated toolset that rewards their satisfied customers when they refer new business. HummingBoard (http://www.hummingboard.com), the first social network for social good, enables consumers to recommend their preferred products and services, share special deals on those recommendations with their social network, and earn donations to their selected charity when others accept the offer.

With the importance of social networking being validated by recent announcements by Microsoft, AOL, Google’s Orkut, Friendster, Tribe.net, LinkedIn and Spoke, Genuosity’s new tools are the first to put the power of social networking to work for small businesses and their customers.

Genuosity’s patent-pending applications represent the convergence of some of the most powerful trends on the web:

* social networking software uniquely applied to the small business enabling their customers to recommend them to friends and to provide testimonials,

* local search geotargeting enabling consumers to conduct a focused search for local businesses and services by utilizing merchant reputation ratings similar to eBay’s rating system but based on first degree, second degree and third degree friend recommendations, and;

* cause marketing tools that allow businesses to motivate customer referrals with donation rewards to the referrer’s cause of choice.

Working together, both OrderGenerator and the HummingBoard addresses one of the biggest challenges of the Internet, which is how to connect local merchants need for customer referrals and the consumer’s need for recommendations for reputable local services.

For small businesses such as restaurants, landscapers, painters, realtors, day spas, hair salons and others, attracting new customers is incredibly challenging. But with OrderGenerator merchants can gain a competitive edge for growing their business by empowering their best asset – their satisfied customers - to recommend them to their friends and colleagues. OrderGenerator uniquely helps businesses grow their business with an automated customer referral system. It is the first tool of its kind that can gather testimonials and automate customer referrals in a non-push way, while rewarding referrals with a donation to the referrer's cause of choice.

The HummingBoard is an online social networking community that connects people to obtain qualified recommendations for preferred local merchants and service providers. Members can identify their favorite service providers or products in a variety of categories, ranging from plumbers or landscapers to restaurants to books or CDs. All of this information is posted on their personal board, and can be shared with approved members of their network. Whenever a visitor uses a vendor based on a recommendation from the Hummingboard, a donation reward offered by the vendor will be made to the preferred nonprofit of the recommender. This provides individuals with a unique and creative way to support their favorite non-profit organizations.

Qualified recommendations from a known friend or colleague are much more powerful for generating new business than traditional advertising or anonymous recommendations on a website. With the HummingBoard social network, a simple recommendation becomes a validated testimonial to be shared with thousands of local people seeking that product or service.

Most importantly, the HummingBoard is the first social network site where consumers can earn donations to their cause of choice. “We understood early on that to effectively integrate social networking tools with customer referral marketing tools there can be no perception of bias in the recommendations. By offering a donation reward, friends recommendations can remain trusted and not be tainted by other motivations for personal gain. Additionally, by supporting non profit organizations, the HummingBoard and OrderGenerator elevate social networking to not only facilitate local commerce, but also to work for social good” said Herbert Ong, President and CEO of Genuosity.

Genuosity believes that the company is uniquely positioned to partner with search engine companies, social networking companies, and local advertiser portals enabling an enhanced user experience and a new local advertising revenue channel.