TownConnect

NEEDHAM, Mass., June 4 /PRNewswire/ — GateHouse Media New England has entered into an agreement with Waltham-based social media companyTownConnect to introduce family-based social networking and a variety of
other community-building tools on GateHouse’s 159 Wicked Local town websites in Massachusetts.

Through the co-branded Wicked Local People sites, residents of the 159 eastern Massachusetts communities served by GateHouse newspapers are nowable to participate in a free, secure, private network and easily organize online communities of friends, neighbors and extended families; coordinate schedules; share photos and files; and connect families, friends, and neighbors.

“When we launched the Wicked Local network last fall, we wanted to
combine professional journalism, lots of community information, and lots of
opportunities for residents to interact with us and with each other,” said
Kirk Davis, president of GateHouse Media New England. “Working with
TownConnect allows us to take that interaction to the next level –
immediately.”

The Wicked Local network (”wicked” being New England slang for “very”)is a region-wide expansion of the prize-winning WickedLocalPlymouth.com. Today, there are Wicked Local sites from Provincetown to Gloucester, fromSomerville to Shrewsbury. While most are operated by a weekly newspaper, each of GateHouse New England’s eight daily newspapers operates at least one Wicked Local site itself.

The addition of Wicked Local People allows visitors to the sites to:

– Build and share family profiles, photo albums, and blogs. Links and calendars allow a family to organize everything from soccer schedules to homework assignments to social engagements - all in a secure,private network. It is what might be described as a “Facebook for families.”
– Build an online space for a community group, place of worship, or other interest group to organize online information and communicate among members.
– Organize a sports team, complete with rosters, schedules, carpools, and a list of who has “snack duty” at which game.
– Share news and information broadly with all registered members of the community or easily send information directly to a GateHouse newspaper.

In addition, special classroom tools are designed for teachers to provide a secure online environment to communicate with students and parents.

“GateHouse newspapers have been connecting people in their individual
communities for decades — in some cases for more than a century,” noted
Mike Ford, founder and CEO of TownConnect. “The relationship with
TownConnect allows GateHouse to extend and deepen those connections in many
new ways, and it allows TownConnect to immediately reach GateHouse’s huge
Massachusetts audience.”

In addition to broadening services to readers, the collaboration with TownConnect will allow GateHouse to offer advertisers highly-targeted online opportunities and to significantly increase its online advertising inventory. With current inventory sold out on some of the most popular Wicked Local town sites, Wicked Local People will provide additional advertisers access to those audiences.

TownConnect (http://www.townconnect.com) is an exclusive, private online service designed to help busy people organize their and their families’ lives. TownConnect.com was launched in October of 2007, serving the United States and Canada.

As part of the GateHouse arrangement, the eastern Massachusetts TownConnect sites now live exclusively on the GateHouse Wicked Local sites.

About GateHouse Media, Inc.

GateHouse Media, Inc., headquartered in Fairport, New York, is one of the largest publishers of locally based print and online media in the United States as measured by its 98 daily publications. GateHouse Media
currently serves local audiences of more than 10 million per week across 21 states through hundreds of community publications and local websites. GateHouse Media is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “GHS.”