SNAP Interactive Relaunches AreYouInterested.com as Social Discovery Website

NEW YORK, Aug. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- SNAP Interactive, Inc. ("SNAP" or the "Company") (OTCBB: STVI), a leading social application developer, announced today that it completed the first stage of the redesign of its flagship AreYouInterested.com brand into a social discovery platform and the new site is available to all AreYouInterested.com users on Facebook and the web. 

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With more than 6 million monthly active users and over 1 billion total pieces of structured data from its users as of August 28, 2012, AreYouInterested.com believes it is one of the largest social discovery platforms on the web.  Additionally, AreYouInterested.com is synced to millions of Facebook profiles so that it receives over 1,000 real-time updates per minute on like actions from Facebook.   

"We are pleased to announce we have completed the first phase of our relaunch," said SNAP's president and chief executive officer, Clifford Lerner.  "We view this as a two-step process. Phase 1 was a redesign and technical roll-out of the new platform.  Now that we've transported virtually all users from the old platform onto the new platform, we can move on to Phase 2 which is heavy testing, optimization and rapid iteration of the new platform.  The goal of this phase is to build a robust feature-set to increase user engagement, viral growth and revenue-generation.  In addition, we believe that relaunching as a social discovery site will over time open up additional monetization opportunities beyond our core subscription model."

The focus of Phase 1 was to redesign the site around emerging big data technologies to integrate with Facebook's Interest Graph and Open Graph.  We believe this presents a unique opportunity that allows our users to connect with others around similar interests and to discover new content around those interests. Moreover, AreYouInterested.com has the flexibility to plug virtually any application programming interface ("API") into the platform, making it incredibly powerful at scale. 

Highlights of the new AreYouInterested.com platform include:

• Interest-Based Discovery – Which allows users to discover new people with similar interests and discover highly targeted content around those interests (video, events, products etc.).
• Engaging Introductions to Connect People – Through our structured data, we provide innovative opportunities to connect people around similar interests and initiate interactions in a much more targeted way.  For example, over 918,000 current AreYouInterested.com users list "Lady Gaga" as a musician they like in their profile.  While simply listing a favorite musician in a profile is not unique, AreYouInterested.com's structured data provides users with engaging and targeted conversation starters such as "I'm a big fan of Lady Gaga! What's your favorite song?" or "I just saw a great Lady Gaga concert, have you been to any good concerts lately?" rather than generic icebreakers such as "Hi, I'd like to get to know you."
• Significant Technology Investments –
  • MongoDB clusters to provide a faster experience for users
  • A new Hadoop Cluster to provide a real-time software engine for recommending people, interests, videos, events, and products
  • A Solr search cluster for complex people search
  • New third-party API integrations (including music, video and commerce) to increase connections between the events and products that users enjoy

"AreYouInterested.com has been a leading Facebook dating application since its launch in 2007," Lerner continued.  "Pivoting to a social discovery platform at a time of steady user and revenue growth was a careful decision and very large undertaking, and one which we did not take lightly.  We simply felt that with our wealth of interest data and our ability to tap into Facebook's real-time API, we were at the forefront of a much bigger opportunity than our existing pure-dating product and the magnitude of this opportunity was too great to ignore.  We believe we can build a social discovery product that will redefine the way people meet and socialize online by enabling discovery and exploration of mutually interesting content and interests."

The new AreYouInterested.com platform is now available to all new and existing users through Facebook.com and the web. We currently plan to offer fully integrated mobile offering with the updated feature-set in the future as well.

About SNAP Interactive, Inc.

SNAP Interactive, Inc. develops, owns and operates social discovery applications for social networking websites and mobile platforms.  SNAP's flagship brand, AreYouInterested.com®, is one of the largest social discovery applications on the internet, based on monthly active users ("MAUs") of the AreYouInterested.com application on the Facebook Platform, and it offers a completely integrated Facebook, iPhone, Android and Web application. For more information, please visit http://www.snap-interactive.com, its blog at http://blog.snap-interactive.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/SnapInteractiveInc and on Twitter at @SNAPInteractive.

The contents of these websites are not part of this press release, and you should not consider the contents of these websites in making an investment decision with respect to our common stock.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. iPhone® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc.  Are You Interested?® is a registered trademark of SNAP Interactive, Inc.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Words such as "anticipate," "assume," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "goal," "intend," "plan," "project," "seek," "target," and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.  Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following: our ability to successfully develop, test and launch our redesigned platform; the ability to create user engagement, viral growth and revenue generation with our new platform; the ability to develop and support successful applications for mobile platforms; and circumstances that could disrupt the functioning of the Company's applications and websites.  In evaluating these statements, you should carefully consider these risks and uncertainties and those described under the headings "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and "Risk Factors" in the Company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement or statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement was made, except to the extent required by applicable securities laws.

Media Contacts

Lindsay Bubbico
Finn Partners for SNAP Interactive
[email protected]
212-583-2738

SOURCE SNAP Interactive, Inc.