Venue Maitre'D Press Release

Technology Debut:
Leave Your Business Cards at Home

Source: Venue Maitred, Inc./Wireless World 2001/MCommerceTimes (http://www.etre2001.com/OQ/etre2001.nsf)

Once upon a time, conference attendees arrived at an event with high hopes of making good connections. Conference networking is about to take on a whole new meaning: Forget mingling with a drink in one hand and a stack of business cards in the other, and get ready to connect digitally - and wirelessly - with a few strokes of your stylus.

At this year's Wireless World conference, for the first time ever conference attendees will be able to browse searched profiles of fellow attendees and send messages to select contacts - all from their PDAs. Through technology developed by Venue Maitred, Wireless World 2001 hopes to establish the first wireless community specific to a conference and a location.

"People come to trade shows to look at new technologies, but networking is always a big part of that experience," explained Ram Balani, CEO/Founder of Venue Maitre' D, Inc. out of Fort Lee, New Jersey. "Now, it is easy to network with exhibitors, but how do you network with people who are just other attendees? Up to now it has been very randomly done - you walk around with business cards. We are going to change that."

"We are pleased to be able to debut this technology and believe it will revolutionize the conference industry," says Wireless World Conference Director Jonathan Sarno. "Individuals and companies spend a tremendous amount of money to attend conferences, but they have no guarantee of making important connections. In the past, exhibitors and speakers had an advantage in that attendees would come to them. Attendees had to hope they would make the right connections. For example, an attendee could sit one row behind the perfect business partner and never meet him or her. With this new technology, you would have to work hard not to make contacts."

Here's how it works: Conference attendees fill in a profile from their homes, offices or on the trade show floor. Venue Maitre'D then compares your profile to others at the conference. When the program finds a match, you are paged or phoned an SMS message, buzzed at your PDA, or emailed notification of the match. From either your handheld device or your laptop, you can review your match before establishing actual contact. If you choose to contact another conference attendee, you can invite them into a real-time chat room or send them email. You can chat or send email by tapping out your message, scribbling it, or recording a voice message. Scribbled notes or voice-recorded messages are sent as attachments for easy access.

Venue Maitre'D indicated that the public is excited with the possibilities. The company also intends to show case its technologies at the Technology Room in this years ETRE 2001 ( European Technology Roundtable Exhibit – www.etre2001.com ) in Rome, October 7-11, 2001.
Among other things, Venue Maitre'D will preview it location based wireless Venue Messenger, Venue Chat, Venue Match and Internet e-mail capabilities with its patented multi-modal user interface.

Denny Eaton likes that idea. "It is a terrible challenge to manage your time when you go to a trade show. What they have here is something that could make that experience vastly more productive," said Eaton, executive director of Info River Valley, a nonprofit agency working to spur the tech industry in the Hudson River area.

"I may want to find people who meet a certain profile, but only while I am in this temporary situation, and this [application] gives you the ability to do that," said Eaton.

Venue Maitre'D pre-empts Bluetooth with its location-based ad-hoc community formation and profile matching services. The company's Venue Chat is a local, in-venue only chat application with a unique multi-modal user interface that supports stylus tap, scribble or voice recording all from one easy to use screen. PDA based Internet email used to be tedious- not any more! Replying to email messages using the multi-modal interface becomes down right fun. Scribbled notes or voice recording message are sent as attachments for easy access to others.

Venue Maitre'D works with wireless Ethernet protocol - 802.11B - and offers a suite of wireless, interactive services designed to inform, entertain, and promote ad-hoc within-venue communities and facilitate transactions such as shopping, reservations, etc. All content and applications can be accessed from a Windows laptop or any Pocket Pc including Compaq's Ipaq, Casio, Symbol, etc. Venue Maitre'D is currently installing a LAN around Baltimore's Inner Harbor which will provide visitors to the area information on local shops, areas of interest, and restaurants as well as enable visitors to connect with each other.

According to a study by Cahners-In-Stat Group, the wireless LAN market is projected to expand at a 25% compounded annual growth rate from 2000 through 2004 and reach $2.2 billion in worldwide sales. By the year 2003, 75% of access to the Internet will be either through a browser-enabled phone or handheld PDA. By 2004, the number of Americans expected to own PDAs will top 17 million.