Netscape Alumni's Stealth Company, 'The iTixs Project,' Unveils Name -- Backflip -- and Introduces a New View of the Web -- 'Your View'

First Service, Freely Available Today on the Internet, Provides Easiest Way to Turn Everyday Web Activity Into a Personal View of the Web

San Francisco, CA - November 29, 1999 - The stealth company that has been known as "The iTixs Project" today officially launched as Backflip Inc. (www.backflip.com) to provide people with a new view of the World Wide Web -- their own view. With total control and privacy, Backflip members can turn everyday Web activity into their view of the Web. As part of its launch, the company today made its first service immediately and freely available on the Internet. The new service captures and automatically organizes information on pages that an individual finds interesting on the Web, allowing the user to easily create a personal and private Yahoo-like directory and search engine.

The new Web-based service is the first in a series of related services that Backflip, will provide. All the company's services are dedicated to providing individuals with their personal view of the Web, wherever they are on the Web.

"The Web has become central to peoples lives, and Backflip is here to help folks get the most from this very rich resource," said Tim Hickman, Backflip co-founder and chief executive officer. "Your view of the Web allows you to capture lasting value from all that time you spend online. Your Web experiences can now travel with you from school to work, from job to job, and from computer to computer."

With mouse-click simplicity, the new service allows members to save -- or "backflip" -- something of interest that they see on the Web, and then find it again easily using Backflip's powerful organizing and full-text searching capabilities. For example, online investors can capture and automatically organize news stories and the Web sites they find important into useful and increasingly valuable investment research; sports enthusiasts and movie fans can assemble fully searchable collections of their favorite Web page and articles, and students can save time by easily retrieving their Web research from home or school. A Backflip member's personal and private view of the Web is always available to them from any computer on the Internet.

The breakthrough of the first Backflip, service is to bring simplicity to a task that has to-date been cumbersome and impractical. Discombobulated print-outs of Web pages, bookmarks, email reminders sent to oneself, and reliance on human memory are all replaced with the power and flexibility of automated capture, categorization, searching -- all just a single mouse-click away. The Backflip service provides online security that protects the individual with privacy unmatched by printouts, bookmarks and emails.

And the more a member uses Backflip, the better it gets for them. With Backflip, the increasing volume of Web information people interact with is no longer a problem, but rather an increasingly valuable personal asset. Since Backflip makes it easy for anyone to create their view of the Web, it doesn't become increasingly difficult to manage as more is added to it -- there's only more benefit.

Backflip is not a general-purpose search engine; rather Backflip extends the Web with new and different capabilities beyond search engines. Backflip creates "your view of the Web" whereas search engines provide only their view. On Backflip, information call be added, deleted, or re-organized as the member desires to refine their view of Web. When it's time to get back to this information, Backflip uses the same powerful means as a search engine but delivers only relevant results -- what the member has already decided is important and not thousands of general listings.

Individuals can register for the free service on the Backflip home page. After a short registration process, members can immediately begin "backflipping" any Web page they find of interest to create their personal view of the Web.

Future Services and Features

Backflip is also working with content and commerce partners to offer a real-time merchandising and personalization service called the Backflip Network. Backflip will leverage its position as a hub of what people find important on the Web and enable partners to better serve mutual customers -- but only with Backflip members' explicit permission. When visiting a partner site in the Backflip Network, Backflip members can get a personalized view of that site, a view that is based on what they find important on the Web at large.

Coming soon, Backflip will give its members the ability to search and get back to any Web page they've ever seen -- whether they remembered to "Backflip it" or not. The revolutionary "Search My History" feature provides members with all expanded view of their Web. Even if they did not save a page to their Backflip account, "Search My History" will allow members to find that page from any computer by using any word or phrase that they remember seeing while browsing the Web.

Another soon-to-be released extension of the Backflip service will give members the ability to share their view of the Web. For example, if a member has put together a useful vacation folder, they could give permission to friends and family to browse only that folder. Members could also allow their friends and co-workers to do full-text searching on all or part of their view of the Web.

"Backflip brings to the Web and our industry a new capability -- your view of the Web," says J. Neil Weintraut, general partner at 21st Century Internet Venture Partners. "As venture capitalists we like teams that are innovating to solve real consumer problems and at the same time building a platform to bring value to other Internet companies."

About Backflip

Backflip Inc., formerly operating under the stealth name "The iTixs Project," is dedicated to providing individuals with their personal view of the Web, wherever they are on the Web. Backflip was founded in June 1999 by Chris Misner and Tim Hickman -- two internet veterans from Netscape -- and raised $4 million in seed round funding from 21st Century Internet Venture Partners and Angel Ventures, LP in July 1999. The company's Board of Directors includes the founders and three prominent Silicon Valley leaders: Jennifer Bailey, former senior vice president of Netscape; Ron Conway, general partner of Angel Investors; and J. Neil Weintraut, general partner at 21st Century Internet Venture Partners. Headquartered in San Francisco, Backflip currently has more than 30 employees.
 

Contact Information:

Donna Sokolsky
Spark Public Relations (for Backflip)
Tel: 650-330-0330
Email: donna@sparkpr.com