BLS Bellsouth Cp

Return of the Blog: Cingular's Election Moblog Goes Live Again Giving Journalism Students a Voice in the Election Cingular's Team of Digital Reporters to Provide Real-Time Coverage of the Republican National Convention Using the Latest Wireless Technology ATLANTA, Aug. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Building on the success of its program at the Democratic National Convention, Cingular will sponsor a team of graduate and undergraduate journalism students using the latest in wireless technology to provide a unique, real-time youth perspective at the Republican National Convention. The sponsorship is part of Cingular's Wireless Election Connection, a program encouraging young people to vote and play a key role in the political process. "The opinions of youth voters weigh heavily in our country's political process," said Marc Lefar, Chief Marketing Officer of Cingular Wireless. "Through the Wireless Election Connection, journalism students receive great training using the latest wireless technologies and moblog visitors can obtain a unique perspective on the conventions and election process." Cingular's team of "digital reporters," directed by professional journalists, are comprised of students from Columbia University and the University of California - Berkeley. Armed with a Cingular camera phone and Cingular Wireless service, the reporters will capture election news, events and activities surrounding the convention and post pictures, audio and video to the mobile weblog (moblog) hosted at Cingular's Election Headquarters at http://www.rucingular.com/election or http://www.wec.textamerica.com/ . This moblog is powered by Textamerica, which has built the world's most advanced and flexible mobile image publishing solution. Textamerica's back office provides the flexibility required to manage, edit and publish multiple images, coming from multiple sources, on the fly. The Wireless Election Connection moblog combines the scope of print journalism with the immediacy of electronic journalism and illustrates the possibilities and the future of news. And, unlike many blogs, Cingular's moblog adheres to the highest traditional journalistic standards providing objective coverage of the political events. Editing of the content is conducted at Newsplex, a next-generation newsroom and training center based at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Designed as a model for the news industry, the Newsplex project is a prototype multiple-media, micro- newsroom for demonstration, research and training in next-generation news handling tools and techniques. Cingular Wireless' all-digital GSM/GPRS network in South Carolina provides the backbone for its voice and advanced wireless data services. At the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Cingular's "digital reporters" from the University of South Carolina, Emerson College and Northeastern University covered events and received rave reviews on their blogging activities. In a CNN report on July 27, Dave L. Sifry said, "The Wireless Election Connection moblog looks to be one of the surprise hits of the weblog coverage here at the convention." During the DNC, Cingular's team posted 437 stories, averaging approximately one every 10 minutes over an 18- hour workday. The site received nearly 15,000 hits. "This unique style of journalism gives students -- as well as all voters -- important insight they can use to make informed decisions," said Randy Covington, Director, Ifra Newsplex. "While each entry stands alone as a piece of micro-journalism, collectively they create an intricate mosaic of the day's events, revealing trends and tones for each voter to evaluate according to their individual needs." The Wireless Election Connection rounds out Cingular's 2004 youth election-related initiatives, which includes partnerships with MTV's "Choose or Lose 2004," Comedy Central and its "Indecision 2004" programming, as well as our co-sponsorship, along with Motorola, of Rock the Vote. This multi- pronged grassroots campaign is aimed at driving voter registration, participation and issue education in the political process. For complete information about Cingular's election outreach and timely news from the national political conventions, check out http://www.rucingular.com/election . ABOUT CINGULAR WIRELESS Cingular Wireless, a joint venture between SBC Communications (NYSE:SBC) and BellSouth (NYSE:BLS), serves more than 25 million voice and data customers across the United States. A leader in mobile voice and data communications, Cingular is the only U.S. wireless carrier to offer Rollover(SM), the wireless plan that lets customers keep their unused monthly minutes. Cingular is the largest provider of GSM services in the United States, and has a 100 percent digital GSM/GPRS footprint across its service area. It also launched the world's first commercial deployment of wireless services using Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology. Cingular also provides corporate e-mail and other advanced data services through its GPRS, EDGE and Mobitex packet data networks. Details of the company are available at http://www.cingular.com/ . Get Cingular Wireless press releases e-mailed to you automatically. Sign up at http://www.cingular.com/newsroom . ABOUT IFRA Ifra, the world's leading association for media technology, is a service organization dedicated to the publishing industry worldwide. Ifra members comprise more than 2,000 publishing companies and publishing technology suppliers in 70 countries. Ifra is based in Darmstadt (near Frankfurt), Germany. For maximum member support, Ifra has 15 regional subsidiaries including offices in Canada, India, Paris, Stockholm, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The work of Ifra is monitored by a board of publishers from around the world. The current president is Murdoch MacLennan, group managing director of Associated Newspapers in London. ABOUT NEWSPLEX The Newsplex is a prototype multiple-media micro-newsroom for demonstration, research and training in next-generation newshandling tools and techniques. It is designed as a model for the industry. It was created to exercise the future of news, to show the possibilities. The Newsplex was developed by the Ifra Centre for Advanced News Operations, and located at and operated in cooperation with the University of South Carolina College of Mass Communications and Information Studies in Columbia, SC. ABOUT TEXTAMERICA Textamerica provides consumer and enterprise moblog solutions on the world's most advanced moblog platform. The Textamerica platform offers publishers the ability to solicit and collate files in any format from any device. Those files may then be edited and published in a secure and managed environment. Textamerica is a privately held company based in San Diego, California. Textamerica offers free moblogs to consumers, to sign up just go to http://www.textamerica.com/ DATASOURCE: Cingular Wireless CONTACT: Clay Owen of Cingular Wireless, +1-404-236-6153, or ; or Julie Fenger of GCI Group, +1-404-898-1654, or , for Cingular Wireless Web site: http://www.cingular.com/ http://www.cingular.com/newsroom http://www.rucingular.com/election http://www.wec.textamerica.com/

Copyright