1stUp.com Gets Mactivated

Internet access facilitator 1stUp.com
Corp. Tuesday made its free dial-up service Macintosh-compatible and is
available for downloading from its AltaVista Inc. and Lycos Inc. Web portal
partners.

The service offering marks one of the largest distribution efforts to date
of free Macintosh Internet access in the U.S. The CMGI Inc. subsidiary
is capable of serving 95 percent of the Mac user market segment in North
America from more than 4,000 local dial-up numbers.

The Macintosh-compatible access offering supplements 1stUp.com’s existing
private label access offerings currently in use by more than 100 consumer
brands. Each branding partner intends to launch its private version of the
1stUp.com Mac-friendly free access offering.

Charles Katz, 1stUp.com president and chief executive officer, said it was
time to extend free services to all Internet users.

“We are very excited to enable our distribution partners to offer their
consumers free Macintosh-compatible access to the Internet,” Katz said.
“Just as users can select quality content and services from each of these
leading Web sites, they now can select a reliable, Mac-compatible Internet
service that integrates the unique content of these leading sites alongside
the 1stUp.com access technology.”

As with 1stUp.com’s PC-compatible free access, Mac users receive free
access in exchange for keeping 1stUp.com’s dockable navigation bar
on-screen for the duration of the online session.

Mac users can sign-up for the free access through a 900k software download
or request a floppy disc or CD installation kit. The application is
compatible with all Mac PCs operating with MacOS 8.1 or higher and Internet
Explorer 3.0 or Netscape Navigator 3.0 or higher.

1stUp.com provides companies with private label Internet access services to
customize online branding efforts with their consumers. The 1stUp.com
service features e-mail, voicemail, and basic Web storage functions.

The company also offers fee-based dial-up and broadband Internet services
to its business partners. The paid-for access program operates over the
same nationwide network, but removes ever-present banner advertisements
from private Web portals.

1stUp.com current services free Internet access to more than 3.5 million
registered subscribers of its distribution partners.