Yahoo! Japan and WorldFriends Networks launch partnership, opening a new gateway into the global community

Partners to increase Japan’s participation in the global village, enabling Japanese Internet users to easily find new language exchange partners, penpals and travel community.

TOKYO, July 30, 2008 – Today, Yahoo! Japan, Japan’s biggest Internet company, and WorldFriends Networks, the world’s leading multi-lingual language exchange and travel community, announce a partnership and launch WorldFriends to Yahoo! Japan users. The service can be accessed directly at http://worldfriends.stepup.yahoo.co.jp.

WorldFriends enables users to improve their language skills in various languages by easily finding language exchange partners and pen pals worldwide. Users can also find new international friends with common interests in travel, hobbies, and culture exchange since WorldFriends Networks already has over 1.5 million registered members living in 237 different countries including Japan, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, China, and Korea. Among the 1.5 million registered members are over 70,000 language teachers, so users can enjoy convenient access to a wide variety of teachers from any location, at any time of the day.

Users can register for free, and create a personal webpage describing themselves including their preferences for language exchange, travel, music, hobbies, and other personal interests. Members can visit personal webpages, send messages to each other, do voice or video chat, and browse over 700,000 photos posted by other members. Users can easily register for and login to WorldFriends by using their already existing Yahoo! Japan IDs. The Yahoo! Wallet payment service is also integrated into the service to ensure safe and convenient access.

Japan spends over JPY 800 billion per year on learning English, including one-to-one language lessons. Learning Chinese and Korean languages is increasingly popular in Japan. Yet, consumers may not be so satisfied with their results from language conversation schools, CDROMs, or books. The service offers a brand new way to get results in improving language skills. Users can easily find native speakers of the relevant language at any time of day or night online and use the built-in voice and video chat to do online language exchange.

WorldFriends Networks today also announced the launch of its new Application Programming Interface (API) that enables next-generation integration between WorldFriends Networks and website partners. Yahoo! Japan is using the new API to integrate with WorldFriends Networks.

“Yahoo! Japan and WorldFriends Networks are both dedicated to providing a quality user experience. We believe that today’s launch represents the completion of a new type of bridge between Japan and the rest of the world,” said Dominic Penaloza, CEO of WorldFriends Networks. “WorldFriends Networks is very pleased to be partnering with Yahoo! Japan, the dominant Internet player. This partnership will reach significantly more people in Japan, giving all members more opportunities to connect within the global village.”

About Yahoo Japan Corporation

Since commencing business operations in 1996, Yahoo Japan Corporation and its consolidated subsidiaries and affiliates (the Group) has established an overwhelmingly dominant position in the Japanese Internet market on a triple foundation of brand power, technological prowess, and an ever-expanding user base. Guided by its mission of supplying all the services that users want, anytime and anywhere, the Group currently provides more than 100 types of services in the Japanese Internet market. According to a NetView AMS JP survey conducted in May 2008 by Nielsen Online, the Yahoo! Japan portal site boasts viewing rates of 88.2％ from the home and 92.9％ from the office.

For more information please visit http://www.yahoo.co.jp.

About WorldFriends Networks

WorldFriends Networks is the world’s leading multi-lingual language exchange and travel community. WorldFriends Networks offers people a high quality environment in which to enjoy ‘internationally minded’ socializing, and to meet new friends with common interests, especially in the areas of travel, culture and language learning. WorldFriends Networks aims to promote global harmony by lowering language barriers and culture barriers, resulting in greater cross-culture understanding and communication. Over 1.5 million people from 237 countries, including more than 70,000 language teachers, have registered as WorldFriends members, and use WorldFriends to meet new friends in cities where they travel, to find language exchange partners, penpals and teachers, and to meet other internationally-minded people. WorldFriends already offers user-interfaces in five languages: Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean.

For more information please visit http://www.worldfriendsnetworks.com.

Press Contact:
WorldFriends Networks
Yves Bennaim
Tel. +852 8198 2334
press@meta4-group.com