eigoTown.com Announces Launch of “eigoTown Friends” in Partnership with WorldFriends Networks

Tokyo – September 12, 2005 – eigoTown.com and WorldFriends Networks announced their partnership and launch of “eigoTown Friends“, a unique service that helps users to find new friends with similar interests, on the eigoTown.com website, Japan’s leading English conversation and English education information portal.

eigoTown Friends is an online service that enables users to easily enjoy communicatiing with new friends in Japan and all over the world. Users can register free of charge and post a detailed profile including various personal interests and photographs. Users can perform detailed searches of the user base of 412,000 people and find those with similar interests such as “I want to make friends with people abroad“ or “I want to practice communicating in English.“ Users can also simply browse through the 116,000 photos posted by users.

Every week, eigoTown Friends also recommends five potential new friends to each user and sends the profiles and photos in a convenient email. The potential new friends are recommended based on a “two-way“ compatibility matching process. The user base of eigoTown Friends is growing at over 1,000 new registered users per day, ensuring a very active user base. In August, about 200,000 emails were exchanged amongst the users.

A member of eigoTown Friends can choose to be a Regular, VIP or Open Club member. Regular membership is free and members can create their own profile, search other members and see their profiles, receive messages, and send a smile to other members. VIP members can initiate contact with any members. VIP members can choose the service duration from 1, 3, 6, or 12 months starting from 3,500 yen. Open Club is 7,500 yen for 3 months.

“This service is particularly strong in catering to the interests of Japanese people who wish to practice the English language and make friends with internationally-minded people. Thus, eigoTown.com is very pleased to be working with WorldFriends Networks to offer it to our community,“ said Russell Willis, President and founder of eigoTown.com.

“We’re excited to be partners with eigoTown.com, one of the premiere destination websites about learning English. eigoTown’s participation in our network highlights our ability to work with leading media brands and companies in our target areas.“ said Dominic Penaloza, chief executive officer and founder of WorldFriends Networks.

About eigoTown.com
eigoTown.com is Japan’s premier independent portal site for English language learning and culture. With over 200,000 unique visitors per month and page views in the millions, eigoTown (http://www.eigotown.com) acts as the hub for English in Japan. In addition to the eigoTown.com site itself, the company operates the following Web sites, amongst others:

SenseiBank: A teacher-student matching service with over 4,000 teacher registrations (http://www.senseibank.com).
eigoYaOnline: An innovative editing and translation service that utilizes a global network of language experts to provide 24/7 services with turnaround times starting at 6 hours. (http://www.eigoyaonline.com)

Eigo Kyouiku News: The Web site for Japanese English teachers in Japan. Everything a teacher needs in one Web site.
(http://www.eigokyouikunews.com)