iPIX 'Revs Up' Cars.com Private Party Pre-Owned Automotive Classifieds

Demand for Compelling Visuals Drives Auto Marketplace Licensing Of Enhanced Imaging Services From iPIX

SAN RAMON, Calif., May 6 -- Internet Pictures Corporation , the leader in mission-critical imaging solutions, today announced that cars.com (www.cars.com) will begin a pilot with iPIX to provide enhanced imaging services for private party used car sellers on cars.com and its affiliate websites. The service will include multiple-photo upload capability, photo enhancement tools and super-size photos for viewing detail, all using iPIX's proprietary Rimfire(R) imaging technology. The Rimfire imaging infrastructure handles over two million user-submitted image uploads a day for Web and print use, including over 400,000 uploads a month for automotive Web sites alone.

Cars.com is a division of Classified Ventures, LLC, a partnership founded by six of the world's leading media companies to combine the power of local focus with national reach for online automotive shopping and advertising. Cars.com has more than 600,000 live automotive listings at any given time, combining powerful used-car search and new-car configuration with pricing information, photo galleries, buying guides, side-by-side comparison tools, original editorial content, and reviews. More than three million consumers use cars.com to research cars and connect with local sellers each month. Initially, cars.com will roll out iPIX Rimfire enhanced imaging services as a trial for private party used car sellers. "We know that buyers shop visually and like to see multiple pictures of a used car. They want to see as much detail as possible before investing in a trip out to see the car in person. It's all about setting the right expectations, and multiple photos communicate the value proposition of cars extremely well," says Bill Swislow, vice president and executive producer at cars.com. "Working with iPIX will allow us to enhance, upload, host and deliver images efficiently on the Web, offering our sellers the easiest, most efficient solution to answer the demand for photos."

According to Jupiter Research, online auto classifieds users will grow 50% from 26 million in 2002 to 39 million in 2006, as shoppers get more comfortable with making high-ticket purchases online. iPIX is capturing much of this market momentum by partnering with automotive Web sites to bring sellers easy-to-use and high-quality image management and hosting. Other iPIX automotive partners include CarAd.com (www.carad.com), Highline Auctions (www.highlineauctions.com), LeaseTrading (www.leasetrading.com), and eBay Motors (www.ebaymotors.com).

"We're seeing rapid adoption of our technology in the auto classifieds marketplace. In addition to our mainstream print publishing customers, we've now signed the majority of leading online auto auction & classified ad providers," said Leif Welch, Director of Business Development for iPIX. "Our outsourced, transaction-based business model means that partners such as cars.com can get a world-class imaging solution, integrated directly into their existing Web or print publishing systems, with minimal upfront investment and long-term scalability. We're serving over one billion image views each day for our partners, and counting."

ABOUT iPIX

Internet Pictures Corporation (iPIX(R)) provides mission-critical imaging solutions for commerce, communication and security applications. The Company's solutions create, process and manage a rich variety of media including still images, 360-degree by 360-degree immersive images, video, text and audio. iPIX is the largest online image management and distribution company in the world serving over a billion image views and two million image submissions daily for customers such as eBay(R), Homestore(TM) and Los Angeles Times(R). iPIX's extensive intellectual property covers patents for immersive imaging, video and surveillance applications. The Company is headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with co-headquarters in San Ramon, California. www.ipix.com.