i-Compass Launches First Arabic Language Community Site

Business Wire,  March 21, 2000  

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Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2000

i-Compass, a leading Silicon Alley based i-builder and Web integrator today announced the completion of Ethnicnet.com's The Arabic Channel (TAC). This project marks the first of many planned future language integration efforts utilizing Slangsoft's Web-based National Language Support. The TAC site features fully functional bilingual capabilities with unique language specific attributes such as bilingual chat and email.

Featuring the Web's first Arabic language chat and free Web-based email, i-Compass makes TAC the first community site of its kind. TAC's original cable programming is featured through streaming video feeds on the site, in addition to a library of Arabic language music videos. Visitors can watch Arabic music videos and see the latest news produced by the only non-governmentally controlled Arabic language television station in the world.

One major difference between TAC and existing online ethnic communities is that TAC marks the first entry into a segment currently starving for tools such as free Web-based email and chat, that are fully bilingual. By utilizing Slangsoft's Web-based Language Support, users can enter and view Arabic text from a Web browser anywhere without having to download fonts or use a special keyboard. Slangsoft's Internet Virtual Keyboard renders language specific keyboards a thing of the past.

"Some of these features are the first of their kind in the Arabic language Web community and represent what will be a new wave of community based sites," said Elie Singer, Managing Director of i-Compass. "Until now, Arabic speakers were forced to chat using crude transliterations on the mainstream online communities. What blows my mind is that what some Middle Eastern governments would consider subversive independent cable programming can now be seen for free on a desktop any 12 year old can operate in Baghdad or Amman. This can be done without a dish or a New York City cable converter. It's really the exemplification of the original vision of the Web," added Singer.

About i-Compass

i-Compass (http://www.i-compass.com) is a Silicon Alley based Web integrator that provides complete strategic web solutions including design, e-commerce, streaming media, animation and language enabling. i-Compass utilizes its understanding of digital technologies to help companies bring their businesses online. i-Compass currently has offices in New York and Brussels, and plans a presence in Cologne, Germany and Jerusalem by the end of 2000.

About Slangsoft

Slangsoft (http://www.slangsoft.com) provides National Language Support solutions for Web-based applications and on line services running on a wide range of devices including WAP-enabled mobile phones, set top boxes, handhelds and home networks. Slangsoft's National Language Support solution is comprised of small footprint fonts, input methods, and internet virtual keyboards that are dynamically loaded via the internet, allowing text in 42 National Languages to be displayed and inputted into any web-based user interface. This solution is cost-efficient, real-time and requires no installation, download or plug-in.

For more information please visit the company websites at www.i-compass.com or www.ethnicnet.com, or contact Jennifer Chasin of ePR (public relations) at jen@eprinc.net or 516-670-8635.

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