A first for the company, the iLike Worldwide Listening Party will continue through March 26th, six days before the album’s North American release on April 1st, 2008. Additionally, R.E.M. will record an exclusive video message introducing and discussing the album that will be available via iLike for distribution across the Web.

“Collaborating with iLike, and debuting Accelerate across the Web is in keeping with the spirit and immediacy of the album.” says the band’s frontman Michael Stipe. “We wanted to do something superfast and super real. Music, art, and pop culture are about right now, and nothing else matters. Accelerate is our turbo-charged response to the times we live in.”

In addition to being available on iLike’s website (www.ilike.com), the iLike Worldwide Accelerate Listening Party and exclusive R.E.M. video message will debut through the iLike Sidebar desktop plugin for iTunes and Windows Media Player (www.iLike.com/download), as well as across the Web via iLike’s leading applications on Facebook, Bebo, hi5, and for the iPhone. R.E.M. have already been using the iLike Universal Artist Dashboard to post content, reaching their fans across multiple syndication channels via iLike’s “Post Once, Publish Everywhere” platform. The album will also be available for pre-order via iLike’s retail links to iTunes and Amazon.com.

“With 11 songs clocking in at just 34 minutes, Accelerate is intense and relevant, with songs inspired by the WTO riots in Seattle, the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and other topical themes,” said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. “We are honored to play a role in helping R.E.M. introduce this album to their fans across the Web. This is our first-ever Worldwide Listening Party and R.E.M. has set a very high bar.”

In many ways, Accelerate marks a break from R.E.M.’s recent albums, 1998’s Up, 2001’s Reveal, and 2004’s Around The Sun – all finely crafted works exploring the textures and possibilities of the recording studio. Accelerate ties together the band’s entire canon as part of the vision for the new album turning old dreams into a new reality.

To listen to R.E.M’s Accelerate and watch the band’s exclusive video message, please visit: www.iLike.com/R.E.M. To learn more about iLike’s multimedia blogging tools and other free services for artists, please visit: www.iLike.com/forartists.

About iLike, inc

iLike is the Web’s leading social music discovery service and the dominant music application on the Facebook®, hi5 and Bebo platforms. With more than 23 million registered users, iLike helps people share music recommendations, playlists, and personalized concert alerts. The iLike Sidebar for iTunes and Windows Media Player suggests new music, creates automatic playlists, and connects people through music. iLike offers musicians and labels a Universal Artist Dashboard from which to reach fans and manage their presence across multiple channels: Facebook, hi5, Bebo, iLike.com, Ask.com, iLike Sidebar plugins for iTunes and Windows Media Player, and iLike’s iPhone application. By leveraging iLike’s “artist-fan graph,” a vast database of connections between consumers and their favorite artists, iLike helps artists reach their fans and cultivate the viral spread of their music. iLike, inc also runs indie music site GarageBand.com.

About R.E.M.
Rock band R.E.M. emerged from the post-punk D.I.Y. scene in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 and has been making their own unique brand of music ever since. R.E.M. has released 13 studio albums, including five with I.R.S. in the ’80s and eight with current label Warner Bros. Records. Among R.E.M.’s achievements are a host of humanitarian awards, three Grammy’s, several No. 1 albums, six Rolling Stone covers, numerous MTV Video Music Awards, and upwards of 100 million records sold, making the band one of the most critically and commercially successful groups of all time.

Throughout their twenty-eight year career, R.E.M. has given consistently to charitable causes, supporting such wide-ranging endeavors as the Boys & Girls Club, school music programs, and local grassroots community organizations to partnering with Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Vote For Change, and Doctors Without Borders. R.E.M. has also supported many organizations dedicated to environmental protection, a just and equitable society, and progressive political causes. Among many others, the group has performed benefit concerts for Moveon.org, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Live 8, Free South Africa, Oxfam, Make Trade Fair, Athens Community Connection, Vote For Change and the Bridge School.

Accelerate, the band’s 14th studio album, will be released on March 31st and April 1st around the world.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. iTunes® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. Windows Media Player® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.

SEATTLE, WA – iLike, the leading social music discovery service, today announced that more than 200,000 musicians, including leading artists from all genres of music, are actively using the iLike Universal Artist Dashboard™ to manage an online presence syndicated across Facebook, hi5, Bebo, and beyond.

With 23 million users, iLike is now the leading music application on Facebook®, Bebo and hi5, expanding its presence from North America to the UK, Europe and Latin America. In the coming weeks, through Google OpenSocial, iLike will also be launching applications on MySpace and Orkut.

World-renowned acts including Radiohead, Linkin Park, 50 Cent, Keith Urban and Herbie Hancock, are among the tens of thousands of artists that regularly use iLike to syndicate their songs, videos, photos, fan bulletins, concert information and exclusive content via iLike’s “Post Once, Publish Everywhere” platform. In fact, more than half of the top 500 acts in music have registered to use iLike to cultivate and communicate with their online fanbases.

“iLike is all about community and the ability to discover new artists, and music, through word of mouth,” said Keith Urban. “And the chance to share my music in order to expand that community is what it’s all about; not to mention the relationship can be more immediate and direct with my audience.”

“With the rise of new social networks, artists are finding it increasingly difficult to keep track of the options, and time-consuming to maintain duplicate presences everywhere,” said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. “Our push-button syndication solution solves a real need, giving artists the ability to reach more fans with less effort, and freeing them up to focus on what really matters: the music.”

The iLike Universal Artist Dashboard™ and multi-media blogging tools enable artists to post content for instant syndication on iLike’s website (www.iLike.com), the iLike Sidebar desktop plugin for iTunes and Windows Media Player (www.iLike.com/download), as well as across the Web via iLike’s leading applications on Facebook®, Bebo hi5 and for the iPhone.

Artists and their industry representatives are also embracing the iLike model because iLike is a major driver of music retail via convenient links to iTunes, Thumbplay for ringtones, Ticketmaster and Amazon.com. The effectiveness of the iLike approach is demonstrated by the fact that iLike consistently ranks among the top 5 affiliates for iTunes, Thumbplay and Ticketmaster.

About iLike, inc

iLike is the Web’s leading social music discovery service and the dominant music application on the Facebook®, hi5 and Bebo platforms. With more than 23 million registered users, iLike helps people share music recommendations, playlists, and personalized concert alerts. The iLike Sidebar for iTunes and Windows Media Player suggests new music, creates automatic playlists, and connects people through music. iLike offers musicians and labels a Universal Artist Dashboard™ from which to reach fans and manage their presence across multiple channels: Facebook, hi5, Bebo, iLike.com, Ask.com, iLike Sidebar plugins for iTunes and Windows Media Player, and iLike’s iPhone application. By leveraging iLike’s “artist-fan graph,” a vast database of connections between consumers and their favorite artists, iLike helps artists reach their fans and cultivate the viral spread of their music. iLike, inc also runs indie music site GarageBand.com.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. iTunes® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. Windows Media Player® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.

To learn more about iLike’s free services for artists, go to:

iLike for Artists

One of the top drivers of affiliate sales to the iTunes Store, iLike helps over 20 million registered users discover new music they like, and makes it easy for them to buy that music via retail links. The study indicates that the significant increase in people’s music consumption may be attributed to the iLike Sidebar (www.iLike.com/download) for iTunes and Windows Media Player.

“The Wharton results are a powerful validation that iLike successfully exposes people to music that they like enough to download or buy,” said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. “It’s no surprise, given this new data, that iLike is one of the top affiliates of iTunes and Ticketmaster.”

“Personalization technologies are changing how we discover media,” said Wharton professor Kartik Hosanagar and doctoral candidate Daniel Fleder. “The initial results are exciting and are part of a larger collaboration about how recommender systems, such as the iLike Sidebar, affect the diversity of media we consume.”

As part of a larger study, the research collaboration was conducted on data from a year-long period, from August 2006-July 2007. Highlights follow:

Long-term users of iLike added nearly 250% more music to their personal music libraries within a month of registering on iLike versus the month before. Five months later, active iLike users continue to add nearly 30 to 50% more music per month than before joining. It is indicated that the iLike Sidebar may account for this dramatic increase in music purchasing among iLike users.

Methodological Remarks
The group exposed to iLike consisted of active users, those who keep the Sidebar installed for the study’s duration. The results should be interpreted in the context of this group. Inactive users are those who later uninstall the plugin. For inactives, the change in consumption may be less. In addition, while the analysis emulates an experimental setting, registration is the user’s choice and not a randomized assignment. For this reason, it is possible that consumption increases for reasons unrelated to iLike. We believe this is mitigated by two factors. One, the increase occurs sharply at the time of registration, limiting the possibility that registration is a response to an existing change in demand. Second, the period studied is soon after iLike was founded. This suggests consumers may be responding to a change in supply rather than a contemporaneous change in their own demand. While these factors cannot be ruled out, the study provides evidence that iLike is associated with an increase in music consumption.

About iLike, inc
iLike is the Web’s leading social music discovery service and the dominant music application on the Facebook®, hi5 and Bebo platforms. With more than 20 million registered users, iLike helps people share music recommendations, playlists, and personalized concert alerts. The iLike Sidebar for iTunes and Windows Media Player suggests new music, creates automatic playlists, and connects people through music. iLike offers musicians and labels a Universal Artist Dashboard™ from which to reach fans and manage their presence across multiple channels: Facebook, hi5, Bebo, iLike.com, Ask.com, iLike Sidebar plugins for iTunes and Windows Media Player. By leveraging iLike’s “artist-fan graph,” a vast database of connections between consumers and their favorite artists, iLike helps artists reach their fans and cultivate the viral spread of their music. iLike, inc also runs indie music site GarageBand.com.

About The Wharton School
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania — founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The school has more than 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 8,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of more than 81,000 graduates.

Contact:
DBA Public Relations
Mike Schroeder
212-388-1400
mschroeder@dba-pr.com

Emily Glassman
iLike
Cell: 206.708.4478
Email: Emily@iLike-inc.com” Emily@iLike-inc.com

Daniel Fleder
Wharton
215-898-7211
dfleder@wharton.upenn.edu

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. iTunes® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. Windows Media Player® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.

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