OleOle is the worldwide leading social media site for football fans. Fans around the world need a site that enables news and information that is independent of the traditional media, leagues, clubs or organizations who deliver their own content. OleOle’s multi-lingual site enables football fans to connect with each other in an environment that has 100% fan-driven content - blogs, fan clubs, articles, news, podcasts, photos, videos, stats, and history.

OleOle has taken the best technologies from social networking, social media and football news and created the only vertical social media platform for football. OleOle enables passionate fans to discuss any professional team, any player, match or competition in 10 different languages. OleOle is the future of online sports – where the fans participate in the conversation, but more importantly, create and drive the conversation. Fans want more than one reporter writing about their favourite team or player – they want opinions from multiple experts - and their friends. Most importantly they want their voice and opinion to be heard.

Beverly Hills, Calif. -- 27 August 2008 -- OleOle, the worldwide leading social media site for football fans, announced the acquisition and integration of AVFC Blog, increasing its growing list of UK football blogs by another market-leading blog. AVFC Blog, the popular fan-site on Birmingham’s Aston Villa, brings supporters everything Aston Villa and more.

The extensive blog features news and opinion on the Premier League club from Birmingham alongside with match previews, match reports, and latest transfer gossip. AVFC Blog is the largest Aston Villa destination on the web with over 200,000 monthly visits, nearly twice as many as the official Aston Villa site. The Villa bloggers don’t miss an opportunity to keep the club’s followers informed on all the news and rumours from Villa Park. In addition, die hard Villa supporters can discuss their favourite team’s performance in the integrated forum, easily accessible from the AVFC blog’s homepage.

Like other fan-site owners, who already moved their blogs to OleOle with great success, the AVFC bloggers are embracing the opportunity to share original content and breaking news with a much greater audience on OleOle’s innovative global football platform than they otherwise could with their independent blog. Following the footsteps of top blogs like Arseblog, Chelseablog or Harry Hotspur, AVFC Blog is taking advantage of joining OleOle’s rapidly growing social media site at a critical time. OleOle is continuously stocking up with more content to be able to serve its escalating global readership in time of the commencing 2008/2009 football season.

As with all site owners, who have moved their blogs and communities to OleOle, the AVFC bloggers continue to remain independent and in complete creative control. OleOle is 100% user-generated and completely user-moderated. AVFC Blog is one out of nine sites OleOle has acquired to date in Europe, and OleOle plans to continue adding top blogs, forums and fan communities to the global site.

OleOle's shop features official football shirts and kits from the Barclays Premier League and European clubs

Beverly Hills, Calif. -- 27 August 2008 -- OleOle, the worldwide leading social media site for football fans, today opened its own private label online football shop. Fans are now only a click away from accessing all the latest official football shirts and kits from the English Premier League, SPL and their favourite European clubs. Online customers can also choose from national kits with full official personalisation as well as training gear and souvenirs. Whether football fans prefer home shirts, away shirts, training ranges, a full football kit or just a pair of football boots – the OleOle shop offers everyone’s preferred football merchandise including men’s, women’s and kids’ styles.

OleOle’s football shop has been integrated into OleOle’s social media site providing users and visitors to www.oleole.com easy access to a wide spectrum of football items and leading sports brands. Unlike other online sports stores, OleOle’s football shop is embedded in OleOle’s social media site allowing fans to conveniently enter the store from any OleOle page. After they have checked out their items, fans can easily navigate back to their favourite football blog, player or live scores page on OleOle.

OleOle’s own private label online football shop features:

• Official football shirts & kits from the EPL, SPL, European clubs, and national kits
• Home, away & training ranges with adult and kids styles at competitive prices
• Purchase options in three currencies including British Pound, US Dollar and Euro
• Highest customer care
• 100% secure shopping

OleOle’s Fantasy Football (Soccer) game enables fans to select and manage a dream-team of players during the 2008/09 season and compete with their friends

Beverly Hills, Calif. -- 29 July 2008 -- OleOle, the worldwide leading social media site for football fans, today made its social Fantasy Football game available to OleOle members.

Unlike any other fantasy football games where players are on their own, OleOle’s Fantasy Football game is integrated into OleOle’s social football community so players can interact with each other as they make trades, do player research, and check player history. Each player’s personalized home page has a Fantasy Football widget where they can keep tabs on their team’s progress at a glance.

• On the OleOle website, they can catch up on the latest rumours, transfers and stats and use OleOle’s Fantasy Stats Centre.
• Fans can also setup private mini-leagues so they can compete directly against their friends. OleOle groups compliment this functionality so mini-leagues can stay in touch with each other and have private discussions about their teams, strategies, and friendly wagers.

OleOle, the worldwide leading social media site for football fans, announced the acquisition and integration of nine more top football blogs, communities and forums.   By gathering together market-leading bloggers in multiple regions and across ten languages, OleOle is successfully building the world’s dominant social media site for football.  OleOle has attracted some of the leading independent football sites, most of which are the #1 blogs and forums focused on their respective club. After the successful integration of Arseblog, the award-winning blog on Arsenal FC, the company has subsequently added: The Lord of the Wing, Chelseablog, Harry Hotspur, Fans del Real Madrid, Boca Juniors Fans, Soccer-Art.co.uk, Football-Spot, and Real Madrid Talk (June 27) to its site.

Fan-site owners are attracted to OleOle because OleOle’s innovative global football platform allows them to share original multimedia content and breaking news to many more football fans than they otherwise could maintaining an independent blog or community.  No other site on the internet is built for sports fan interaction like OleOle, and bloggers can do much more than just write – OleOle offers photo and video sharing, live match reporting and commentary, fan clubs, football wallpapers and graphics, community discussion as well as document club and player history in an extensive online wiki.  Bloggers are taking advantage of OleOle’s unique publishing tools purposefully built around the real-world structure of professional football.

Bloggers are football fans first and want to write passionately about breaking news and rumours in a social and sometimes viral setting for the benefit of as many fans as possible.  All content on OleOle is 100% user-generated and completely user-moderated, and site owners who have moved their blogs and communities to OleOle continue to remain independent and in complete creative control.  OleOle plans to continue adding top blogs, forums and fan communities to the global site and is currently evaluating top independent sites from the UK, Germany, Spain, and France.

OleOle is adding real-time, interactive live blogging to enable football fans to pick sides as they interact around match reports – from their computer and from the stadium

ZURICH, Switzerland -- 5 June 2008 -- OleOle, the worldwide leading social media site for football fans, today announced that it has added an interactive MatchCentre to its global football platform in time for EURO 2008 in Austria and Switzerland. Football fans can visit the OleOle MatchCentre before matches to get pre-game commentary and squad details, and during matches for real-time play by play and stats, live blogging, match photos and videos, and “smack talk” discussions with fans of rival teams. After the game they can access post-match commentary, pictures and videos taken at the match by fans, and a “Eurocast” podcast that includes fan critique and commentary called-in right from the stadium.

Football is a global sport but the most visited website generally publishes “unbiased” information based on official news and written by reporters trying to remain neutral. Fans don’t want neutrality; they want the real, unfiltered news about their teams and the bias that goes along with it. OleOle’s MatchCentre uses the same interactive approach found on the rest of the site and makes static live match reports and football scores obsolete. It provides a unique online experience in 10 languages for fans and the same kind of banter and insight found at the stadium or pub.

MatchCentre highlights OleOle’s new Live Blog function which enables minute by minute match commentary, insight and documentation of plays from a blogger’s perspective. Live Blogging has an interface tailored to entering in match plays quickly and efficiently, in a time-based match structure that includes penalties, goals, and substitutions. Bloggers type in a comment, submit, and their screen refreshes via AJAX technology, and the match blog is immediately refreshed for viewers. Fans can quickly flip back and forth between multiple live blogs to read opposing views and different opinions on the same play.

MatchCentre enables users to show their colours and change their screen display by selecting one of the teams, and they can pick live commentary from the bloggers who support their side and correspond with them directly. Fans can also discuss the match with other supporters through the stream-of-thought SmackTalk widget, a real-time comment system that enables fans to actively participate in and shape the discussion.

The Arseblogger, creator of Arseblog, OleOle’s recently acquired award-winning weblog on Arsenal FC, will also produce an exclusive, fan-driven EURO 2008 report as a podcast – the Eurocast - at the end of each game day. Fans can call in live from the stadium while watching a match and comment on anything – the crowd, team line-ups, and questionable reffing decisions. The Eurocast will feature selected fan messages along with insightful match commentary and will be available to download from OleOle’s MatchCentre and from Apple iTunes. Local call-in phone numbers are:

• UK +44 (20) 7193 6971
• Switzerland +41 (44) 586 62 08

“We see football supporters across geographies and languages looking for ways to interact around live matches other than just following the score. OleOle’s MatchCentre is the first technology that gives every fan the opportunity to become a global reporter or commentator,” said Doug Knittle, CEO and founder of OleOle. “Football news sites just don’t give passionate football fans what they’re looking for – the ability to drive the conversation about their team. MatchCentre is another innovative way OleOle is putting football into the hands of the fans through social media.”

About OleOle
OleOle is the worldwide leading social media site for football fans. Fans around the world need a site that publishes news and information independent from the traditional media, leagues, clubs or organizations who deliver their own content. OleOle’s multi-lingual site enables football fans to connect with each other in an environment that has 100% fan-driven content - blogs, fan clubs, articles, news, podcasts, photos, videos, football scores, stats, and history. Using social media technologies, football supporters can write, contribute, share, rate and vote on multimedia content in 10 languages. Founded in 2006, OleOle is a privately-held international company with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California and offices in New Zealand as well as across Europe and South America. For more information visit: www.oleole.com

The popular football blog and forum is extending its reach on OleOle’s ground-breaking global football platform

LOS ANGELES and DUBLIN, IRELAND -- 19 May, 2008 – OleOle, the provider of the world’s largest social media platform for football, today announced that it has acquired and integrated Arseblog, the award-winning website focused on the Arsenal FC. Readers can now find Arseblog’s daily posts, breaking news, exclusive features, interviews and podcasts (known as Arsecasts) on OleOle.com.

Founded over 6 years ago, Arseblog has become famous for it's unique brand of football blogging and the hundreds and hundreds of comments (arses) it receives every day from avid Arsenal fans and loyal readers. By moving to OleOle, the Arseblogger is expanding opportunities for his readers to participate even more in the discussions around Arsenal – through forums and comments and also by submitting their own Arsenal news, rumours, photos and videos.

OleOle is a global social media site dedicated to football and football only, and now Arseblog readers, along with fans of any other professional football team, can create conversations without geographic or language barriers - unlike on any other place on the internet today.

“We are delighted that Arseblog has decided to move to the OleOle blogging platform, and we offer even more options for its dedicated readers and Arsenal supporters,” said Doug Knittle, OleOle’s founder and CEO. “This is the first of what we know will be many passionate football bloggers moving their blogs to OleOle. This acquisition confirms that OleOle is really the premier place for anyone writing about football - regardless of their team, player or league affiliation.”

“What this merger does is allow Arseblog to become part of something I think will be really huge,” said the Arseblogger. “It allows Arsenal fans to get in on the ground floor on a site which promises to be a fantastic resource and lots of fun. It will also allow Arseblog to develop and provide even more Arsey goodness to Arsenal fans from all over the world.”

About Arseblog
Started in February 2002, Arseblog (arseblog.oleole.com) is the largest and longest running most popular website for commentary on the Arsenal Football Club, providing readers with a daily posts, columns and news as well as a platform to discuss all things Arsenal. The blog is the recipient of numerous rewards, including the Irish Web and Blog Award’s “Best Sport & Recreation Blog” in 2008, and a Weblog Award (Bloggie) in 2007 for the “Best Sports Weblog” in the world - beating notable rivals such as Gawker Media's 'Deadspin' site. Arseblog is one of the most popular independent blogs about football anywhere, and is noted for the hundreds of comments (arses) that are submitted by readers after each new post. The Arseblog podcast (The Arsecast) is one of the most popular football podcasts on iTunes and has featured interviews with guests such as Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood, ex-players Perry Groves, Peter Marinello, Bob Wilson and Danny Karbasiyoon, plus 80s pop stars Wang Chung.

About OleOle
OleOle (www.oleole.com) is the worldwide leading social media site for football fans. Fans around the world need a site that enables news and information that is independent of the traditional media, leagues, clubs or organizations who deliver their own content. OleOle’s multi-lingual site enables football fans to connect with each other in an environment that has 100% fan-driven content - blogs, fan clubs, articles, news, podcasts, photos, videos, stats, and history. With access to today’s leading social media technologies, football supporters can write, contribute, share, rate and vote on multimedia content in 10 languages. Founded in 2006, OleOle is a privately-held international company with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California and offices in New Zealand as well as across Europe and South America.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- May 19, 2008 -- OleOle today launched OleOle.com, a global vertical media platform that allows football (soccer) fans to create conversations and drive discussions around professional football in a whole new way. Football is the world’s largest sport with more than one billion fans, and OleOle is the first web platform to provide them with a comprehensive, custom football experience regardless of their location. A casual fan or passionate supporter of any team can create their own personalised football experience - find the latest scores and information at a glance, dive into discussions, or take an active part in the future of media and become a fan journalist.

The groundbreaking OleOle Football Platform is one of the first and only multi-lingual social media websites built around a single topic. Social media enables devoted fans to continue their passionate discussions online and create conversations, share experiences and opinions, and publish news about the sport and its teams and players, managers and officials.

Unlike any traditional media publication or website, all the content on OleOle is created, rated, moderated and edited entirely by users. And unlike any other football website, the OleOle Football Platform strives to cover the entire sport -- there is a separate fan-driven section for every professional team, league and player in the world -- more than 170 competitions, 300 leagues, 208 national teams and football federations, 5,580 clubs, and 57,500 players. The look and feel of each section on OleOle can be styled by the fans; page widgets can be added, configured and moved; and the fans can choose which content gets featured and displayed based on votes.

The Platform incorporates some of today’s most popular social media technologies and enables members to contribute and manage multi-media content including blogs, videos, photos, podcasts, history, desktop wallpapers, and stats. Thanks to the underlying social community features, fans and rivals can debate about the posted articles, news, scores, league tables, player transfers, and upcoming matches. OleOle’s integrated blogging system makes it possible for users to become reporters and commentators for their favourite teams and players. Blog posts, like all user-contributed content, get published to each relevant section on the site for fans to find quickly and easily.

“We are extremely excited about today’s launch – the feedback on the latest beta version has been tremendously positive,” said Doug Knittle, the founder and chief executive officer of OleOle. “OleOle is the only place online where football fans can unleash their passion for every team and player they follow - in one place, and in their language. Our blog system is the core of the site and has already attracted some of the sport’s most prominent bloggers - who have shut down their offsite blogs and moved everything over to OleOle. They see how the structure of our site gives them the freedom to continue writing what they want, when they want – but also gives them the promise of significantly increased readership and more recognition for their passion.”

The OleOle platform blends many social media functions together around each topical section so that fans can find information quickly and join in the discussion. Functions include:

• Customisable team, player, league sections composed of widgets that fans can configure, style and move.
• Integrated multi-lingual blogs for publishing posts directly to the relevant sections of the platform.
• Live Scores keep fans updated in real time online about matches they might not be able to see; they can check the results of past games, and see future schedules.
• A user-generated rich media Football Encyclopedia leverages Media Wiki technology and provides historians with a place to write about their teams’ history, record statistics and document match records.
• Throw-Ins - news articles or media found outside of OleOle that fans can submit, vote on and discuss. The most popular Throw-Ins rise to the front page.
• Fantasy Football games include five leagues, and an exclusive European Super- League lets fans assemble their dream teams and test their mettle as a team manager.
• Photo, video, and desktop wallpaper galleries contain media that fans created and want to share.

A complete list of features and functions can be found online at: http://www.oleole.com/features

About OleOle

OleOle (www.oleole.com) is the worldwide leading social media site for football fans.  Fans around the world need a site that enables news and information that is independent of the traditional media, leagues, clubs or organizations who deliver their own content. OleOle’s multi-lingual site enables football fans to connect with each other in an environment that has 100% fan-driven content - blogs, fan clubs, articles, news, podcasts, photos, videos, stats, and history.  With access to today’s leading social media technologies, football supporters can write, contribute, share, rate and vote on multimedia content in 10 languages.  Founded in 2006, OleOle is a privately-held international company with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California and offices in New Zealand as well as across Europe and South America.

Rebelling against the status-quo of “big media’s” stranglehold on the world’s sport, founder Doug Knittle enlisted the help of David Mok to create an alternative news source for football fans after he couldn’t find the information he needed during the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany. Together they started OleOle to break the mold of old-world geographic limitations and centralized news reporting that tethers large media conglomerates to the 1950’s. These renegades set out to build an online experience for football fans where the fans drive the news and discussions, not some commentator in a suit or a glassy-eyed editor behind a big walnut desk.

The founders shook up the ticketing industry in 2001 when Razorgator, the world first online ticket exchange, went live – enabling ticket holders anywhere to find buyers quickly and securely, and vice-versa. Razorgator quickly became one of the most successful disruptive technologies the ticketing industry has seen, and the concept was quickly copied by dozens of competitors.

The OleOle Football Platform provides football fans a unique destination - unlike any sports site anywhere – to get the real information on football news, gossip, rumors, and media - anywhere in the world. It is the world’s first global social media network, available in 10 languages to fans everywhere. OleOle is changing the definition “media company” and bringing breaking news past the filters, the censors and centralized reporting desks and putting it squarely in the hands of the fans.

1. What does OleOle do?

OleOle has created the world's leading global social media site that enables football (soccer) fans to report, discuss and get news and information on any team or league or player in professional football.

The OleOle Football Platform combines blogging, publishing, and media sharing with social community features so fans can follow and debate every move their favourite team makes without having to visit dozens of disparate websites.

The platform is a place for fans to easily find and share different types of information on their favourites – from live scores to fantasy football, photos to podcasts, history to forums. The football platform harnesses and organizes 100% fan-driven content across 10 languages.

2. How does OleOle benefit football fans?

Football is a global sport, but today’s online news outlets are inherently local. News and information on different teams requires fans to visit multiple sites, and this information is typically only available in the team’s native language. The most popular sites in football generally publish “unbiased” information, based on official news and written by reporters trying to remain neutral. Fans don’t want neutrality; they want the real, unfiltered news about their teams and the bias that goes along with it.

There are few outlets online today for a two-way discussion, and those are limited to specific teams or players. By enabling fans to report and discuss news on any team, match or player, and in 10 languages, OleOle users participate and drive discussions about topics they are passionate about. Through fan journalism, there’s no limit to the depth of coverage even for 2^nd or 3^rd division teams in the smallest of countries. OleOle aims to be the single largest source for football information both for the world’s most popular teams and also the “long tail” of teams, leagues and players.

3. What is the history of the company?

• The company was founded in December of 2006 and began initial beta testing of the platform in May of 2007. Over the next 9 months the company added functionality in 7 languages.
• The company became the defacto online presence of the 2007 Copa America in July. As the Official Hospitality Provider for this South American competition OleOle covered all matches in Venezuela.
• The Oceania Football Confederation launched their website on the OleOle Football Platform in July of 2007.
• In August 2007, OleOle became an official Travel and Hospitality Partner of the US Soccer Federation and US Men’s National Team.
• OleOle launched a Beta II version of the platform on April 28, 2008, and the first public version of the OleOle Football Platform was released on May 19, 2008 in 10 languages.

4. Who are the founders of the company?

Doug Knittle, chief executive officer, and David Mok, chief technology officer, founded the company in late 2006. They worked together previously at RazorGator, an online ticket broker also founded by Doug Knittle.

5. Where is the company located?

OleOle is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California (9777 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1004, Beverly Hills, CA 90212), has development offices in New Zealand as well as offices across South America and Europe.

6. Why are you located in the US where football isn’t very popular?

OleOle is a true global company with employees distributed around the world. There are millions of football fans in the United States that follow MLS teams as well clubs outside the US - America has other sports, but football is still quite popular.

Most importantly, California is an ideal place to headquarter a technology company -- to leverage the latest technologies originated in the region, as well as benefit from an experienced social media talent pool. California’s time zone is also a perfect half-way point between Asia and Europe, enabling more efficient global coordination. And, the weather can’t be beat.

7. How many employees does the company have?

The company has about 27 full time employees (May 2008) and also employs a team of localization experts. Bloggers and reporters are not employed by the company but some may benefit from revenue share based on advertising as well as official press credentials, paid travel to matches, and match tickets.

8. How is the company funded?

OleOle, LLC has been privately funded to date by its founders and other individual investors. The company’s social media platform has received approximately $5M USD in a Series A investment. For more information on investment, please contact us.

9. What kind of people use OleOle?

OleOle has primary three types of users:

Information seekers, who want to stay updated on their favourite teams, players and leagues. Typical football fans follow their national team as well as 1-3 professional clubs, and being able to find this information all on a single home page makes it easy to stay on top of scores, player transfers and upcoming matches.

Fans, who want more than just information, they have an opinion and aren’t afraid to share it. They actively support their favourite teams and clubs, and participate on OleOle by commenting, voting on content, discussing topics in forums, and submitting interesting news.

Football Fanatics, who devote hours each week to following their teams and want to actively share this information with others. These fans are sports journalists, or photo journalists, might work in football, or are simply aspiring amateur writers with day jobs. Football fanatics start and participate in online and offline fan clubs, blog about their teams on a regular basis, document team facts, history and stats, and love to debate with other fans and supporters of rival teams.

10. How many users does the company have?

OleOle has maintained about 30,000 active members through its Beta period, with hundreds of thousands of site visitors.

11. How big is the site? What does it cover?

OleOle covers all of professional football. This includes more than 170 competitions, 300 professional leagues, 208 national teams and football associations, 5,580 football clubs, and over 57,000 players. Each of these topics has a separate, user-controlled section on OleOle that offers photos, videos, facts and history, news, blogs, football scores, forums and much more.

Every section is available in each of ten languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

12. How is OleOle different from Facebook or MySpace or Orkut?

OleOle is not a social network, it’s a vertical social media platform. Football fans can interact on the site using many social community features, but the platform is designed to provide fans with a multi-lingual infrastructure to have two-way discussions and debates about the sport and specific topics.

The entire site is built around the “real-world” structure of football, and fans can find the teams and information they need, and discuss vote and comment or create new content. There are Fan Clubs that allow groups of people to organize around a specific team or player and focus on a local region. These are much more specific and representative of real world fan clubs, unlike the generic and huge groups setup on social networks.

13. How is OleOle different from Wordpress or Blogger?

Bloggers and reporters can and have shut their blogs on Wordpress and Blogger and moved their posts to OleOle because of the high concentrations of traffic around specific topics on the site. OleOle blog tools offer the same functionality as other popular blog tools, but are integrated into the OleOle Football Platform. That means bloggers don’t need to maintain separate websites themselves, and their posts can be instantly accessed by everyone on the Platform interested in that topic. As many bloggers know, it’s difficult to build an audience – it takes great content, time and some salesmanship. On OleOle, bloggers can focus on what they really love and what they’re good at - writing great content.

14. How does the company make money?

OleOle is building the largest vertical advertising platform focused on football properties. The OleOle vertical ad network will serve ads across OleOle and also on third-party sites and blogs. Football online is fractured today, so global advertisers must work with many small sites to get enough reach. On OleOle media buys can be global or local, segmented by user demographics, language and country, and section sponsorships are available to global brands.

In addition to advertising the company will offer other premium products and services that football fans want – merchandise, tickets and travel packages, internet TV and other exclusive content.