Homeportfolio.Com™ To Launch Designcast™ At High Point

Furniture World Magazine

Homeportfolio.com, a leading Internet destination for premium home design products, will launch DesignCast, an innovative way to bring the latest news from High Point 1999, the largest home furnishings show in the world, direct to consumers and design professionals in real time via the Homeportfolio.com website. The first webcast to preview new home furnishing products, Homeportfolio.com's DesignCast will premiere on the first day of High Point, Thursday, October 14th at 12:00 pm EST and will be broadcast with updated information on the site until Sunday, October 31st. As a benefit to those consumers unable to attend the nation's top design show, Homeportfolio.com's DesignCast will create opportunity for the public at large to view upcoming home furnishing trends and the best design products and styles for Spring 2000. Additionally, content from DesignCast will be archived as a future resource on the Homeportfolio.com website. High Point, located in North Carolina, is the largest home furnishings trade show in the world and will offer 2400 manufacturers the opportunity to showcase the finest in furniture, case-goods, upholstery, accents, accessories, lighting fixtures, wall decor, linens, rugs and home textiles. Representing Homeportfolio.com, leading design authority Cheryl Katz will select the best new products with a video production team. Images will then be electronically posted on the premium home design site along with product features and upcoming trends for Spring 2000. DesignCast will provide viewers with up to date information as it occurs on the showfloor. DesignCast will be accessible through a dedicated area on the Homeportfolio.com home page under the "What's New" section. Product images and show content will rotate continuously allowing viewers to see images in real time, providing an online experience enabling remote participation. In addition, repeated broadcasts will allow consumers to view show highlights at their leisure. Homeportfolio.com has also established an exclusive URL number for the site's registered users who will be able to join in on the exclusive press preview which will be available from 9:00 am -12:00 pm on Thursday, October 14,1999. "Approximately 71,000 people from the design and press communities are expected to attend High Point this year," says Linda Lewi, Vice President of Marketing for Homeportfolio.com. "High Point has always been exclusive to the design and press communities. Homeportfolio.com wanted to create an opportunity where the whole world can attend High Point and see the latest trends and products in home furnishings just by clicking their mouse." DesignCast will be hosted by leading design authority Cheryl Katz, co-owner of C&J Katz Studio, a design studio known for re-inventing and establishing company images. A member of Metropolitan Home's Design 100 Hall of Fame, Cheryl is the design columnist for The Boston Globe Magazine and a contributing editor to The Boston Globe, American Homestyle and Gardening and many other publications. "I believe in de-mystifying design and making it accessible to all consumers by choosing products carefully," says Cheryl Katz, Homeportfolio.com DesignCast Spokesperson. "Design should be viewed as a recipe that is easy to follow. Homeportfolio.com facilitates this concept by inviting the consumer directly into the world of interior design. I am thrilled to be a part of this event." About Homeportfolio.com Homeportfolio.com, launched in January 1998, is the first portfolio site offering the most comprehensive selection of the world's premium home design goods, selected by industry experts. Homeportfolio.com is transforming the highly fragmented $250 billion home design market by reorganizing the industry around the interests of the consumer. By providing the first and only comprehensive resource for home design, Homeportfolio.com is a single Internet destination where consumers can learn about, shop for and buy premium and hard-to-find home design products. Headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts Homeportfolio.com recently completed a $20 million second round of funding led by Oak Investment Partners. Company Overview Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts, HomePortfolio Inc. has the distinction of being the world's first home design portfolio site. Homeportfolio.com is the first of a new category of sites on the Internet, reorganizing the home design industry completely around the interests of the consumer - a powerful new approach that transforms communication and commerce in the design market, offering the consumer products, services and information from one location online. By aggregating the fragmented home design industry into one place, Homeportfolio.com enables consumers to easily find, research, save, share and buy the products the world's best home design products. Homeportfolio.com was born out of the recognition that shopping for home design can be a frustrating, time-consuming experience. HomePortfolio Inc.'s mission is to enable consumers to create the homes of their dreams. To make this a reality HomePortfolio built the world's largest premium home design product database, featuring products selected by independent industry experts. Using Homeportfolio.com's leading technology, including proprietary attribute matching technology, enables easy product searches across the entire market by attribute, category, style and similarity. Homeportfolio.com also enables consumers to rate products by preference, and collect them in a Personal Portfolio"' That can be forwarded electronically for review and comment from designated third parties. A powerful online shopping tool, Personal Portfolio" makes it easy to communicate with builders, architects, designers and friends. Additionally, Homeportfolio.com provides the consumer with the option to see their selections first hand through the retail locator function of the site. The first open marketplace for home design, Homeportfolio.com is not limited to on-line purchasing alone, but providing additional technology and resources to find information, research, see and purchase the premium selections of their choice. Horneportfolio.com Homeportfolio.com offers manufacturers and vendors two ways to participate. Manufacturers can place their catalogs online, and Homeportfolio.com will direct buyers to brick-and-mortar stores to purchase items. Vendors can also be listed in the site's yellow pages listing, free of charge. More and more HomePortfolio manufacturers are choosing to sell their products directly through Homeportfolio.com's e-commerce portion of the site. Manufacturers provide a catalog and price list to HomePortfolio, in addition to sales information such as SKUs, shipping costs, contact names, e-mail addresses, etc. Homeportfolio then places the manufacturer's items on the web site with a "where to buy" button. The comprehensive e-commerce initiative, to be announced in October 1999, will be launched via market segment, beginning with manufacturer and product offerings in the area of architectural details, such as lighting, tile and decorative fixtures. The customer can select products and choose numerous options. Selected products will be added to the customer's shopping cart, where shipping and tax information will be available. At checkout, the customer provides a credit card number and shipping information. Homeportfolio.com will certify the credit card via CyberSource, process the transaction and send a secure order using email to the manufacturer for fulfillment. Once the product is shipped, the manufacturer sends an email to the customer, indicating the ship date, credit card amount, shipping and tax. HomePortfolio Management Team HomePortfolio Inc. has brought together an outstanding team dedicated to transforming the home design industry. They come from the worlds of architecture, interior design, publishing, retailing, cutting-edge software development, top-tier journalism, and embody a passion for design, excellence and customer service. Rolly Rouse - Founder and Chairman: Rolly Rouse is a seasoned business builder with a track record of using computers, systems, and software to solve housing industry problems. Before founding HomePortfolio Inc., he was President of Conservation Conversions, a company that orchestrated multi-million dollar multifamily housing renovation products and re-capitalizations. He also served for eight years as Chief Operating Officer at Citizens Conservation Corporation, the nationally acclaimed energy services company, where he tripled revenues in five years and led the development of trailblazing systems, software, and construction management services. His career spans the fields of architectural design, engineering, project finance, construction management, and consulting services. Rouse holds undergraduate degrees in both Architecture and Engineering from Yale University. Tom Ashbrook - Founder and Vice Chairman Tom Ashbrook brings more than 20 years of editorial and management experience to the company. An award-winning journalist before turning to the Internet, Ashbrook has a long record of bringing critical information to consumers in compelling presentation. Ashbrook was previously Assistant Business Editor, Foreign Editor and Deputy Managing Editor of the Boston Globe, where he was active in strategic planning, new product development, and newsroom management. He guided day to day operations for the paper's editorial side, managing a staff of over 300 and leading The Sunday Globe to record circulation. Ashbrook was a 1995 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and received his BA degree in History from Yale University. Shawn Becker - Founder and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Becker is an expert systems architect and is the driving force behind HomePortfolio Inc.'s leading edge technology. Becker joined HomePortfolio Inc. from the MIT Media Lab. As chief software engineer for the MIT open architecture television project, Television of the Future, Becker developed imaging systems used for acquisition, real-time processing, and display of digital 2-D and 3-D model-based video. Before the MIT Media Lab, Dr. Becker was with [title?] Comtrex, Inc., where he headed the redesign of a graphical user interface for real-time robotic simulation and control. While at Cimetrix Becker also helped develop the prototype 3-D volumetric modeling environment used by the Ford Motor Company's Advanced Automotive Design Group. Dr. Becker holds a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab, a B.S. in Design Engineering Technology Brigham Young University and an M.S. in Computer Science from Brigham Young University, where he developed tools and techniques for visualization and measurement of medical imaging data. Linda Lewi - Vice President, Marketing With over 25 years of marketing experience, Linda Lewi is nationally recognized in the field of consumer trend analysis and the development of innovative marketing and communications strategies. Ms. Lewi joined HomePortfolio from The Rockport Company, where she served as Senior Vice President, Global Brand Marketing. At Rockport, Lewi headed up the global brand marketing department, and was responsible for advertising, corporate communications, retail presence and retail marketing. Lewi's successful repositioning of Rockport gained her recent acclaim in Brand Marketing magazine, where she was featured as a leading brand builder. Prior to Rockport, Lewi designed and managed acclaimed global and national campaigns for Lotus, Reebok and Heinz, among others. Brian Kardon - Vice President, Business Development: Kardon comes to HomePortfolio with more than 18 years of experience in business development and marketing strategy, with expertise in content, media and distribution. He joins HomePortfolio from Cahners, the world's largest business information provider and magazine publisher, where he was Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. Under Mr. Kardon's leadership revenues at Cahners more than doubled to $1 billion and the company successfully completed alliances with Microsoft Expedia (for Cahners' Hotel & Travel Index) and uBID. In 1996, Kardon helped launch Manufacturing Marketplace, the leading online destination for manufacturing professionals. Prior to Cahners, Kardon serves as Director at Braxton Associates, an international strategy consulting firm. Kardon managed the Braxton global marketing strategy practice, working with clients that included Coca-Cola, Nabisco, Merck, Campbell Soup and Sears. Mr. Kardon received his BS and MBA degrees from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.