Community Connect's BlackPlanet.com Members Chat With Recording Star Through SolidSpace's ChatBlazer Solution

Chat and Instant Messaging Product Will Allow Thousands of Members To Meet John Legend on June 22


WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., June 15, 2005- SolidSpace LLC, a leading provider of dynamic hosting infrastructure and client support, today announced that Community Connect Inc., the leading provider of online community, will use SolidSpace's ChatBlazer solution to host a high-profile celebrity chat with recording star John Legend on June 22.

The star will chat with members of Community Connect's BlackPlanet.com to celebrate Black Music Month in June. Community Connect officials are expecting more than 5,000 members to take advantage of this unique opportunity.

While Community Connect has used the ChatBlazer solution to create and maintain smaller chat rooms for nearly two years, this represents the first time the operator of online communities for U.S. ethnic audiences has presented a celebrity chat on such a grand scale. The ChatBlazer technology is built to scale to thousands of users and will easily support the large groups expected to take part in the events.

Community Connect operates three online communities aimed at specific ethnic audiences: AsianAvenue.com for Asian Americans, MiGente.com for second- and third-generation Latinos, and BlackPlanet.com for African Americans of all backgrounds. The sites offer a wide range of services including social communications, job boards and dating connections.

Community Connect has used ChatBlazer to create nearly a dozen chat rooms for each of the three communities. Chat rooms in each community support specific audiences depending on age, interests and sexual orientation. Community Connect also has given members the ability to use ChatBlazer to create more targeted chat rooms aimed at their own field of interest.

Community Connect Inc. has offered chat services since it launched its first web site in 1997.

The first six years, the company created chat rooms using in-house technology. It shifted to ChatBlazer in 2003 because of the technology's stability, reliability and feature functionality.


About SolidSpace, LLC
SolidSpace, LLC is a leading provider of robust hosting infrastructure and client support for the software industry, enabling enterprises to deliver their software as a service seamlessly and economically. SolidSpace's solutions provide website, application and database hosting, managed services, colocation and broadband services. SolidSpace, LLC is headquartered in Winston-Salem , NC , and is a portfolio company of SilkRoad Equity LLC (www.silkroadequity.com) Additional information about SolidSpace, LLC services can be found at www.solidspace.com .