Press Releases

Lithium Technologies Welcomes New Vice President of Community Management

Joe Cothrel brings extensive online community management expertise to Lithium's management team

Emeryville, CA – May 30, 2006 – Lithium Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of on-demand customer communities and social networks to the enterprise, is pleased to announce that Joe Cothrel has joined its management team as Vice President of Community Management. Joe, an industry veteran and a well known figure, is widely considered one of the preeminent experts in the area of managing online communities and has written numerous articles in the field. Joe will manage Lithium's Community Management and Moderation Professional Services Group.

The increasing adoption by the enterprise of online customer communities and social networks as a core business strategy, along with Lithium's fast growth, is driving the increased demand for community management and moderation services.

"Lithium provides solutions that focus on our clients' business goals. We are not just a hosted community platform." said Greg Joy, VP of Sales at Lithium Technologies. "We provide a complete turnkey solution that ensures our clients' online customer communities are successful."

"Lithium has a proud reputation of powering the internet's most successful online customer communities," said Michel Thouati, CEO at Lithium Technologies. "We are thrilled to be able to contribute to our clients' business success by making Joe's extensive experience and knowledge available."

Joe is widely recognized for his pioneering work with online customer communities. His focus has been on measuring and maximizing the return on investment of enterprise customer communities. As consultant and researcher, Joe has worked with more than 200 businesses that have deployed online community technologies. Previously, Joe has worked as Vice President of Research at Participate Systems, and as a Senior Researcher at the Andersen Global Best Practices Group where he focused on community technologies and business process improvement for the enterprise.

Over the years, Joe has devoted significant time to advancing the application of online communities to businesses, and his publications are classics in the field. He has studied, with partners in academia, the impact of online communities on: marketing (Texas A&M University); social and organizational dynamics (University of Toronto); and social networks (University of Virginia). His articles have appeared in journals such as MIT Sloan Management Review, IBM's Knowledge Directions, Strategy & Leadership, and the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. He has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, CIO, Computerworld, and other publications.

About Lithium Technologies

Lithium Technologies provides market-leading solutions for building successful online communities. Lithium's solutions enables clients to increase brand loyalty, sales, and customer satisfaction while decreasing customer care costs. Clients include Cingular, Forbes, Sony, Scholastic.com, Nokia, and Dell. Lithium is privately held with headquarters in Emeryville, CA. For more information, visit www.lithium.com. .or call 510-653-6800.

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Lithium Media Contact: Elizabeth Crosta, Ogilvy PR, elizabeth.crosta@ogilvypr.com, (415) 677-2713