SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO-September 26, 1996: McGraw-Hill Home Interactive (MHHI) today announced the launch of Fledge (www.fledge.com), a customizable and personalized World Wide Web site for kids 10 and up. Fledge provides kids with the ability to tailor the look, feel and information available on the Internet to suit their interests, personality and individuality. In addition to featuring activities designed to engage kids, Fledge also offers personalized searches using a database of reviewed child-appropriate sites. Fledge is rated and approved for all audiences by the Recreational Software Advisory Council (RSACi), an independent non-profit organization, which has designed a rating system for Web sites which protects children and makes what kids see and experience on the Web enjoyable. "Fledge, the ultimate starting point for kids on the World Wide Web, combines personalized access to information and our commitment to providing an entertaining and educational site," said Bill Nisen, president of McGraw-Hill Home Interactive. "Besides being a great resource for kids and parents at home, teachers can also utilize the information and search capabilities available on Fledge to find supplemental activities on the Internet for their students."

Unique features of Fledge

Customize and Personalize: From the moment kids sign-up for their free Fledge account, they may individualize their Fledge Web site by selecting from a variety of graphic themes that best reflects his or her interest and tastes. For younger children, an outer space or prehistoric theme is available, while older children may select from "Pavement" or "Pure Guava" motifs. Kids may further customize and create their Fledge page by selecting key areas of interest and collecting favorite categories of Web sites.

Database of Reviewed Sites: Using Fledge, kids can search from a database of educational and entertaining Web sites, which have been hand-selected and reviewed for age appropriate content by the MHHI editorial staff. Fledge organizes kid-friendly sites in categories such as entertainment, pop culture, world events, school, sports, activities and hobbies, and science and technology. For example, in the school category, one may use the math search to help kids with algebra homework. In addition to using these seven primary categories, Fledge allows for personalized searches to be created and saved making a child's page uniquely tailored and individualized to their interests.

Supplementary Learning Resources: Due to an exclusive agreement with Tomorrow's Morning(tm), a leading national weekly newspaper for kids, Fledge provides kids with regularly updated headlines and links to daily news articles on Tomorrow's Morning Online. Fledge encourages kids to investigate the Question of the Day provided by Electronic Library, a general reference library(tm) from Infonautics Corporation. These daily questions motivate kids to test their general knowledge in various topics and challenge their researching skills by enabling them to separately link to Electric Library's database of more than one billion words and 28,000 images. Fledge offers other features and activities such as a publishing center, where works and writings from kids can be submitted by parents, teachers or kids themselves and posted on a MHHI staff-monitored bulletin board. Kids may also access an area called "Twitch" where content and activities are ever-changing (this is where MHHI will host contests and treasure hunts).

System Requirements

Fledge is powered by Oracle Corp. and requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 or greater or Netscape 2.0 or greater. Established in 1995, McGraw-Hill Home Interactive (http://www.mhhi.com) is based in South San Francisco, Calif. The division is dedicated to publishing consumer multimedia titles that equally emphasize education and entertainment in core subject areas such as science, math, social studies and language arts. MHHI's titles, targeted to children 8 to 14, engage their imaginations and stimulate their minds with entertaining narratives, while making parents comfortable with the educational value and proven experience of McGraw-Hill. McGraw-Hill Home Interactive is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

The McGraw-Hill Companies, founded in 1888, is a leading information services organization serving worldwide markets in education, business, finance, the professions and government. Revenues in 1995 exceeded $2.9 billion.