Will Broadcast Super Bowl Ads Score with the Internet Crowd? Keynote to Report to Media

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Tuesday, January 27, 2004; 12:00 AM

SAN MATEO, Calif., – January 27, 2004 – Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”), The Internet Performance Authority®, announced today that it will closely monitor and report to the media the download performance of the Web site home pages of all the major Super Bowl advertisers from now until after the game on Sunday, February 1.

The Super Bowl ads are extremely high profile and costly to create and run. Historically they have generated crowds of Internet traffic to the Web sites of advertisers as well. Unexpectedly large online crowds can be a double-edged sword, however, overwhelming Web sites causing them to be slow or worse, unavailable.

Keynote will be measuring the performance or “response times” of the Super Bowl advertisers’ Web sites for people attempting to log on to the sites both before and immediately after the ads run on one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year.

It’s important that advertisers prepare their Web sites in advance for the additional traffic that may be generated during this worldwide media event, which has an expected viewership over 130 million people in the United States alone.

“If an ad “pulls” as hoped, it’s possible that Web site response times may degrade as crowds of viewers pour on to the site causing the advertiser to lose a valuable opportunity to make a good first impression on a potential customer,” said Roopak Patel, senior Internet analyst for Keynote. “When companies drive traffic to their site from another channel and the Web site fails or is unusable, a major opportunity can be lost to generate leads, make actual sales or engender good will. Considering the cost of a Super Bowl spot, the last thing an advertiser wants is to lose that momentum through a poorly performing Web site.”

In a recent Arizona Daily Sun article, Greg Clausen, executive director of the Midwest-based Cramer-Krasselt Co., a top dog in the Super Bowl commercial game said, "There is a huge amount of people just waiting to see the ads. The Super Bowl is not just about the Super Bowl anymore."

"The Super Bowl has come a long way," Clausen continued. "It's probably the only vehicle where the advertising itself is as important as the programming carrying it."

Keynote will report on how accessible these sites are to online users as measured from 25 cities in the U.S. and if performance degraded on any specific sites during the Super Bowl Sunday. Preliminary results will be available starting the afternoon of Monday, February 2, Reporters may schedule interviews with Keynote analysts by calling or emailing the contacts on this release. Keynote will issue a press release on February 3 with the complete results.

Keynote is measuring the performance and availability of the home pages of major advertisers every hour around the clock over T1/T3 connections from 25 metropolitan areas around the world. Benchmark measurements of the selected web sites have already begun.

Keynote maintains the world’s largest and most statistically accurate and representative 24/7 real time Web site measurement and monitoring infrastructure for understanding and optimizing performance from the end user perspective. Keynote is capturing the response times of the Web sites from measurement computers located in 25 U.S. cities placed on the following backbones: Atlanta Uunet, Boston Uunet, Chicago Uunet, Cincinnati C&W, Cleveland Genuity, Dallas Uunet, Denver Qwest, Detroit Level3, Houston Uunet, Kansas City Sprint, Los Angeles Qwest, Miami Uunet, Milwaukee Cogent, Minneapolis Genuity, New York AT&T, Philadelphia Level3, Phoenix AT&T, Pittsburgh MH2, Portland MH1, San Diego Level 3, San Francisco Sprint, Seattle Internap, St. Louis Level3, Tampa Qwest, Washington D.C. Qwest.

About Keynote
Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems, Inc., (Nasdaq “KEYN”), The Internet Performance Authority®, is the worldwide leader in Web performance measurement and management services that improve the quality of e-business. Keynote’s services enable corporate enterprises to monitor, benchmark, test, diagnose and optimize their e-business systems both inside and outside the firewall. Approximately 2,200 corporate IT departments and 17,000 individual subscribers rely on the company's easy-to-use and cost-effective services to increase revenues and reduce downtime costs, without requiring additional complex and costly software implementations.

Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at www.keynote.com or by phone in the U.S. at 650-403-2400.

Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective are registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2004 Keynote Systems, Inc.

Public Relations Contacts:
Dan Berkowitz, Keynote Systems, Inc.,
(650) 403-3305,
dberkowitz@keynote.com

Della Lowe, Keynote Systems,
Inc., (650) 403-3233,
dlowe@keynote.com