VICINITY CORPORATION ANNOUNCES A NEW AND IMPROVED
MAPBLAST! SERVICE FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB

Easiest, Free Mapping Service Now Touts Advanced Features
Enabling Users to Create, Customize and Enhance Web-based Maps

PALO ALTO, Calif., December 2, 1996 -- Vicinity Corporation, the premier supplier of private label yellow pages and GeoEnabled content and services on the Web, today announced the immediate availability of its new and improved MapBlast!^TM, a free, interactive mapping service for the World Wide Web.

      MapBlast! (http://www.mapblast.com) allows users to explore the United States at road-level and create fun and useful maps. One of the key new features of MapBlast! is the ability to select from one of four color schemes to depict sunrise, midday, sunset or late night. When creating a map, users can take advantage of the multiple zoom option to create the ideal perspective of the map. And, users can overlay a variety of new icons, making it easier to incorporate the customized map into a their home page or small business web site.

      "MapBlast! was first introduced in August, 1995, and has been a phenomenal success, giving end-users and businesses the opportunity to utilize the technology we offer our commercial customers," said Hal Logan, president and CEO of Vicinity Corporation. "With the new features now available, we hope people will use MapBlast! for all their U.S. mapping needs, whether embedding a map on their web site, emailing friends a map to a social function, or creating a map to a neighborhood gathering. And, we're sure they'll have fun doing it."

      Once a map is created, users can easily link to a number of Vicinity's customers' web sites to access and utilize other services offered by the company through its YourTown^TM family of GeoEnabled services. For example, users can request turn-by-turn driving directions, detailing how to get from one place to another; or they can perform a proximity search that finds a specific business venue nearest to the users location.

About Vicinity Corporation

      Established in August of 1995, Vicinity Corporation is the premier supplier of private label yellow pages and innovative GeoEnabled (map-based) services on the World Wide Web. The company licenses its YourTown family of services to leading web search and directory services, travel services, Yellow Pages providers, newspapers, national and regional retail operations and other businesses who brand the Vicinity services with their own company look, feel and attitude.

      Vicinity also offers MapBlast! its free, interactive mapping service that enables end-users to generate a digital map for U.S. locations, embed it in a Web page or email it to others. Vicinity has expanded into the European markets to offer high quality, detailed, interactive, web-based maps for most of continental Europe. For more information, please access the company's web site at http://www.vicinity.com, or contact Helen Kendrick at 415/237-0311 ext. 249, or hkendrick@vicinity.com.

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YourTown, MapBlast! and GeoEnabled are trademarks of Vicinity Corporation. Vicinity is a trademark of Vicinity Corporation. All other names are properties of their respective holders.

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