OleOle, the worldwide leading social media site for football fans, announced the acquisition and integration of nine more top football blogs, communities and forums.   By gathering together market-leading bloggers in multiple regions and across ten languages, OleOle is successfully building the world’s dominant social media site for football.  OleOle has attracted some of the leading independent football sites, most of which are the #1 blogs and forums focused on their respective club. After the successful integration of Arseblog, the award-winning blog on Arsenal FC, the company has subsequently added: The Lord of the Wing, Chelseablog, Harry Hotspur, Fans del Real Madrid, Boca Juniors Fans, Soccer-Art.co.uk, Football-Spot, and Real Madrid Talk (June 27) to its site.

Fan-site owners are attracted to OleOle because OleOle’s innovative global football platform allows them to share original multimedia content and breaking news to many more football fans than they otherwise could maintaining an independent blog or community.  No other site on the internet is built for sports fan interaction like OleOle, and bloggers can do much more than just write – OleOle offers photo and video sharing, live match reporting and commentary, fan clubs, football wallpapers and graphics, community discussion as well as document club and player history in an extensive online wiki.  Bloggers are taking advantage of OleOle’s unique publishing tools purposefully built around the real-world structure of professional football.

Bloggers are football fans first and want to write passionately about breaking news and rumours in a social and sometimes viral setting for the benefit of as many fans as possible.  All content on OleOle is 100% user-generated and completely user-moderated, and site owners who have moved their blogs and communities to OleOle continue to remain independent and in complete creative control.  OleOle plans to continue adding top blogs, forums and fan communities to the global site and is currently evaluating top independent sites from the UK, Germany, Spain, and France.

OleOle is adding real-time, interactive live blogging to enable football fans to pick sides as they interact around match reports – from their computer and from the stadium

ZURICH, Switzerland -- 5 June 2008 -- OleOle, the worldwide leading social media site for football fans, today announced that it has added an interactive MatchCentre to its global football platform in time for EURO 2008 in Austria and Switzerland. Football fans can visit the OleOle MatchCentre before matches to get pre-game commentary and squad details, and during matches for real-time play by play and stats, live blogging, match photos and videos, and “smack talk” discussions with fans of rival teams. After the game they can access post-match commentary, pictures and videos taken at the match by fans, and a “Eurocast” podcast that includes fan critique and commentary called-in right from the stadium.

Football is a global sport but the most visited website generally publishes “unbiased” information based on official news and written by reporters trying to remain neutral. Fans don’t want neutrality; they want the real, unfiltered news about their teams and the bias that goes along with it. OleOle’s MatchCentre uses the same interactive approach found on the rest of the site and makes static live match reports and football scores obsolete. It provides a unique online experience in 10 languages for fans and the same kind of banter and insight found at the stadium or pub.

MatchCentre highlights OleOle’s new Live Blog function which enables minute by minute match commentary, insight and documentation of plays from a blogger’s perspective. Live Blogging has an interface tailored to entering in match plays quickly and efficiently, in a time-based match structure that includes penalties, goals, and substitutions. Bloggers type in a comment, submit, and their screen refreshes via AJAX technology, and the match blog is immediately refreshed for viewers. Fans can quickly flip back and forth between multiple live blogs to read opposing views and different opinions on the same play.

MatchCentre enables users to show their colours and change their screen display by selecting one of the teams, and they can pick live commentary from the bloggers who support their side and correspond with them directly. Fans can also discuss the match with other supporters through the stream-of-thought SmackTalk widget, a real-time comment system that enables fans to actively participate in and shape the discussion.

The Arseblogger, creator of Arseblog, OleOle’s recently acquired award-winning weblog on Arsenal FC, will also produce an exclusive, fan-driven EURO 2008 report as a podcast – the Eurocast - at the end of each game day. Fans can call in live from the stadium while watching a match and comment on anything – the crowd, team line-ups, and questionable reffing decisions. The Eurocast will feature selected fan messages along with insightful match commentary and will be available to download from OleOle’s MatchCentre and from Apple iTunes. Local call-in phone numbers are:

• UK +44 (20) 7193 6971
• Switzerland +41 (44) 586 62 08

“We see football supporters across geographies and languages looking for ways to interact around live matches other than just following the score. OleOle’s MatchCentre is the first technology that gives every fan the opportunity to become a global reporter or commentator,” said Doug Knittle, CEO and founder of OleOle. “Football news sites just don’t give passionate football fans what they’re looking for – the ability to drive the conversation about their team. MatchCentre is another innovative way OleOle is putting football into the hands of the fans through social media.”

About OleOle
OleOle is the worldwide leading social media site for football fans. Fans around the world need a site that publishes news and information independent from the traditional media, leagues, clubs or organizations who deliver their own content. OleOle’s multi-lingual site enables football fans to connect with each other in an environment that has 100% fan-driven content - blogs, fan clubs, articles, news, podcasts, photos, videos, football scores, stats, and history. Using social media technologies, football supporters can write, contribute, share, rate and vote on multimedia content in 10 languages. Founded in 2006, OleOle is a privately-held international company with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California and offices in New Zealand as well as across Europe and South America. For more information visit: www.oleole.com