“Launched in September of 2005, Unyk.com, the “smart” address book, has been arousing growing interest for the past few months, surpassing in the process its historic rival Plaxo in terms of traffic and audience.”

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Unyk.com: Finally an Alternative to Plaxo!

Montréal, QC – January 14^th, 2008 - Launched in September of 2005, Unyk.com, the “smart” address book, has been arousing growing interest for the past few months, surpassing in the process its historic rival Plaxo in terms of traffic and audience.

Unyk.com allows users to manage their own contact information in their contacts' address books themselves, and reciprocally keeps their address books always up-to-date, without having to do anything.

The product created by this small Montreal start-up seems to be on a roll. With 30,000 new users each day, 7 million users in total and almost 3 million unique users each month, Unyk.com has what it takes for its main competitor to be concerned. Although still maintaining a bigger presence in Latin America, the Unyk wave has slowly been reaching North America and Europe. In fact, the website has jumped over 3000 ranks on Alexa and has been getting close to reaching the 1400th spot.

“For the past few years, there has been an explosion of websites that let users find other people and multiply the number of contacts they have (social-networking sites, professional networks, dating sites), but nothing has ever really been done to make it easier for people to manage the contacts they already have”, says Sebastien Brault, the president and founder of Unyk.com. “Unyk has created a smart address book, which allows users to group all their contacts in one place, updates itself automatically, and can be used on various different platforms (Outlook, Toolbar, social-networking sites, and soon on your mobile phone).”

When you ask him to explain Unyk's sudden growth in comparison with Plaxo's, its president and founder has a simple explanation: “The need for a new generation address book has been around for a few years already, and so you just have to be patient. We chose to build ourselves by respecting users and strong ethics principles on the Web. Our strength is that we have a simple product whose positioning has never changed: we want to be the address book of the future and nothing else.”

UNYK.com is a smart address book capable of updating itself automatically. Each person keeps his own information updated in UNYK.com, and UNYK takes care of updating his contacts' address books. The site also offers various complementary tools, including UNYK Toolbar, a toolbar for Internet Explorer, as well as UNYK Syncro, a synch tool used with Outlook.

Launched in September 2005 and available in six different languages, the web site already counts 7 million users and 3 million unique visitors each month. With over ten years of experience in the Web, the UNYK team has acquired substantial expertise in the virtual community and social network sector. UNYK is a privately held and funded company. More information on the company available at: www.unyk.com

“Montreal-based start-up UNYK.com, a smart online address book capable of updating itself automatically, just launched UNYK Toolbar, an Internet Explorer-compatible toolbar which enables users to access all their UNYK address book’s functionalities while browsing. UNYK Toolbar joins UNYK Synchro, a program that synchronizes contact information with Outlook, in a series of tools meant to transform UNYK.com into a multi-platform service that allows users to manage and keep a back-up of their address book, which will be accessible to them at all times.”

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UNYK.com address book becomes a multi-platform service by launching UNYK Toolbar

Montreal, QC – October 9^th, 2007 - Montreal-based start-up UNYK.com, a smart online address book capable of updating itself automatically, just launched UNYK Toolbar, an Internet Explorer-compatible toolbar which enables users to access all their UNYK address book’s functionalities while browsing. UNYK Toolbar joins UNYK Synchro, a program that synchronizes contact information with Outlook, in a series of tools meant to transform UNYK.com into a multi-platform service that allows users to manage and keep a back-up of their address book, which will be accessible to them at all times.

UNYK’s goal in offering these tools is for its address book to be a tool that follows the user everywhere he goes. “We want UNYK to be more widely available to the users. The various available platforms allow users to have access to their address book everywhere, whenever they need to use it,” says Karine Vincent, marketing director. “That is why we are also planning on launching our mobile platform for UNYK, giving users access to our service via cell phone. We aim to make UNYK a useful and practical service, which is complementary to social-networking platforms!”

The UNYK Toolbar enables users to access their UNYK address book while browsing the net in different ways. First of all, users can search for existing contacts, as well as add new ones in one click of a button. The toolbar also alerts the user of birthdays or contact updates among its contacts. What's more, its “Autofill” function automatically fills out web forms (for example, sign-up forms for a web site or delivery forms for an Internet purchase) with the user’s professional or personal contact information. Finally, it allows users to search the web.

UNYK’s service offering to users also includes UNYK Synchro, a program that allows users to update all of their contacts’ information in Outlook and Outlook Express, from the UNYK address book. UNYK Synchro also lets users update their information and add contacts directly from Outlook, as well as add the UNYK ID to the Outlook signature, on outgoing emails. New functionalities are also in the works, to be launched by then end of the year.

UNYK.com is a smart address book that updates itself automatically. Each person keeps his own information updated in UNYK.com, and UNYK takes care of updating all address books. The user fills out his personal and professional contact information on his profile on UNYK.com. Then, he imports all the information contained in all his address books (Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc.), and controls who has access to what information. Finally, when a user changes address or phone numbers, that information is automatically updated in all his contacts’ address books, and vice-versa. The site also assigns the user a UNYK ID, to make it easier to share information with others.

UNYK.com is an online contact management specialist. Launched in September 2005 and available in six different languages, the web site already has 6 million users in over 180 countries. With over ten years of experience in the Web, the UNYK team has acquired substantial expertise in the virtual community and social network sector. UNYK is a privately held and funded company. More information on the company available at: www.unyk.com

“Montreal-based start-up UNYK.com, a smart online address book capable of updating itself automatically, has announced, as it celebrates its 2nd birthday of operation, that it has reached 6 million unique users on the website, with over 150 million contacts managed in total. These are very promising results for this Canadian company that intends to revolutionize the way contact information is managed.”

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Canadian company UNYK celebrates its 2nd birthday with 6 million unique users and 150 million contacts

Montreal, QC - September 18^th, 2007 - Montreal-based start-up UNYK.com, a smart online address book capable of updating itself automatically, has announced, as it celebrates its 2nd birthday of operation, that it has reached 6 million unique users on the website, with over 150 million contacts managed in total. These are very promising results for this Canadian company that intends to revolutionize the way contact information is managed.

“After two years of operation, and virtually no marketing budget, these results are even better than what we dared imagine, and prove we are responding to a real need: facilitating the exchange and management of multiple and always changing contact information between people. We have created the first Address book 2.0”, says Sebastien Brault, president and founder of UNYK.com.

The concept of the UNYK product is simple: the user does not need to bother with updating his contacts’ information. Each person keeps his own information updated in UNYK.com, and UNYK takes care of updating all address books.

As such, the user creates and manages his digital identity in UNYK.com (contact information, photo, work history, education, professional and personal interests). Then, he imports all the information contained in his address books (Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc.), and controls who has access to what information. Finally, when a user changes a piece of information, that information is automatically updated in all his contacts’ address books, and vice-versa. The site also assigns the user a UNYK ID, to make it easier to share information with others.

Respecting the strictest rules in terms of data confidentiality and email sending, UNYK obtained, as soon as it launched, TRUSTe and SenderScore certifications, and is very much dedicated to the security of its users’ information.

Launched in English, French, and Spanish, the obvious success of the service in these core markets encouraged the company to launch the site in three more languages in 2006: German, Italian and Portuguese. “The fact that we are available in 6 languages has given our product a real international dimension,” says Karine Vincent, Marketing director for UNYK. “We now have users in as many as 180 countries across the world”.

The UNYK team, composed of 15 people, is actually used to being successful with its web services. They are the ones behind Netclub, a Canadian dating site that was recently sold to the American leader Match.com. And they do not intend to stop there. “We now want to become the online contact management and digital identity specialists,” says Taoufik El-Jamali, Project management director at UNYK.

Launched in September 2005 and available in six different languages, UNYK already has 6 million users in over 180 countries. With over ten years of experience in the Web, the UNYK team has acquired substantial expertise in the virtual community and social network sector. UNYK is a privately held company, funded by venture capital. More information on the company available at: www.unyk.com