MySpace Comedy Celebrates One Year Anniversary with Unique Programs at the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MySpace announced today the first anniversary of MySpace Comedy, a creative community designed for comedians to engage with fans and share their talent. With 40,000 comedians worldwide, MySpace Comedy is the largest online community for comics and fans of comedy and has been the launch pad for talent such as Nick Swardson, Owen Benjamin, Russell Peters, Steve Byrne, Carlos Mencia, and Katt Williams.

“MySpace has supported me more in the last year than my family has supported me in my entire life!” said comedian Nick Swardson.

To celebrate the anniversary, MySpace is partnering with Just for Laughs, the world’s largest comedy festival taking place in Montreal, Canada from July 12 – 22, 2007. MySpace is the lead sponsor of the Just For Laughs Festival’s New Faces and Masters shows, two of the festival’s most popular for discovering comedic talent. MySpace will also broadcast live video footage from the festival and host various comedic programs on the ground.

“Our goal is to reach comedians and comedy fans worldwide and Just For Laughs is a great partner to spread the shtick,” said Josh Brooks, VP of Content for MySpace.

Beginning today, in celebration of the Just For Laughs Festival’s 25^th anniversary, MySpace Comedy will feature 25 daily video clips of top comedians performing at past Just For Laughs Festivals. The promotional clips include performances by Dave Chappelle, Dane Cook, Drew Carey, Ray Romano, Jeff Foxworthy, and Bill Hicks amongst others and can be viewed on the official Just for Laughs MySpace profile (http://www.myspace.com/justforlaughs). Comedy fans will be able to embed video clips on their MySpace profiles and send the clips virally to friends.

“Just For Laughs is thrilled to be partnering with MySpace in celebration of our 25^th Anniversary. MySpace’s comedy portal has been an unbelievable vehicle to the comedy community,” said Maureen Taran, VP of Programming for Just for Laughs/Festival Division. “We are excited to celebrate together some of the industry’s brightest stars of today and hope to uncover some of the greats of tomorrow.”

As part of the MySpace sponsorship, MySpace members will gain first-hand access to the Just For Laughs Festival’s closely-guarded New Faces and Masters shows.

• New Faces: This event is one of the biggest highlights of the Festival, and will feature 20 relatively unknown comedians from around the world. All New Faces talent will have MySpace profiles and their pictures will be featured on the MySpace Just for Laughs profile. New Faces has been a launch pad for many well-known comedians and will be hosted by Tom Papa.
• Masters: Masters features comedians who have graduated from New Faces and are back to share fresh material. Masters will be hosted this year by Lewis Black.

MySpace Comedy will also feature live daily video coverage of the Just For Laughs Festival on the official profile (http://www.myspace.com/justforlaughs).

With 40,000 comedians currently using MySpace Comedy, it is already the largest online community for comics and fans of comedy. Profile features allow comedians to post tour dates, share audio/ video clips, and interact directly with their fans. Additionally, MySpace Comedy spotlights comedy events around the country, aggregates funny viral videos and offers comedy specific forums where members can trade jokes and talk about artists. MySpace Comedy recently launched Secret Standup, a new franchise allowing fans to obtain advance notice of intimate, free performances by the industry’s hottest comedians. Previous shows have included comedians Carlos Mencia, Jamie Kennedy, and Russell Peters.

Fans can learn more about MySpace Comedy by visiting the profile located at (http://www.myspace.com/aplaceforcomedy) or by becoming a friend of the Secret Standup profile (http://www.myspace.com/secretstandup).

About MySpace.com

MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc., is the premier lifestyle portal for connecting with friends, discovering popular culture, and making a positive impact on the world. By integrating web profiles, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail, music streaming, music videos, photo galleries, classified listings, events, groups, college communities, and member forums, MySpace has created a connected community. As the first ranked web domain in terms of page views(a), MySpace is the most widely-used and highly regarded site of its kind and is committed to providing the highest quality member experience. MySpace will continue to innovate with new features that allow its members to express their creativity and share their lives, both online and off. MySpace’s international network includes localized community sites in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Latin America.

(a)Among the top 2000 domains comScore Media Metrix, May 2007. For more information on comScore Networks, please go to http://www.comscore.com.

About Just For Laughs

Just For Laughs is active in many areas of entertainment production including Television, Theatre and Touring. Its annual festival is the world's largest and most prestigious comedy event welcoming over 2 million people each summer. During its 25 years, the Festival has featured some of the top comics in the world, including Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Ray Romano, Dane Cook, John Cleese and Tim Allen. Each year, over 1,000 industry executives are drawn to what is considered the hottest breeding ground for new talent. The company successfully tours across the globe bringing some of the Festival’s best talent to Canada, the U.S. and Asia and has personal management offices in Los Angeles, Paris, London and Montreal. Just For Laughs television shows are seen in over 125 countries and on over 95 airlines around the world, and in the past have been seen on MTV, Showtime, HBO, BBC America and Fox in the US.