March 24, 2008 08:00 ET

Blist Adds New Social Database Features and Opens Beta to the Public

New Features for Social Networking, Importing From Excel, and Visual-Based Analytics Gives Mainstream Users the Power to Easily Organize, Analyze, Find, and Share Relational Databases Online Without SQL Knowledge

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - March 24, 2008) - On the heels of a successful private beta that was launched at DEMO 2008 and its recent $6.5 million Series A financing, Blist (www.blist.com), the world's easiest database, today announced new social database features and the availability of its public beta. With increasing user demand for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) instead of traditional PC-based applications, Blist is focused on creating a new category of online social databases that combine an instantly intuitive and comprehensible user interface with a vibrant community of data, data templates, and people.

"Blist is an ideal product for me. I was able to use it right away -- without any technical knowledge and without having to read any instructions," said Cindi-Newell Timmons, an event marketing manager who participated in Blist's private beta program. "I archived my event data that includes budget figures, timelines, vendor contacts, speaker biographies, checklists, venue location photos and links to relevant documents all within Blist. And, the new features allow me to import data from Excel and better collaborate with my colleagues, saving me an incredible amount of time."

Blist: More Social, Flexible, and Useful

Extending the unprecedented ease of use of the initial private beta release, Blist has rapidly followed up with new functionalities that make Blist much more social, flexible, and useful:

         Building Community with the Blist Activity Dashboard
         The latest version of Blist builds a sense of community around
         data that matters. Taking social beyond the simple sharing of
         documents, Blist users can now get a snapshot of what's going on
         in the Blist community with the first live version of the
         dashboard.

         Searching the Blist Community for Data and Data Structures
         "Blist Discovery" makes it easy for users to search through the
         Blist community for interesting information or look for a
         template to start their own Blist.

         Importing and Exporting Data from a CSV File
         Obtain existing data from a CSV file and quickly import it into
         Blist without any manual entry. This information may already be
         in an Excel spreadsheet, or could be data that you export from a
         website, such as historical stock prices from Yahoo! Finance. In
         addition, users can also export data from Blist into a CSV
         format.

         Charting to Illustrate Data through Visuals
         Create a variety of attractive charts in Blist to illustrate data
         through visuals that further enable you to spot trends over time.

         Emailing HTML or Text
         Users can send email from a Blist to themselves or forward it to
         friends and colleagues as either an HTML table or in plain text
         format. Data is now immediately accessible in email to view or
         print.

"Until Blist, database technology has been too complicated to use and costly for the average person and spreadsheets lacked many advanced features," said Kevin Merritt, the company's founder and CEO. "Blist marries the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the power of a fully featured relational database in a more user-friendly format delivered over the Web for mainstream consumers, including individuals or small to medium sized businesses. Collaboration is at the core of Blist and these new features plus others yet to come, further enable users to interact with applications, people, and data in compelling ways."

To participate in the public beta, visit www.blist.com where you can start your own Blist in minutes.

About Blist

Blist is revolutionizing how consumers create, share, and utilize the information that's important to them with the industry's first online social database service for consumers and small businesses. Blist delivers unprecedented ease of use through a new visual and intuitive user interface that outshines others in the database market. Only Blist makes it easy for anyone to create private or collaborative databases for anything ranging from the personal to the professional. For more information, visit www.blist.com.

Blist and its respective logos are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of Blist. Other products and company names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective owners.