myYearbook Debuts New Toolbar for Search and Social Shopping

NEW HOPE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--myYearbook, the best place to engage teens and one of the 40 most-trafficked sites in the United States, today announced the debut of the myYearbook Toolbar and Shopping Mall, products that extend the myYearbook experience beyond myYearbook.com by providing members with ways to earn the site’s popular virtual currency, Lunch Money, wherever they are on the web. The Toolbar provides easy access to new messages and friends online, and makes myYearbook one-click away for myYearbook’s 20 million members.

Developed in partnership with Appbar.com, a FreeCause, Inc. brand, the myYearbook Shopping Mall is a collection of over 1,800 top online retailers where members can earn virtual currency for spending real dollars. Shoppers will find all their favorite stores for clothes, shoes, electronics, flowers, food and gifts, health and beauty, jewelry, music, movies, games, travel and more. Exclusive coupons and deals are offered daily to help users save real money on their purchases, while also earning virtual rebates.

The Toolbar enables myYearbook members to earn up to $50,000 Lunch Money each day by searching the web.

myYearbook members can then spend their earned Lunch Money on myYearbook on virtual gifts for friends and in many of the site’s social games, like Causes, Blind Date, Owned! and Battles.

By adding the myYearbook Toolbar, members can keep up with their myYearbook friends in several ways:

• Real-time updates when myYearbook friends log in
• Notification and preview of new messages
• Up-to-the-minute Lunch Money balance
• One-click, auto-login access to myYearbook

“The myYearbook Toolbar allows our members to stay tapped into the Lunch Money economy on every site they visit,” said Geoff Cook, CEO of myYearbook. “Lunch Money is tremendously important to our members. By providing both valuable new ways of accessing myYearbook and enhanced Lunch Money earning capability, the Toolbar and Shopping Mall mark the latest step in our strategy to monetize Lunch Money. We believe monetizing search and shopping nicely complements our existing currency monetization efforts, which include a proprietary offers platform, an ecommerce engine, and a subscription product.”

“With an incredibly loyal user base and a high-value virtual currency, myYearbook is an ideal client for AppBar,” said Justin Holland, Co-Founder of FreeCause. “By offering its user base new and innovative ways to earn Lunch Money via the myYearbook Toolbar and Shopping Mall, myYearbook provides users the opportunity to earn the virtual currency they crave – while simultaneously driving revenues for the company through search and affiliate commissions. Leveraging front and center placement on Internet browsers, the myYearbook Toolbar will broadcast the myYearbook brand and enable users to engage with their community in revolutionary new ways.”

The free myYearbook Toolbar is now available for download at http://www.myyearbook.com/toolbar. myYearbook members get a one-time $200,000 Lunch Money bonus for downloading the Toolbar.

About Lunch Money

Lunch Money was launched in 2007 in order to drive engagement and enrich gameplay and is now the core motivator that drives many of the member interactions on myYearbook. Users interact with this virtual currency in multiple ways, from donating to their favorite Causes and purchasing exclusive premium gifts to wagering in Battles and winning extra prizes in Games. Lunch Money accounts for more than one-third of myYearbook’s monetization each month.

About myYearbook

Founded by brother-and-sister teen entrepreneur duo Dave and Catherine Cook, myYearbook.com is the best place to engage teens. According to comScore, myYearbook is one of the 40 most trafficked sites in the United States as measured by time spent and pageviews. It is also the largest site in the comScore Teens category in visits. myYearbook has grown from a single high school to more than 20 million members. The average myYearbook member visits the site 9 times per month and spends 20 minutes per visit, making myYearbook one of the most engaging social media destinations on the internet. For more information please visit: www.myYearbook.com

About AppBar.com

AppBar, a FreeCause, Inc. brand, is a full service loyalty technology company that specializes in developing custom, online loyalty reward and incentive programs for social gaming applications and websites. Offering a comprehensive portfolio of market-leading technology including branded toolbars and shopping malls, AppBar helps companies build lasting, profitable relationships with their users by monetizing and rewarding user activity (searching and shopping online) with virtual currency. With more than 10 million subscribers, AppBar provides the most reliable, advanced loyalty and engagement solutions for leading brands around the world.