Global Grind Partners with Glam Media for New Hip-Hop Vertical Network

Global Grind, the online hip hop social network and Glam Media today launched a Managed Vertical Network of sites and blogs for the hip-hop community anchored by Global Grind as a part of Glam Media's Entertainment Channel.

This hip-hop based vertical network will have extensive content from Global Grind and will also include other hip-hop based blogs and websites. Global Grind will recruit the best sites and blogs to the co-branded publisher network, while the Digital Primetime(TM) brand ads will be managed by Glam Media.

"The partnership between Global Grind and Glam Media is another step in Global Grind's mission to be a platform that allows the hip-hop audience to show its depth and breadth," said Navarrow Wright, president and CEO of Global Grind.

"I've long been inspired by Glam Media and their take on the Internet space along with their creative use of technology. Glam has influenced our work here at Global Grind," said Russell Simmons, president and chairman of RUSH Communications and financial backer of Global Grind. "We are excited to go into this partnership to create opportunities by providing the platform for creative individuals."

Global Grind and Glam will be launching a hip-hop "Be Discovered" competition in October 2008 to help new talent emerge online. Details and judges will be announced shortly. This will be the third "Be Discovered" competition for Glam, which began the contest in 2007 with handbag designers and recently held a Design a Dress competition in partnership with MSN.

"We look forward to adding to Glam Entertainment's highly select network of publishers and bloggers with Global Grind's targeted network," said Samir Arora, chairman and CEO of Glam Media. "This vertical network focused on the hip-hop community is a key example of Glam's total commitment to bringing audiences the content they want and bringing advertisers multiple vehicles for reaching those audiences."

The Glam Managed Vertical Network (MVN) platform leverages the years of development and successful operations of Glam Media's own 500-strong publisher network, number one in reach for women. The Glam MVN platform offers media companies the necessary infrastructure and tool set to create a successful vertical network. With the Glam MVN, media companies can easily recruit publishers, manage inventory, set pricing, serve and optimize campaigns, support multiple billing systems, and offer both publishers and advertisers a wide range of reports and technical support.

The partnership also leverages Glam Media's new flagship service GlamTV, unveiled last week, which allows publishers in the Glam Network to access rights-cleared content and indie videos tightly packaged with brand advertising for their websites.