Memberdrive to Deliver Customized Content Via New Backweb Shadow

Leading Marketing Agency for Associations and Affinity Groups to Enable Partners to Push Rich-Media and Time-Sensitive Content to 34 Million Members

SAN JOSE, Calif. — February 12, 2001 — BackWeb® Technologies (Nasdaq: BWEB), a leading provider of push communications infrastructure for e-business, today announced that its new BackWeb Shadow proactive desktop portal has been adopted by Memberdrive, an online and offline direct marketing agency that commercially represents leading national affinity groups. With BackWeb Shadow, Memberdrive can enable the delivery of specially targeted content to 34 million donors and members of large non-profit and special interest groups.

Through its partner base of many of the nation's largest associations, Memberdrive plans to proactively deliver news, weather, sports, e-mail, portfolio management, and customized association information such as legislative updates, newsletter content, videos, shopping promotions and benefits. With BackWeb Shadow, Memberdrive partners can extend the portal experience by allowing members to enjoy and interact with downloaded content even when they are not online. In fact, even Memberdrive partners that do not host traditional Web portals now can deliver portal content to their members.

"BackWeb Shadow takes personalization to an entirely new level, and will help our partner organizations to bond even more closely with current and prospective members," said Don Hirsch, chief technology officer of Memberdrive. "Shadow provides a key competitive edge for Memberdrive as we seek to create a totally customer-centric environment that allows members to interact with and make purchases through organizations they know, trust and admire."

BackWeb Shadow is a new PC toolbar that uses BackWeb's patented Polite™ push technology to automatically download personalized news, documents, video and audio to end users. With BackWeb Shadow, even narrowband users can enjoy broadband-quality, full-screen video and CD-quality audio without having to endure long and inconvenient downloads.

"We are excited that Memberdrive plans to deploy BackWeb Shadow as a key strategic asset in its mission to boost loyalty and create new sources of revenue for large organizations," said David Buckland, vice president of Internet Business at BackWeb Technologies. "Because Shadow allows companies and groups to easily create a seamless offline portal on users' desktops, partners like Memberdrive are helping us redefine the very nature of portals by reaching the right person with the right information at the right time."

Available to Memberdrive partners starting in April 2001, BackWeb Shadow is an enhanced platform for media content delivery and proactive communications. Shadow uses a familiar toolbar framework that docks at the top of a user's screen and serves as a powerful portal for incoming content and notifications. With a single click, the Shadow launch pad presents interactive Shadow "boxes" or windows that display delivered content. Using a unique, patent-pending display technology developed by BackWeb, a streamlined version of Shadow appears in the titlebar of any active Microsoft® Windows® application and "follows" the user from one active window to the next – making it easy for end users to receive important content no matter what application they are using.

About Memberdrive
Memberdrive is a unique multi-channel direct-response marketing company promoting carefully selected products and services to consumers through the groups they care most about. Through its partnership with America's leading charities and not-for-profit organizations, Memberdrive obtains the right to market goods and services directly to individual members and donors, making use of each affinity group's branded endorsement.

Memberdrive serves as the sole gateway for corporate marketers who want to reach these audiences and tap the power of some of America's best affinity brands. It will reach these proven direct marketing responders through a convergence of online and offline marketing channels, including direct mail, telemarketing, publication space ads, inserts, catalogs, permission e-mail, wireless communications, website content, and emerging new market technologies.