GMability Education Web Site Is Named Best Education Web Site

Web Marketing Association's WebAward cites quality, creativity, use of technology

Detroit, Mich. - General Motors announced today that its GMability Education web site, www.gmability.com/education, has been named Best Education web site by the Web Marketing Association.

The GMability Education site, launched in 2003, has a section for teachers and separate, age-appropriate sections for students in grades K-4, 5-8 and 9-12. The teachers' section features downloadable lesson plans, including GM's award-winning fuel cell curriculum, developed by Weekly Reader. The sections for students feature interactive games, activities and graphics on the environment, energy and technology. Students can learn about fuel cells, hybrid technology, how cars and trucks are designed, and what they can do to help the environment. The site has received visits from more than 99,000 people (unique visitors) from 157 countries in the first eight months of 2004.

"We thank the Web Marketing Association for this great recognition," said Beth Lowery, vice president of GM Environment and Energy. "At GM, we know first-hand that technology has the power to improve people's lives. When we created our GMability.com education site, we wanted to provide quality learning materials that were both fun and easy to use for students, their families and the educational community.

We are delighted with the response and we remain committed to finding unique ways to communicate important aspects of science, math and the care of the environment."

The web site was developed by Hass MS&L's PR Technology team in Ann Arbor, Mich., in conjunction with GM Communications and the GM Public Policy Center. Since the site's inception, GM and Hass MS&L have retained Lifetime Learning Systems Inc., the publisher of Weekly Reader and other educational materials, as a consultant on the project. Lifetime Learning Systems is involved at the beginning of the content development phase of each major quarterly update and formally reviews the web content before it is deployed.

The Web Marketing Association judges offered the following comments about the site:

* "An entertaining site. The 'Design Studio' was great fun!"

* "This is by far the best educational site I have ever seen. I applaud your work here."

More than 1,300 sites from 19 countries in 85 industry categories were entered in the Web Marketing Association's eighth annual WebAward competition. Entries were judged on design, copy writing, innovation, content, interactivity, navigation, and use of technology. A list of the winning sites can be found at the WebAward Web site at www.webaward.org

"This year, the ranking felt especially hard. How does one choose between usefulness, entertainment value, usability, or creativity in execution?" said William Rice, president of the Web Marketing Association. "The WebAward competition is one of the ways leading web professionals demonstrate the effectiveness of their web development. Winning a WebAward not only provides valuable feedback from expert judges, but gives companies a valuable marketing tool and shows company management that their Internet investments are on the right track."

The competition was judged by a team of independent Internet professionals representing a variety of relevant disciplines of web site development. Judges included members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, creative directors, corporate marketing executives, content providers and webmasters.

The WebAward competition format allows web sites to compete head to head with other sites within their industry to win the Best of Industry awards. Since 1997, the annual WebAward Competition is conducted by the Web Marketing Association, Inc., an independent organization founded with the purpose of recognizing excellence on the World Wide Web.