SANTA MONICA, Calif. (March 10, 2008) - Userplane, (www.userplane.com), the premier communication platform for online communities and a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, today introduced Desktop™ at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conferences and Festivals in Austin, TX. Userplane Desktop is a downloadable, customizable application that delivers messages and other communiqués to and from online communities directly to the desktop in real time – even when users aren’t logged in online.

Desktop, which works with Userplane’s robust presence technology to provide site administrators with active tracking of users connected to their Web sites, has been re-released as an Adobe® Air™ application, making it compatible with both PCs and Macs. Adobe Labs, the software development arm of Adobe Systems, launched Adobe Air as a cross-operating system runtime that supports HTML, Javascript and Flash, allowing developers to merge the best attributes of the Web with the best of those offered by the desktop.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Adobe Systems in extending Desktop’s compatibility across OS platforms,” said Michael Jones, CEO of Userplane and senior vice president of AOL. “Adobe Air has helped transform Desktop into a much lighter, more powerful system tray application that will transparently extend user presence from the Web to the desktop. It’s all about user engagement, and the new and improved Desktop application facilitates the kind of instantaneous interaction that is proven by research to increase traffic and build loyalty.”

Desktop runs entirely on the Userplane network, ensuring a maintenance-free experience for users with no additional IT burden. Completely brandable and localizable, Desktop features custom skins, animated icons and global language capabilities. An ad-supported version Desktop is available at no cost. More information about Desktop’s functionality and features can be found at http://www.userplane.com/desktop.