iXL Enterprises (Nasdaq: IIXL) announced today that it has partnered with Restaurant.com to create one of the largest and most complete dining and lifestyle portal on the Internet. Developed as a dual platform for consumers and businesses, www.restaurant.com will offer diners a search engine with a database of 350,000 restaurants nationwide, information on the latest dining trends, healthy eating tips, wine selections, gift certificates and food ordering and delivery. Through a strategic alliance with Sysco Corporation (NYSE: SYY), the largest food service provider in North America, Restaurant.com is offering Sysco’s extensive network of restaurant customers customized mini-sites, which will be linked within Restaurant.com.
“iXL combined strategy, creativity and technology to make Restaurant.com a true category killer,” said Scott Lutwak, COO of Restaurant.com. “iXL’s team was an extension of Restaurant.com from the beginning, and its commitment is evident in the end product — a beautiful, highly developed interface that hides a complex back end.”
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iXL worked closely with Restaurant.com’s executive team to take the site from concept to launch. This included the formulation of an overall e- business strategy, the development of corporate brand imagery and messaging, the creation of an attractive, user-friendly interface and the deployment of a highly scalable technology platform.
“Restaurant.com demonstrates the success of our unique approach to partnering with clients,” said Bob Michelson, regional vice president of iXL. “Through the entire business lifecycle, from the early conceptual phase through site launch, we fuse strategy, creative development and technology to help our clients go beyond a mere Web presence, developing fully integrated, category-leading e-businesses.”
Restaurant.com’s search engine will be married to a broad array of consumer content and services, including complete narrative descriptions of restaurants, maps, 360 degree pictures, and chef background; links to restaurant reviews and features from leading food magazines; full menus and take-out and delivery functionality; coupons and gift certificates; and information about recipes, cookbooks, healthy eating, wine, cigars and more.
Restaurant.com will provide restaurateurs with a number of customizable tools to help them more effectively communicate with diners, including targeted e-mail marketing for preferred customers, real-time site content updates to keep diners apprised of special food items and events and the ability to quickly and easily establish unique Web addresses for individual restaurants.
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By GlobalDataAs part of the Sysco alliance, Restaurant.com is exhibiting at Sysco’s 100-plus annual trade shows. Restaurant.com has also established a commissioned program with Sysco’s extensive network of marketing associates, one of the largest sales forces in the nation, to market Restaurant.com’s customized services to hundreds of thousands of Sysco customers nationally.
“Sysco is interested in using Restaurant.com to earn customer loyalty and grow our distribution business,” says Jack Carlson, vice president of sales and marketing for Sysco. “We are committed to providing a wide variety of services to help our customers succeed.”
Even in advance of Restaurant.com’s formal launch, iXL’s creative design has garnered industry praise – the site is slated to be included in the prestigious Navigation on the Web from Rockport Publishing, an annual review of the best sites on the Web. Restaurant.com’s first release is scheduled for May 2000.
About iXL Enterprises
iXL Enterprises, Inc. (Nasdaq: IIXL) is the parent company of iXL, Inc., iXL Ventures and the Consumer Financial Network(TM). iXL helps businesses identify how the Internet can be used to their competitive advantage and uses its expertise in creative design and systems engineering to design, develop and deploy advanced Internet applications and solutions. iXL Enterprises, Inc. has more than 20 offices in the United States, Europe and Japan. For more information, visit http://www.ixl.com.
About Restaurant.com
Restaurant.com is building the largest and most comprehensive dining site in the industry with a comprehensive lifestyle portal boasting a search engine of 350,000 restaurants. Its wide range of functionality and strategic corporate alliances distinguish it from other restaurant databases.
Forward Looking Statements
Forward-looking statements in this news release are made pursuant to the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations and involve material risks and uncertainties that may result in such expectations not being realized. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risks described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
