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yourDictionary.com Announces Appointment of Paul J.J. Payack as President and Chief Executive Officer

July 26, 2000, DANVILLE, CA, - yourDictionary.com (YDC), the most comprehensive, and authoritative portal for language, and language-related products and services on the worldwide web today announced that Paul J.J. Payack has accepted the position of President and Chief Executive Officer. Payack joins YDC from Legato Systems, Inc., the Palo Alto, CA-based leader in storage management software where he served as Vice President, Worldwide Marketing.

"We are quite pleased to have an executive of Paul's experience joining yourDictionary.com," said George Wilson, Chairman and founder, "Paul brings to the YDC team an unparalleled set of experience and hands-on expertise in both the technical and consumer marketplaces."

Previous to Legato, Payack has served as a senior marketing and communications executive for some of the industry's technology leaders, including Intelliguard Software, the Network Systems Corporation, The Dun & Bradstreet Coorperation, and Unisys. Payack began his career in Massachusett's 'Route 128 Technology Corridor' at Apollo Computer, Inc., Wang Laboratories, and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).

"YDC is poised to extend its leadership position as the world's most comprehensive, and authoritative language portal," said Payack, "We will build on our significant strengths, which include:

• the widest and deepest set of dictionaries on the web (more than 1500 dictionaries representing more than 230 languages),
• the authority and academic rigor exemplified by our Advisory Council of Experts (ACE), composed of some of the world's most distinguished linguists, who provide indispensable guidance in the development, acquisition, and maintenance of the dictionaries under their purview, and
• the Endangered Language Repository (ELR), which provides a sanctuary to help preserve the hundreds of languages that are threatened with extinction and the distinct heritages each represents."

Payack is a noted lecturer on high tech Marketing and Communications, speaking at industry forums, universities, and corporations, such as BusinessWeek's Digital Economy and CIO's Perspectives, the University of Texas, Babson College, and the University of Massachusetts, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Hughes Aircraft unit of General Motors, and many others.

A published author, his work has appeared in dozens of collections, journals and reviews, including New Letters, the Paris Review, Boulevard and Creative Computing. A graduate of Harvard University, Payack currently resides with his wife and children in Danville, CA.

About yourDictionary.com
yourDictionary.com (YDC) was founded in 1999 to provide the world's most comprehensive, and authoritative portal for language, and language-related products and services on the world wide web. A truly global portal, yourDictionary.com has been visited by more than 6 million users.

yourDictionary.com has been recognized as the web's pre-eminent language portal by dozens of organizations around the world. Most recently, yourDictionary.com was selected as the "Best of the Web for Reference" by Forbes magazine. Other recent accolades have come from The New Yorker, the BBC, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Washington Post, USA Today, and Yahoo Internet Life, among many others.

The Advisory Council of Experts
The yourDictionary.com Advisory Council of Experts (ACE) is comprised of some two dozen of the most renowned figures in the field. The distinguished members of the Council help ensure the integrity of their respective areas of linguistic specialization, as well as provide indispensable guidance in the development, acquisition, and maintenance of the dictionaries under their purview. Members of the Council also contribute original articles to the YDC Library.

Preserving the World's Linguistic Heritage
Of the seven thousand languages and dialects spoken on the planet, experts have concluded that more than half are endangered and actually headed toward extinction by the end of the century. To help preserve the languages and the distinct heritage each represents, yourDictionary.com has created the Endangered Language Repository (ELR). The purpose of the ELR is to provide a sanctuary for these languages on the worldwide web, to better enable access by both scholars and interested laypersons.