isporty and NetBenefit allow sports fans to live the dream

NetBenefit, one of the UK's most experienced managed hosting providers, has been chosen to host isporty www.isporty.com, the first UK social networking destination devoted to sport.

isporty provides a community where sports fans can check out all of the latest local and national sports information, gossip about breaking news and prepare for upcoming matches and events. With 3000 members at present, it allows like-minded people to chat together, swap information and organise their teams and playing schedules.

NetBenefit’s scalable managed hosting offering made it a great choice for this innovative and growing site. Chris Ward, founder and MD, isporty, comments: "Although we knew we would have a large volume of traffic around national and international sporting events, we could not predict spikes because of team tournaments or due to a video being uploaded. We needed a hosting provider we knew we could trust to keep the site live irrespective of the volume of traffic.

"Community websites can experience surges in traffic at any time and using a host that could guarantee availability was key in our decision to appoint NetBenefit. As soon as we met our account manager we felt completely confident that our business issues were understood and that NetBenefit could deliver what we needed as a fast growing social networking site."

The resilience offered by NetBenefit ensures that the website remains available but also lets users watch videos and access the first online TV channel for grassroots sports. In addition to the managed hosting platform,NetBenefit provides isporty with a daily database backup and a range of monitoring services.

"The advent of Web 2.0 has increasingly changed the way in which websites are used by individuals and groups", says Jonathan Robinson, COO, NetBenefit. "isporty is an excellent example of how websites can be used to join like-minded communities online. We look forward to working closely with isporty ensuring that they can deliver an outstanding sporting experience as the website's popularity continues to grow."

isporty has plans to broaden its offering to other countries and will provide a focal point for fans during the current cricket world cup and the rugby world cup in September.

For further information please contact Jonathan Bawden or Rebecca Dunstan, Portfolio Communications - 0207 240 6959 or netbenefit@portoliocomms.com

Notes to Editors

NetBenefit is part of London listed Group NBT Ltd (LSE: NBT.). Established in 1995, NetBenefit is an experienced provider of Managed Hosting services in the UK, with a range of services to suit every level of business.

Its world-class network infrastructure allows it to guarantee resilient, available and secure Managed Hosting for businesses that need a hosting provider they can depend upon.

Group NBT Ltd is a leading provider of domain name management and Internet-related services through the three trading brands, NetNames, NetBenefit and Easily.co.uk. Group NBT has over 200 employees and is based in London with offices in Copenhagen, New York, Nice, Frankfurt, Munich and Madrid.

For further information about NetBenefit or GroupNBT please visit www.netbenefit.com or www.groupnbt.com