Virsona Launches Talking History Contest for Teachers

WASHINGTON, July 1 /PRNewswire/ -- NEA Expo -- Virsona, Inc., a new social media service now in beta that builds relationships between people, characters and brands through realistic, real-time, automated chats, today announced the launch of its Virsona Talking History Contest from its Booth # 823 at the National Education Association Expo, one of the largest education conventions in America. The Virsona Talking History Contest challenges teachers to create the most life-like virtual persona, or Virsona, of a famous historical or literary event or figure, living or dead, by using the company's free beta version of its Virsona service. The teacher who creates the most life-like Virsona will receive a $2,500 cash grant to use for their classroom. Additional cash grants of $1,000 and $500 will be awarded to second and third- place winners, respectively. To enter, go to www.virsona.com/talkinghistory.

Virsona, Inc. is a new social media service now in beta that gives users the opportunity to build relationships with individuals and brands they never thought possible. The beta Virsona Service enables people to create Virsonas of real-life, fictional or historical figures who through an online chat format independently and intuitively remember, react and respond just like the person or brand they were designed to emulate.

"Virsonas create excitement and curiosity of learning by allowing students to 'chat' with any figure, fictitious or real, living or dead, to learn answers to questions they never thought possible," said Peter Hodge, CEO and co-founder of Virsona, Inc. "Imagine being able to ask and get an answer from George Washington about what he was feeling as he secretly crossed the Delaware River, Christmas night, 1776, to attack British forces; or Juliet about the first time she met Romeo."

With Virsona, students can ask these questions and via the Virsona Talking History Contest, teachers can build a Virsona to answer them as if the person were alive today.

To create a Virsona, teachers simply employ the tools available on the Virsona website to add short, one-paragraph, first person descriptions of known memories and documented facts to the Virsona's life archive. The more information added to a Virsona, the more accurate and interactive conversations with that Virsona will be. Virsonas are powered by the company's innovative, patent-pending artificial intelligence technology, which gives the service its human-like chat capabilities.

The Virsona Talking History Contest runs today, July 1st through August 31st, 2008 and is open to any kindergarten through twelfth-grade teacher in the United States. A panel of five judges will select contest winners based on functionality of the Virsona, the amount of content, and personality injected into the Virsona. They also will perform specific functions on each Virsona to ensure the accuracy of information within the Virsona. To enter and for contest rules, go to www.virsona.com/talkinghistory.

About Virsona

Virsona is a new social media service now in beta that allows users to create online virtual personas that "come to life" via realistic, real-time chats. Through these life-like Virsonas, users are able to build relationships between people, characters and brands. The company's innovative, patent- pending artificial intelligence technology enables the Virsonas to "come to life" by giving them the ability to reason, remember and react just like the person or character they were designed to emulate. Users may interact with Virsonas at the company's destination site, www.virsona.com, or with embedded Virsonas integrated in affiliate sites whose content is strictly regulated by the company or brand. Virsona is based in Boca Raton, Florida. For more information, visit www.virsona.com.