WeatherBug^®, a leading provider of live, local weather information for consumers and professional users, announces that Christopher Backschies has returned to its advertising sales team as director of West Coast sales and Kevin Johnson has joined the team as a senior account executive. Based out of Seattle, Backschies will manage the WeatherBug West Coast sales team. Johnson will call on accounts in the New York metropolitan area.

Backschies previously served as a senior account executive at WeatherBug from 2003-2007. Most recently, he was a senior account executive at IAC Advertising Solutions where he worked on leading brands including Expedia, Best Buy, T-Mobile, LensCrafters and Microsoft. Backschies has over 15 years of sales experience at multi-media companies such as Whitepages.com, Cox Interactive Media, Aptimus, Inc., and Full House Sports & Entertainment.

Johnson comes to WeatherBug from Newsweek, Inc. where he was an integrated account manager and the bronze winner of the 2008 Internationalist Award for Innovation in Media. At Newsweek, Johnson worked on accounts such as Abbott Labs, Bausch & Lomb, Hyatt, Vestas, Siemens, PBS and ESPN. Prior to that Johnson worked at The Nielsen Company on the Adweek brands and in 2004 was a member of The Nielsen Company’s President’s Circle. Johnson has more than 17 years of advertising and marketing experience including positions at NBC, Young & Rubicam and Ogilvy.

“It’s great to have Backschies on the team again. Both he and Johnson are seasoned ad sales executives with proven track-records in creating integrated advertising solutions,” said vice president of advertising sales and marketing, Michael Lombardi. “Their experience and commitment to excellence will help to develop innovative strategies and creative sponsorships for our clients to exceed their advertising goals.”

As a leading digital property, WeatherBug received more than 23 million unique visitors in September 2009 and saw a growth of 59% YOY in 2008, ranking it as one of the top growing U.S. properties according to comScore. WeatherBug is consistently ranked as a top 10 News and Information site and a top six Web property in terms of average usage per day. WeatherBug Mobile has also seen increases, with a 75% increase in unique visitors YOY as measured by Nielsen Mobile in August 2009. Millions of consumers trust WeatherBug for live, local weather information, severe weather alerts, precise forecasts and live weather images from its desktop, mobile and Web applications.

About WeatherBug

WeatherBug (http://www.weatherbug.com and http://www.weatherbugprofessional.com) observes, organizes and distributes the most precise global weather intelligence. As a trusted source of dynamic weather information, WeatherBug empowers society to make more informed weather-related decisions. Millions of consumers and professional organizations, including the National Weather Service, rely on WeatherBug to plan daily activities, safeguard lives and improve business operations. WeatherBug is a brand of AWS Convergence Technologies, Inc. (http://www.aws.com).