LONDON, January 22 /PRNewswire/ -- It's the UK's fastest growing video messaging website and it's celebrating an amazing first six months. More than 500,000 people the length and breadth of Britain and as far away as New Yorkare loving Winkball.com.

Winkball.com is a video communications company that gives you the chance to have your say and see what other people think .- you also get the chance to communicate with friends and family using video. Winkball allows you to send private video messages, create video blogs and your own video walls for online debates.

Everyone's talking about the site and its grabbed the attention of high profile figures including David Cameron , Stephen Fry, Joan Collins, JLS , Rufus Hound and, Gary Linekar. Winkball has also caught the imagination of the media and has been featured on CNN, BBC Click, CNBC and BBC See Hear. What's unique is that Winkball.com uses a combination of professional reporters and citizen journalism to give a window on the world - a view of what the people think of all sorts of events and occasions - from premier league football matches to pop concerts, from the Notting Hill Carnival to political party conferences.

Just this week reporters have been covering the prestigious Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles. Fifty reporters with Flip video cameras, go to every sporting, celebrity and cultural event they think will be of interest to the great British public. Behind them is a cutting edge new media technology company which is ninety strong. You could be forgiven for thinking you'd missed a major new broadcaster being born. But this is not broadcasting as you know it it's the latest communication phenomenon to be launched on the internet and it's captured the public's imagination.

Winkball Co-Founder Dr. James Ohene-Djan commented 2010 is looking like a very exciting year for us. We've plans to launch video messaging broadcasting, intouch which uses video interfacing technologies and video twittering which takes tweeting to the next level He added Interactivity is the name of the game. WinkBall reporters canvas opinions, but if you don't see one of them about you can record a message yourself via a web cam, or upload your comments to one of the many video walls on Winkball.com

The current Love Britain campaign is asking people what's great about Britain and the top three so far are the people, the weather and the countryside, with democracy, freedom of speech and our multi cultural society high on the Agenda.

The technology is cutting edge and its British. It's the brainchild of creative computer scientist Dr James Ohene-Djan, of Goldsmiths College in London and Correspondent.com and is the first integrated video communications service based on video messaging and the latest social networking phenomenon to come out of a university campus

Winkball Co-Founder Dr. James Ohene-Djan commented: We want to encourage as many people as possible to get online, come to the site and record their opinions. WinkBall.com is giving the UK a video voice which is changing the way we view news and share our opinions and feelings.

Winkball.com gives anyone and everyone a means of sharing their experiences through video messaging. At the London Skyride event for example, when traffic is banished from parts of the capital for the day, cyclists were asked to share their experiences and views on a wide range of issues, from road safety to cycle renting schemes.

In November Faces for the Forces, a campaign to collect a million video messages of support for UK troops serving abroad was launched. Bruce Forsyth, Steve Coogan, Nick Clegg and Zoe Lucker amongst the celebrities who're supporting the initiative. Reporters were out the length and breadth of Britain including the Barracks towns of Colchester, Guildford and Aldershot collecting good will messages.

Dr Ohene-Djan continued. Our campaign to take a message to the forces ties in with our wider aim to expand the idea of Citizen Video, so that everyone in the UK has the opportunity to express themselves and share their feelings online.

http://www.winkball.com\walls\faces

Almost 300,000 people have so far shown their appreciation for the troops. Meanwhile the campaign has gone Stateside with a US launch in New York at the world famous Tea and Sympathy store where New Yorkers and celebrities including Rachel Hunter and Steve Coogan sent their good will messages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5_PFz8mAZU

Winkball.com has played its part in marking the 20th anniversary of the historic United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in which governments set out their vision of a dignified future for the world's children.

To mark the anniversary, the UK-based NGO, the Hoping Foundation, in partnership with the UN's Relief and Works Agency unveiled a project in which Palestine refugee school leavers across the Middle East created the region's first ever on line video yearbook. The Hopes and Dreams project encapsulates their aspirations and brings together on line a community divided and scattered by decades of statelessness and exile.

Using the latest technology from Winkball.com, these messages will be posted in an on line yearbook and will form the basis of a living network that will be enriched in years to come with similar messages from the next generation of school leavers. So far more than 50,000 video messages have been recorded.

WinkBall have also developed a range of corporate communication tools, including WinkBall Base, an internal video communications service that enables people working together - and their clients - to communicate within a private network. Furthermore, brands can also utilise WinkBall Broadcaster, a video message broadcasting, marketing and email campaigning service that can be used across WinkBall.com and WinkBall Base services.

The project team is based in London and is drawn from fields as varied as media communications, design, computing, business and anthropology - many of whom have graduated from London's Goldsmiths University.

WinkBall is one of the first UK companies providing services in line with the government's Digital Britain initiative, enabling citizens to overcome the obstacles of effective digital communication. A successful public project has already been launched with the Information Communications Technology charity, Deafax, to encourage video communication within the UK deaf community.

Notes to Editor:

To add your message to the forces, visit WinkBall here: http://www.winkball.com\walls\faces

WinkBall.com is a free, web-based, personal video communication service, which allows anyone to record, send and share videos with friends and family - privately. Users can also create and post content to video blogs and walls for private and public viewing. Video messages delivered by WinkBall.com can be accessed anywhere, anytime through a web browser.

WinkBall.com is also used by brands and organisations to share video content, which users can actively choose to watch and share. All messages sent through WinkBall.com are supported by targeted five-second advertisements, which are played at the end of video messages.

WinkBall.com is safe, simple and fun and makes video the best way to communicate well online.

Established in London in 2005 by Dr. James Ohene-Djan and Duncan Barclay, the WinkBall Project team has evolved to become a leading player in driving the future development of online communication.

Winkball.com is a London based company established in 2005. Founder Dr James Ohene-Djan is also a lecturer at Goldsmiths University and the technology is the latest social networking phenomenon to come out of a university campus.

For more information: Visit http://www.winkball.com or http://www.winkballproject.com

SOURCE: WinkBall.com

CONTACT: For more information: Contact Catherine or Claire at Shout!Communications - +44(0)20-7240-7373