Bank of the West and Cooliris Team Up to LiveShare Photos During the Oldest Women’s-only Tennis Tournament

Tennis fans at this week’s Bank of the West Classic are experiencing the tournament from a completely different angle, perhaps many different angles. That’s because attendees at Stanford University’s Taube Family Tennis Stadium can share their photos instantly to a live photo stream while also watching other people’s pictures coming in from around the stadium, using LiveShare by Cooliris.

“Imagine seeing action shots of the match from different vantage points around the stadium while the game is in play,” said Joel Nathanson, Head of Social Media for San Francisco-based Bank of the West. “Since we’re hosting the Bank of the West Classic on the campus of one of the leading technology research centers in the world, we’re especially proud to offer tennis fans the opportunity to plug into the newest media technology that will allow them to see, engage and enjoy the Classic on an even higher level.”

How it works:

• Download the free mobile app, LiveShare by Cooliris, for iPhone, Android, or Windows Phone 7, available at http://www.liveshare.com/.
• Launch the app and select the “Bank of the West Classic” stream under the “Featured” tab and start uploading photos into the stream.
• Once the app is running, everyone’s photos from the tournament will flow real-time into the “Bank of the West Classic” group stream, simultaneously showing the action on the court and around the stadium.
• The live stream will also be displayed during breaks on the stadium big screen, on the Bank of the West Facebook page at Facebook.com/BankoftheWest, and at www.liveshare.com. The stream can also be shared via email and social networks to family, friends and colleagues.
• People without a supported smartphone can upload photos on the web to the Bank of the West Facebook page or at www.liveshare.com.

The Bank of the West Classic will be held from July 25 – 31. Tickets can be purchased by calling the box office at 866-WTA-TIXS (866-982-8497) or by logging on to www.BankoftheWestClassic.com. Single-session tickets for the tournament’s opening round start at $26.

ABOUT THE BANK OF THE WEST CLASSIC: The Bank of the West Classic is one of the oldest women’s-only professional tennis tournaments in the world and is the first stop of the Olympus US Open Series. A WTA Premier event, the Bank of the West Classic features a 28-player singles draw and a 16-team doubles draw with total prize money of $721,000. Held on Stanford University’s campus at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium since 1997, former champions include: Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Andrea Jaeger, Monica Seles, Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport and Venus Williams. The Bank of the West Classic is owned and operated by IMG.

ABOUT BANK OF THE WEST: Founded in 1874, $58 billion-asset Bank of the West (www.bankofthewest.com) offers a full range of personal, commercial, wealth management and international banking services. The bank operates more than 700 retail and commercial banking locations in 19 Western and Midwestern states. Bank of the West is a subsidiary of BNP Paribas, one of the world's largest and best rated financial institutions with more than 200,000 employees in more than 80 countries.

ABOUT COOLIRIS: Cooliris turns digital content into immersive visual experiences that increase user engagement and discoverability. With nearly 40 million downloads of the Cooliris 3D Wall and over 100K daily activations of the Android Gallery application, Cooliris is pioneering visual browsing. Extending this innovation further, Cooliris has transformed Wikipedia into a coffee-table magazine with Discover for iPad, and is now making real-time media sharing hyper-personal with LiveShare. Cooliris is a venture-backed company with investors, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, DAG Ventures, The Westly Group, and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Venture. Cooliris is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.cooliris.com.