WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif., April 2, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- J.D. Power and Associates, a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, today announced the acquisition of Umbria Inc., a marketing intelligence company that specializes in social media and consumer-generated media research. The acquisition will further enhance J.D. Power and Associates' voice of the customer-based studies on quality and customer satisfaction, which are used by leading manufacturers and service providers in a variety of key global industries. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

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Umbria Inc., located in Boulder, Colo., is a pioneer in deriving market intelligence from the rapidly growing world of online communities made up of blogs, message boards and social networks. Using leading-edge technology and algorithms, Umbria transforms the unstructured data of the online community into actionable insights by identifying important themes and topics of interest by demographic profile. Its highly regarded research is used by organizations to launch new products and identify new market opportunities in a wide variety of industries, including automotive, financial services, consumer electronics, retail, media and entertainment.

"We are delighted to add Umbria and its cutting-edge capabilities to J.D. Power and Associates," said Steve Goodall, president of J.D. Power and Associates. "Consumer behavior has changed dramatically in today's Internet-powered world, and consumer-generated Web commentary is becoming a prominent part of our social fabric. Umbria's unique ability to track consumer opinion online will complement J.D. Power's mission to represent the voice of the customer, and will allow us to listen to that voice throughout the incredibly rich flow of information available in Web commentary. The combination of Umbria's technology, people and clients, coupled with J.D. Power and Associates' research capabilities and name recognition, has enormous potential to expand our customer-focused thought leadership well beyond the automotive industry into other emerging industries and markets."

"J.D. Power and Associates has long been the leader in understanding the consumer experience," said Janet Eden-Harris, chief executive officer of Umbria. "With the addition of our unique technology, together we can expand the voice of the customer to encompass the digital world, where thought leaders and passionate consumers are found. The power of analyzing tens of thousands of conversations about products and services provides a whole new window to the consumer."

According to findings presented at the recent BlogWorld conference, more than 147 million Americans say they use the Internet. More than 12 million American adults report maintaining a blog, while more than 57 million say they read blogs. Approximately 120,000 new blogs, as well as 1.4 million new blog posts, are created each day. In addition, blog search engine Technorati.com indicates that as of the end of 2007, more than 112 million blogs were in existence worldwide.

About J.D. Power and Associates

Headquartered in Westlake Village, Calif., J.D. Power and Associates is a global marketing information services firm operating in key business sectors including market research, forecasting, performance improvement, training and customer satisfaction. The firm's quality and satisfaction measurements are based on responses from millions of consumers annually. For more information on car reviews and ratings, car insurance, health insurance, cell phone ratings, and more, please visit JDPower.com. J.D. Power and Associates is a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

About The McGraw-Hill Companies

Founded in 1888, The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP) is a leading global information services provider meeting worldwide needs in the financial services, education and business information markets through leading brands such as Standard & Poor's, McGraw-Hill Education, BusinessWeek and J.D. Power and Associates. The Corporation has more than 280 offices in 40 countries. Sales in 2007 were $6.8 billion. Additional information is available at http://www.mcgraw-hill.com.

About Umbria Inc.

Umbria is unique in its ability to assess both what is being said, and who is doing the speaking in the online world. Umbria's patent-pending technology enables the company to classify posts and estimate gender and age of the speaker, as well as rapidly identify and eliminate bogus spam posts. Umbria analyzes voices of the online community by using proprietary Natural Language Processing and machine learning algorithms to dissect the who, what and why of online opinion, offering in-depth insights for some of the world's leading brands. For more information on Umbria, please visit http://www.umbrialistens.com.

     J.D. Power and Associates Media Relations Contacts:
     John Tews                  Syvetril Perryman
     Troy, Mich.Westlake Village, Calif.
     (248) 312-4119             (805) 418-8103
     john.tews@jdpa.comsyvetril.perryman@jdpa.com

No advertising or other promotional use can be made of the information in this release without the express prior written consent of J.D. Power and Associates. http://www.jdpower.com/corporate

SOURCE J.D. Power and Associates

Contact: John Tews, +1-248-312-4119, john.tews@jdpa.com, or Syvetril Perryman, +1-805-418-8103, syvetril.perryman@jdpa.com, both of J.D. Power and Associates