Keynote (Nasdaq:KEYN), the global leader in on-demand Internet test & measurement solutions for continuously improving the online experience, today revealed the judges of the FastWeb Race, a competition designed to help the Web community share experiences and build faster Web sites and applications. Steve Souders, performance evangelist at Google, Bob Buffone, chief technology officer at RockStarApps, Dawn Parzych, product manager for acceleration at F5 Networks and Ben Rushlo, director of Internet technologies at Keynote, make up the panel.

The FastWeb Race committee recently added a new submission category “Fastest in the World.” The judges will pick the winner in the ‘Fastest in the World’ category, who will receive the FastWeb Race Performance Award and 6 months of free Web performance monitoring from Keynote Systems, and choose the top entry that has the best potential to improve the performance of the Web. The judges will also provide findings on how to improve performance to selected entrants for free. Entries must be received by July 15th. More information about submitting entries can be found at: www.fastwebrace.com.

The judging panel brings more than 30 years experience in the industry and has been selected due to its diverse skill set and expertise across different areas of Web performance. Souders is a performance evangelist and known in the industry as a leading expert in front end Web performance. He is also the creator of YSlow, the performance analysis extension to Firebug; Buffone has years of experience researching and developing performance optimization tools and is an industry leader in Web performance; Parzych has worked in Web application development for a decade and her colleagues refer to her as the Goddess of Acceleration; and Rushlo brings a wealth of real world experience optimizing Web sites and improving performance and advising Fortune 500 companies on how to deliver a positive end user experience on their Web site.

“We’re all really excited to be involved in the FastWeb Race – with so many new technologies being developed all the time, performance must be top of mind if you want to succeed online,” said Rushlo. “Everyone wants to know how to make tired, slow Web applications faster and more responsive – with our collective expertise, we’ll be able to offer sound advice both to the winners of the race, and more generally to the whole industry.”

The competition is open to anyone. Submissions are accepted until July 15th and should be submitted to www.fastwebrace.com.

About the judges:

Steve Souders

Steve works at Google on Web performance and open source initiatives, and previously served as chief performance officer at Yahoo! Steve is the author of High Performance Web Sites and Even Faster Web Sites. He created YSlow, the performance analysis plug-in for Firefox. He serves as co-chair of Velocity, the Web performance and operations conference from O'Reilly, and is co-founder of the Firebug Working Group. He recently taught CS193H: High Performance Web Sites at Stanford University.

Ben Rushlo

Ben Rushlo, director of Internet technologies at Keynote Systems, is one of the world's leading Internet performance experts. Ben advises Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies in the retail, automotive, financial services and other industries, helping to transform their global sites into highly performing, highly available Web assets that provide superior end user experiences every time. Ben is a frequent speaker at Web testing and performance conferences, cloud computing conferences, industry symposiums in retail and financial services and has appeared on CNBC live broadcasts.

Bob Buffone

Bob is chief technology officer at RockStarApps. Through his work at Nexaweb, Bob became an industry leader in Web performance and has been invited to many industry conferences such as JavaOne, the Server-Side Symposium, EclipseCon, ApacheCon, AjaxWorld and the Ajax Experience to speak on Web performance. Bob has released several tools for the eclipse IDE which integrate into a developer’s normal workflow and make optimizing Web sites simple.

Dawn Parzych

Dawn Parzych is a product manager for F5 Networks, the global leader in Application Delivery Networking. For the past two years she has been in London working as an acceleration architect with F5 customers based in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Dawn has helped companies in finance, retail, media, and other industries optimize performance levels and overcome Web application delivery challenges. In her ten years as a Web performance specialist Dawn has covered everything from load testing to Web performance monitoring to application delivery.

For more information about the FastWeb Race, please visit: www.fastwebrace.com

About Keynote

Keynote Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN) is the global leader in on-demand test & measurement solutions for continuously improving the online experience. For over a decade, Keynote has been providing measurement data and testing capabilities that allow companies to understand and improve their customers’ online and mobile experience. Keynote has four test and measurement businesses: Web performance, mobile quality, streaming & VoIP, and customer experience/UX.

Known as The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority™, Keynote has a market-leading infrastructure of 3,000 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 240 locations around the world. Keynote’s 2,800 customers represent top Internet and mobile companies including American Express, Dell, Disney, eBay, E*TRADE, Expedia, Microsoft, SonyEricsson, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, Vodafone and YouTube.

Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at www.keynote.com.

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