Sonic Foundry, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO), the trusted market leader for video management and academic, enterprise and event webcasting, today announced its official call for nominations for the ninth annual Rich Media Impact Awards (RMIA), an honor that recognizes excellence in the practical and creative integration of Mediasite in business, education, health and government.

Between now and February 29 individuals can visit the Rich Media Impact Awards page to submit nominations for their award-worthy projects. Finalists will be notified on March 18, and winners will be announced at a special ceremony at UNLEASH 2013, the Mediasite User Conference, taking place April 28 – May 1 at the Monona Terrace in Madison, Wisconsin.

All RMIA finalists in attendance at UNLEASH 2013 will have the chance to win an annual license of the Mediasite User-Generated Content Module during a drawing at the end of the conference. Sonic Foundry will also award two Video in Education Scholarships to promote academic excellence through video and provide an opportunity for students to reach their fullest potential through online, blended or distance learning. Two higher education institutions will each receive a $2500 scholarship to award to a student of their choice as well as an annual license of the Mediasite User-Generated Content Module for the institution’s use.

Sonic Foundry is inviting nominations for individuals or groups who have done inspiring work in any of the following categories:

• Outcomes Award: Recognizes an organization that uses rich media to quickly achieve a measurable ROI in its training, communications or outreach initiatives.
• Prolific Use Award: Recognizes an organization that has dramatically scaled its rich video program to achieve broad deployment across its enterprise, or a large number of presentations or presentation views.
• Rapid deployment: Recognizes an organization for fostering, advancing or accelerating the adoption of a rich media program.
• Innovation Award: Recognizes an organization for outstanding innovation and unique accomplishments in rich media including automation, room integration, online integration, content creation or pedagogy.
• Global reach: Recognizes any successful initiative that connects the international community through rich media.
• Video in Education Scholarship: Recognizes academic excellence in higher education through video and provides an opportunity for students to reach their full potential through online, blended or distance learning.

About Sonic Foundry®, Inc.

Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO) is the trusted market leader for enterprise webcasting solutions, providing video content management and distribution for education, business and government. Powered by the patented Mediasite webcasting platform and webcast services of Mediasite Events, the company empowers people to advance how they share knowledge online, using video webcasts to bridge time and distance, enhance learning outcomes and improve performance.

Product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of Sonic Foundry, Inc. or their respective owners.

Certain statements contained in this news release regarding matters that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Because such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, uncertainties pertaining to continued market acceptance for Sonic Foundry's products, its ability to succeed in capturing significant revenues from media services and/or systems, the effect of new competitors in its market, integration of acquired business and other risk factors identified from time to time in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.