Leading Internet Recruiting Companies Crimson Solutions and Ivy Productions Merge To Better Serve Exploding "E-Cruiting" Market

Combined Entity experience inc. Will Reach More Than 1.6 Million Students and Entry-Level Job Seekers Nationwide

Crimson Solutions, Inc., the leading provider of Web-based recruiting solutions for college career centers and Ivy Productions, Inc., provider of critically acclaimed research and publications for students and entry-level job seekers, today announced a merger agreement that will join the two entities under the name experience inc. (http://www.experienceinc.com). The new company now has a combined user base of more than 250 university partners and more than 1.6 million "twentysomething" job seekers, creating an essential new "e-cruiting" resource for campus career centers, college students, alumni and potential employers.

According to Forrester Research, Inc., the online job recruiting market will top $1.7 billion in 2003. Through the merger, experience inc. becomes the first company in this market with the relationships, people and technology required to offer the most comprehensive, full-service solution to career centers, students, young alumni and employers.

experience inc. will combine Crimson Solutions' expertise in developing Web-based recruiting solutions for college career and alumni centers with Ivy Productions' critically-acclaimed research, publications and other career-focused content for college students and young professionals. The new company touches more than 1.6 million students through an established network of partnerships with more than 250 colleges and universities nationwide, including Harvard University, the University of Kentucky, Brown University, Princeton University, Brigham Young University, the University of Notre Dame, Boston College, the University of Iowa and Oregon State University.

Jennifer Floren, Ivy Productions' founder and Chief Executive Officer, will assume the position of President and CEO of the newly formed experience inc. and Phuc Truong, co-founder of Crimson Solutions, will serve as Chief Technology Officer. Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed. As part of the agreement, all Crimson Solutions and Ivy Productions employees will immediately become employees of the new company.

"Our career center partners have long encouraged Crimson Solutions and Ivy Productions to join together so that our complementary strengths in technology and content could be harnessed. In a market plagued by fragmentation, they saw the potential for a one-stop solution in their mission of educating students and matching them with prospective employers," said Floren. "While there are other players in this market, nobody can match the breadth and depth of our school partnerships, the strength of our Web-based technology, our heritage as a leading publisher of quality content, and our team's commitment to helping students. We're going to raise the bar of expectations significantly among our current and prospective career center partners."

• Going forward, the company is poised to develop an even stronger set of e-cruiting solutions that:
• Simplify and improve the effectiveness of the recruiting process for campus career centers, students and employers;
• Help educate students about the world of career opportunities and give them maximum exposure to all interested employers; and
• Equip campus career centers with a broad range of school-branded resources that supplement their current set of tools and ensure that they remain at the center of all students' career search activities.

"Our career center is thrilled about Crimson and Ivy joining together in this exciting combination of leaders. We've worked with Crimson since their early days and have long endorsed eRecruiting to other schools as being the best-designed and best-supported product of its kind. Likewise, we were early users of Ivy's student resources, since they support our commitment to education and counseling," said Lee Svete, Director of Career Services at the University of Notre Dame. "The new company is uniquely positioned to improve its current offerings of diverse resources and cutting edge technologies. They have the opportunity to extend into a whole new range of products and services that will meet the needs of career centers like ours."

For the majority of career centers, the company's eRecruiting service is deeply integrated into the center's internal operations and serves as the backbone for much of its administrative and back office activities. Additionally, the company's experience magazine and publications are an integral part of many schools' student outreach and education efforts. Leveraging these relationships, experience inc. is uniquely positioned to develop a complete online recruiting solution that will ease the transition for soon-to-be college graduates, recent graduates and entry-level professionals from school into the new world of work.

"Everyone else in the e-cruiting space is trying to be everything to everyone: from first-time job seekers to seasoned executives," added Floren. "Crimson and Ivy have long recognized that young professionals just launching their careers have specific issues and concerns. experience inc. will be the first to exclusively target the four million graduates leaving campuses each year, the career centers that are helping students and alumni successfully transition into the working world and the recruiters in every business sector who are trying to attract young talent quickly and easily."

About Crimson Solutions, Inc.

Since 1997, Crimson Solutions has been an innovative pioneer in the development of Web-based recruiting solutions for campus career centers. Their ground-breaking eRecruiting (http://www.eRecruiting.com/) application software is the leading Web-based tool for the automation of the backend functions within campus career centers-everything from facilitating communications with students and managing their resumes and documents to scheduling on-campus interviews for major employers and matching students with open listings. The company is venture-backed by Polaris Venture Partners of Waltham, MA.

Installed at 125 schools, eRecruiting's flagship clients include Harvard University, Brown University, the University of Kentucky, Princeton University, Brigham Young University, the University of Notre Dame, Boston College, the University of Iowa and Oregon State University. The system has active accounts for over 500,000 students and is expected to average between 4 and 10 million page views per month through 2000.

About Ivy Productions, Inc.

Launched in 1996, Ivy Productions is a major publisher of online and offline content focused on the issues facing students entering the workforce after college. The company's critically acclaimed experience magazine, developed through a strategic partnership with Forbes magazine, reaches over a million students on a quarterly basis with insightful articles on everything from new-age role models to non-traditional career opportunities. Current advertisers include Yahoo!, American Express and Ralph Lauren. Through a network of campus career center partners, the magazine's content, along with more than 500 detailed industry and company profiles, are also made available online at the company's network site, experiencenetwork.com. The company also publishes and markets a successful line of books and other print materials. The company is venture-backed by lead investor Polaris Venture Partners of Waltham, MA, and Cincinnati-based Isabella Capital.

About experience inc.

experience inc. is based in downtown Boston, MA and currently has close to 100 sales, technical, client services, editorial, and administrative staff. By mid-2000, the company expects to have over 150 employees through continued additions to its field and head office teams. The company is venture-backed by Waltham, Mass.-based Polaris Venture Partners, the lead investors in both Crimson Solutions and ivy Productions, and Cincinnati-based Isabella Capital, with a number of other private investors and is considering a second round of financing in 2000.

More information about the company is available at its corporate web site, http://www.experienceinc.com.