EXHIBIT 99.2
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Stephen M. Joseph Scott Solomon
Chief Financial Officer Vice President
Be Free, Inc. Sharon Merrill Associates, Inc.
(508) 357-8888, ext. 4017 (617) 542-5300
sjoseph@befree.com ssolomon@investorrelations.com
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BE FREE, INC. ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT TO ACQUIRE TRIVIDA CORPORATION
MARLBOROUGH, MASS., FEBRUARY 16, 2000 - Be Free, Inc. (NASDAQ: BFRE), the leader
of performance marketing on the Internet, announced today that it has signed a
definitive agreement to acquire TriVida Corporation - a privately held developer
of next generation online personalization technology. TriVida has created a
powerful data analysis engine that predicts consumer preferences based on
historical and real-time information. Under the terms of the agreement, Be Free
will exchange approximately 1.56 million shares of its common stock for all of
the outstanding shares of TriVida, and will assume outstanding options to
acquire TriVida capital stock pursuant to which up to an additional 190,000
shares of Be Free common stock may be issued. The transaction is subject to the
approval of TriVida's shareholders, which is currently scheduled to occur later
this month.
"The acquisition of TriVida will expand Be Free's product offerings to include
personalization - an area that perfectly complements our leadership in
performance marketing," said Gordon B. Hoffstein, Be Free's chairman and chief
executive officer. "By combining TriVida's powerful analysis capabilities with
our rich set of data, we will be able to offer our customers the ability to
target and personalize promotions to individual consumers. We believe that this
personalization can increase click-through and conversion rates and thus
increase sales going through their performance marketing channels. Increased
sales for our customers means increased revenues for Be Free," said Hoffstein.
Hoffstein continued, "In the area of privacy, both TriVida and Be Free are
fiercely committed to maintain anonymity and privacy for consumers for all data
collection and personalization efforts."
Alex Jacobson, TriVida's president and chief executive officer, said, "We are
delighted to join a company whose technology and results-oriented approach have
attracted many of the Internet's leading merchants as customers. The
entrepreneurial spirit of TriVida and Be Free creates a combined company with
the knowledge and expertise to help shape the future of online marketing."
TriVida's personalization technology creates strategic, focused revenue
opportunities for online merchants and their marketing partners. This adaptive
technology creates a personalized Internet experience by tracking and predicting
customer behavior. For instance, a visitor to a cooking web site would find the
cookbooks, recipes, cookware and other content customized to that customer's
profile. And when that customer visits other web sites, TriVida's technology
can make real-time recommendations for products and services predicted to be the
ones they most likely will want, based on their previous actions and choices.
Since TriVida's technology is based on "adaptive relationship modeling," it
automatically adapts to changes in consumer behavior.
"The acquisition of TriVida should allow us to strengthen our performance
marketing channels by using the company's innovative technology to develop
enhanced promotions on our customers' affiliate sites, and tailored up-selling
and cross-selling opportunities on our merchants' sites," Hofftstein said.
"Until now, our infrastructure tools have enabled merchants to dramatically
increase the consumers they reach online. The new products and product
extensions that we anticipate as a result of this acquisition will be designed
to give Be Free the power to directly impact not only marketing reach but buying
decisions."
ABOUT TRIVIDA
TriVida is a leader in networked personalization technology and services.
TriVida's next-generation personalization technology is made possible by the
company's unique "adaptive relationship modeling" which combines game theory,
intelligent Internet agents, and new computational learning algorithms in an
Internet-based, e-business environment. TriVida's founders have significant
experience in such advanced software technology, collaborating in the past on
several successful high-technology software ventures, including Limbex and
Inference (NASDAQ: INFR). TriVida is located in Culver City, California
ABOUT BE FREE, INC.
Be Free, Inc. (NASDAQ: BFRE) is the leader of performance marketing - the next
generation of online marketing. Be Free helps its customers build and manage
uniquely branded online sales channels, e-nabling/sm/ these sites to capture
revenue by driving site traffic, generating qualified leads and selling products
in context on locations throughout the Web. Be Free's customers include some of
the Internet's leading merchants, online services and portals such as America
Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL), barnesandnoble.com (NASDAQ: BNBN), GoTo.com (NASDAQ:
GOTO), Mercata, Travelocity, Reel.com (NASDAQ: HLYW), C|Net (NASDAQ: CNET), PC
Connection (NASDAQ: PCCC), Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN), About.com (NASDAQ: BOUT)
and Yahoo!/R/ GeoCities (NASDAQ: YHOO).
Collectively, Be Free's customers have more than 3 million affiliates in their
sales channels. Affiliates can enroll in performance marketing programs using
Be Free's technology with a streamlined application form called FastApp, located
at http://www.reporting.net/networks/affiliates/bf_fast_app.
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Founded in 1996, Be Free has offices in Marlborough, MA, Pittsburgh, PA,
Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Los Angeles, CA, Campbell, CA, and New York, NY. For
more information, visit http://www.befree.com.
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Statements in this news release about the acquisition of TriVida may be
considered forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on Be Free's current
expectations, hopes, beliefs and estimates. These statements involve risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
anticipated or projected. Further information about the risk factors that could
affect the Company's performance are contained in the Company's filings with the
Securities Exchange Commission, including but not limited to its S-1 dated
November 3, 1999.
EDITORS NOTE: The media is invited to attend an informational conference call
Wednesday, February 16 at 12:00 p.m. EST with Be Free CEO and Chairman Gordon
Hoffstein and Co-Founder and Executive VP Tom Gerace. For dial-in information,
please call Lisa Beyer at Schwartz Communications (781) 684-0770.