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Hungry Minds.com Chooses Google as Exclusive Provider of Site Search Services

Powered by Google SiteSearch, Hungry Minds.com Search Helps Users Explore Over 18,000 Online Learning Experiences

SAN FRANCISCO and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., November 15, 1999 – Hungry Minds.com™, the revolutionary online learning portal, and Google Inc., one of the fastest growing search companies on the World Wide Web, today announced a strategic partnership that will make Google the exclusive company to power the Hungry Minds.com search engine. As part of the agreement, Google’s SiteSearch service will manage Hungry Minds.com visitors’ searches on its database of over 18,000 online learning experiences.

Google SiteSearch, which is hosted and supported by Google, enables Hungry Minds to feature high-quality, site-specific search capabilities on its website to help visitors quickly and easily locate products and information. Using Google’s advanced, patent-pending PageRank™ technology and sophisticated text-matching capabilities, SiteSearch delivers unparalleled accuracy and precision in delivering the most relevant results first.

"Hungry Minds.com is delighted to have the fastest growing search company play such an integral role in our efforts to provide students with the very best in online learning," said Stuart Skorman, founder and CEO of Hungry Minds.com. "This partnership will allow visitors to spend the time they would have used searching on the actual learning experience."

"Internet users rely greatly on search capabilities to locate information on websites," said Larry Page, Google co-founder and chief executive officer. "Google’s intelligent search technology is designed to provide unprecedented levels of relevancy and speed in returning results. With Google SiteSearch, we’re providing a sophisticated solution for customers like Hungry Minds, who want to provide high-quality search services to enhance the overall appeal of their websites."

Today, the Hungry Minds.com database includes online learning courses from an impressive list of partners, including PBS, Women.com, UCLA Extension, Digital Think and the Princeton Review. Soon to come, Hungry Minds.com will also offer a variety of books, videos and additional online learning experiences on its Web site, making its database the largest and most comprehensive to date.

"Our fully automated and scalable approach to search is designed to enhance the overall experience for visitors to any website," said Sergey Brin, Google’s president and co-founder. "Google SiteSearch, which is hosted and supported around the clock by Google, offers full customization options and complete flexibility to help improve site navigation and usability. The result is leading search technology that is available quickly and easily at affordable costs."

In addition to its Google SiteSearch service, Google also offers Google WebSearch, a cost-effective way to provide the highest quality web-wide search capabilities directly from any website. Google WebSearch, a hosted version of Google’s widely acclaimed search engine technology, gives any website a sophisticated solution for searching the web and opportunities for increased page views and revenue.

About Google Inc.

Google was founded in 1998 by Stanford University Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin to create a new generation of powerful, scalable search engine products to improve the user experience of searching the web. Based on four years of advanced research in computer science, Google is dedicated to providing the best user search experience by delivering a powerful, yet simple-to-use format for finding the most relevant answers to search queries. Google currently offers search solutions through its own destination site at www.google.com. The company also offers co-branded web search and site search solutions for information content providers.

Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., is privately held. Its funding partners include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Partners. More information about Google can be found on the company’s website at www.google.com.

About Hungry Minds.com

Hungry Minds.com, a privately held company based in San Francisco, is the online learning portal geared toward lifelong learning for adults. Stuart Skorman, founder and CEO of Hungry Minds.com and founder and former CEO of Reel.com, is one of the first successful entrepreneurs starting his second Internet company. This rapidly growing start-up has 60 full-time and 70 part-time employees from a variety of backgrounds including techies, editors, writers, researchers, instructional designers, teachers and a variety of Internet executives and producers. The company has already secured partnerships with many top Internet, media and publishing companies, and prominent universities, including UC Berkeley Extension, Monster.com and Harvard Business School Press. For more information, visit the Hungry Minds.com Web site at www.hungryminds.com.

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Hungry Minds.com is a trademark of Hungry Minds, Inc. All rights reserved. Google and PageRank are trademarks of Google, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

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