Ack!! Ants.com Awards Bloom County Creator Contract Through Its Freelance Marketplace; Pulitzer Prize-Winning Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed Chosen in Reverse Auction.

Business Editors

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 24, 2000

Ants.com, the fastest growing marketplace on the Internet for freelance work, today announced that it has chosen Berkeley Breathed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the cartoon strips Bloom County and Outland, as the successful bidder in its search for an illustrator. Best known for introducing the characters Opus and Bill the Cat to the world, Breathed has been awarded a contract to create a unique character for Ants.com.

"Would I have thought to seek out a world-class cartoonist to do our design work? Probably not," said Rick Davis, president and CEO of Ants.com. "But that's the power of the marketplace model - the world-class cartoonist found us. And, while we got quite a few bids from other talented artists - most of which were lower than Berkeley's - we did what most of our customers do. We did the mental calculus of balancing price, quality and reputation, and chose the best bidder for our needs."

"I put Opus and friends to bed four years ago, and since then my time has been spent writing and directing theatrical projects in Hollywood," said Berkeley Breathed. "As a lark, I thought it'd be fun to pick up the ink pen again and look for an Internet project. Ants.com was a great find. My brother-in-law saw that they had posted a project for an illustrator, so I entered a bid. I think it's fantastic. Whenever I feel like stirring the old drawing juices, I can go online and find interesting projects that fit my schedule."

Like every other independent professional that has signed up, as a member of the Ants.com community, Breathed has the opportunity to earn referral commissions when people he has referred to Ants.com get work.

"My member number is 15024449," added Breathed. "Whoever wants to join my downline should sign up at Ants.com. I'll donate all the commissions I receive to charity, and Ants.com will pick one member from my network family to receive a signed copy of the artwork I create for the Ants.com site."

Every new member that signs up by June 24, 2000, at Ants.com using Berkeley Breathed's ID (15024449) will be entered into a drawing to win a signed, original copy of the artwork created by Mr. Breathed for Ants.com. All commissions generated by Mr. Breathed's network family will be donated to animal welfare services. For complete rules and details, please visit the Ants.com website.

About Ants.com

With over 30,000 members and more than 30 categories of job descriptions, Ants.com is the fastest growing marketplace for freelance work, expanding at a rate of more than one percent per day. Headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, Ants.com is dedicated to creating a liquid marketplace for the trillion-dollar worldwide freelance services market. Companies looking to outsource projects - from programming to translation to marketing to design - can quickly meet their needs at Ants.com, drawing from the largest pool of qualified freelancers and independent workers in the world. Ants.com is a privately held company backed by Bertelsmann Ventures (www.bvfund.com). For more information, please visit our website at www.ants.com.