TheGlobe.com To Close Online Community, Cut Staff

Posted on August 3, 2001

TheGlobe.com announced it will be shutting down theglobe.com, one of the first web community portals, cutting staff and putting its gaming sites up for sale. TheGlobe.com will also be laying off 60 employees, about 49% of its remaining staff. These cuts are in addition to the 59 employees TheGlobe.com laid off in April. The company blamed the continued decline in the Internet advertising sector for its financial woes.

The company is closing its community business theglobe.com and its small-business web-hosting property webjump.com effective August 15, 2001 (and the associated hosting facility, effective August 31, 2001), and is significantly scaling down its online games operations.

theglobe.com's management team is seeking business combination or asset sale opportunities for the cmpany's games information properties, including online content properties Happy Puppy, Kids Domain, Games Domain/Console Domain, Computer Games Online, and Chips & Bits, as well as its print publication Computer Games Magazine. theglobe.com will entertain all bids for these games properties during the next few months. theglobe.com has also terminated the long-term lease obligation for its New York City headquarters facility and will relocate to a smaller facility in mid-August.

``Over the past twelve months, we have taken aggressive steps to position theglobe.com for a turnaround or business combination dependant on a rebound in the online advertising sector, but the sector remains severely depressed and there are few signs of a rebound in the near-term,'' commented Chuck Peck, Chief Executive Officer, theglobe.com. ``During this prolonged difficult business environment, our priority is to drastically reduce our cash burn rate and preserve the Company's capital resources while our senior management team aggressively seeks synergistic business combination or asset sale opportunities for our games properties.''