NEWSFLASH

USIS and HireRight to Merge

USIS, a privately owned company that is a leading provider of employment/drug testing screening solutions and the largest provider of security investigations to the federal government, has signed an agreement to merge with HireRight, Inc. (NasdaqGM: HIRE), a leading provider of on-demand employment background and drug screening solutions. The transaction is valued at approximately $195 million.

Under terms of the agreement, which was approved by both companies’ boards of directors, USIS (www.USIS.com) will pay HireRight stockholders $15.60 per share in cash, which represents a 54% premium over HireRight’s closing share price of $10.12 on Friday, June 6, and a 65% premium over the weighted average trading price of the company’s shares for the past three months.

Upon completion of the merger, HireRight will be combined with the USIS Commercial Services Division.

Randy Dobbs, CEO of USIS, said: “The strategic combination of the two companies is expected to provide customers with a comprehensive and integrated range of solutions for managing and mitigating employment-related business risk. Together, USIS and HireRight will deliver on-demand screening applications built with state-of-the-art technologies delivering outstanding user experience, quality, turn-around time, and extensive process and workflow automation. The combined company will serve over 27,000 customers, ranging from small businesses to global enterprises.”

Together, USIS and HireRight will offer deep expertise in helping organizations of all sizes efficiently implement, manage, and control their employment screening programs. It is expected that the combined company will have the technology, services portfolio, financial resources, and subject matter expertise to meet the complex requirements demanded by leading employers around the globe. Customers will have access to a wide range of competitively unique services delivered globally in over 200 countries and territories.

The transaction is subject to several conditions including HireRight stockholder approval, regulatory approval, and certain other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close in the third quarter of this year. The transaction is not subject to any financing conditions. Certain HireRight stockholders have agreed to vote to approve the transaction, subject to certain terms and conditions contained in the voting agreement. Prior to the anticipated closing, the two companies will continue to operate independently.

For more information contact Michael John, Vice President, Corporate Communication, USIS at (703) 637-1694

Are You Ready for Web 3.0?

It is almost a cliché in today’s fast moving world to say that the Internet is changing the way we work and is having a profound impact on how businesses connect with other businesses to form alliances or to sell or buy services. Most of you I am sure are aware of many of the Web 2.0 services and some of you are actually implementing these. Well as one of my favorites bosses use to say “In life you are either moving forward or falling behind. Standing still is not option.” There is no middle ground. To this end, are you ready for Web 3.0? Don’t panic, its’ new to all of us or perhaps I should say to most of us. However, this is the time to start getting familiar with what is the next rev of the web and to start to think about how your business can capitalize on this technology to forge ahead of your competition.

I found the following article both intriguing and scary (I had to read some of the passages several times to be sure I really understood.) To quote Mikhail Gorbachev, “The future is not what it use to be,” and the tools, the technology and the wherewithal to get there will require us to once again stretch our imaginations and fortitude to succeed.

The following is an excerpt from the article ‘The Semantic Web: Understanding Web 3.0 and Preparing Your Business.’ I strongly encourage you to read this thought provoking article.

What can be done today and how do we prepare for tomorrow? Here are five suggestions:

1. Connect with the right people. With technology like ZoomInfo, you might be able to build a list of executives who meet the specific industry and technology background that fit your profile. That hasn’t been possible before. Available Today.

2. Make industry data available for public inquiry. The benefit is the association of your brand as the source of helpful information. Available Today.

3. Educate semantic search engines by defining your commercial space to ontology engines like WordNet from Princeton University (WordNet.Princeton.edu). Available Today.

4. Create landing pages to welcome visitors who represent market segments most likely to visit your website. Detect visitors that match those specific market segments when they arrive and display the corresponding landing page. Available Today.

5. When Twine launches this spring, companies will be able to create “twines” around commercial topics. This puts them at the heart of conversations about their commercial space. Available Summer2008.

Click Here to Read the Full Article

Also if you are interested in keeping up with the latest on the world wide web and with web site technology from a business owner or business development perspective you may want to sign up for Web Site Magazine. It is complimentary and written in a straightforward, easy to read and understand manner. It is published in hardcopy.

This eDirect Mail was sponsored by Tazworks