Lycos
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1994 |
| Headquarters |  Waltham, Massachusetts, United States |
| Industry | Internet |
| Products | Search Engine and Web Portal |
| Revenue |  $ 37 million(2006) |
| Employees | 225 (2006) |
| Parent | Daum Communications |
| Website | Lycos Search Home |
Lycos is an Internet web portal. It started as a search engine research project by Dr. Michael Mauldin of Carnegie Mellon University in 1994. It was incorporated in 1995 and went on to become one of the most visited online destinations in the world with a global presence in over 40 countries. But since its peak as the 22nd most-visited site in 2002, it has dropped to the 680th now.[1]
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[edit] Introduction
Shortly after the development of the search engine, Lycos Inc. was formed with approximately $2M in venture capital funding from CMGI. The Founder and CEO of Lycos from inception was Bob Davis, a native of Boston who incorporated the company in Massachusetts and concentrated on building it into an advertising-supported Web Portal. Lycos grew from a crowded field in 1995 to become the most visited web portal in the world in the spring of 1999.
In 1996, the company had a successful IPO and in 1997 became one of the first profitable internet businesses in the world. Over the course of the next several years Lycos acquired nearly two dozen high profile internet brands including Tripod, WhoWhere, Wired Digital, Quote.com, Angelfire, and Raging Bull.
Lycos Europe was a joint venture between Bertelsmann and Lycos, but has always been a distinct corporate entity. Although Lycos Europe is the largest of the overseas ventures, several other companies also entered into joint venture agreements, including Lycos Canada, Lycos Korea, and Lycos Asia.
Near the peak of the internet bubble in May of 2000 Lycos announced its intent to be acquired by Terra Networks, S.A., the internet arm of the Spanish telecommunications giant, Telefonica, for $5.4 billion. However, by this time the bussiness had peaked and Lycos was being eclipsed by other search giants such as Yahoo, Ask, and Google. The acquisition price represented a nearly 3,000 times return on the initial venture capital investment in Lycos and about 20 times its initial public offering valuation. The transaction closed in October of 2000. The merged company was renamed Terra Lycos yet the Lycos brand was the US franchise. Overseas, the company continued to be known as Terra Networks, S.A. Davis left the company shortly after the merger was completed to join Highland Capital Partners, a premier venture capital fund, where he now serves as a Managing General partner and concentrates on internet investments.
In August 2, 2004, Terra announced that it was selling Lycos to Seoul, South Korea-based Daum Communications Corporation for $95.4 million in cash, less than 1% of Terra's initial $12.5 billion investment. In October 2004, the transaction closed, and the company name was changed back to Lycos, Inc.[2] The remaining Terra half of the business was subsequently reacquired by Telefónica.
Lycos remained in business with a new management team in early 2006. In 2006, Wired News which had been part of Lycos since the purchase of Wired Digital in 1998, was sold to Conde Nast and re-merged with Wired Magazine. The Lycos Finance division, best known for Quote.com, was sold to FT Interactive Data Corporation.
[edit] Lycos Network sites
- Angelfire [2], a Lycos property providing free webhosting
- Gamesville [3], a Lycos site for online gaming
- Hotbot [4], a Lycos-owned search engine
- HtmlGear [5], a Lycos property providing web-page addons (guestbooks, etc.)
- Tripod.com [6], a Lycos property providing free webhosting
- Webmonkey [7], web-building help and tutorials
- WhoWhere.com [8], a people search engine
[edit] Lycos-branded sites
- Lycos Domains [9], Internet domain name purchasing
- Lycos Mail [10], free email provider, formerly known as Mailcity.com.
- Lycos Planet [11], Lycos social networking and light web-building site. It is the successor to Lycos Circles which was shut down in September 2005.
- Lycos Retriever [12], an automatically generated information summarization service.
- Lycos Cinema [13], an IE6 only online video and social networking site.
[edit] Former Lycos sites
- GetRelevant, [14] a Lycos online advertising site
- Quote.com and Raging Bull, a finance site
- Matchmaker.com, a dating site
- Wired.com [15], the online arm of Wired Magazine
[edit] Reference
- ^ data from Alexa[1], retrieved March 2007
- ^ Korean Daum Acquires Lycos U.S.. Lycos (2004-10-06). Retrieved on January 25, 2007.
