Lycos To Get Out Of The Search Business

to enter social networking realm

[seth_wilde]

In two dramatic announcements this week, Lycos U.S. said it will shed its portal strategy to become a vast social network; the company also inked a 5-year deal with 24/7 Real Media to outsource display ad sales, ad serving and analytics for its Internet properties.

The company plans to relaunch its homepage in two weeks as a "hub for personal connections." That's step one in a phased rollout with a corresponding national advertising campaign. Lycos search will emphasize enabling users to navigate between various professional, personal, family, business and affinity sites.

[internetnews.com...]

[sherwoodseo]

The details of this are so 1998... a "refocus on interconnected vertical sites"?!? Whatever...

A more immediate concern to me is: if they keep a search box on the homepage, will it point to HotBot? And with all these changes afoot, will HotBot still draw from Yahoo-owned Inktomi?

And goodbye LookSmart.

[gopi]

Desperate attempts from a cluless management!

[cfx211]

The idea is not bad. I just don't think Lycos has the technology to pull it off.

To do this correctly you need to build a platform designed for the purpose, not cobble together a bunch of properties you acquired between 1998 and 2001.

[skibum]

One would hope they would keep a search box prominently displayed on the site.

This whole thing doesn't sound like a step forward.

[transactiongeek]

Yup, this is the future. Their strategy is sound, but their track record of execution sucks.

[Yidaki]

>social network
>hub for personal connections

orkut ... or do i misread something?

[Essex_boy]

yawn, sounds like a load of warm fuzzy round spherical things

[RobbieD]

social networking

Didn't they just discontinue most of their community areas like clubs?

[Compworld]

I wonder what will happen to the advertiser's monies that are in their account. Are they going to refund the difference?

CompWorld

[jcoronella]

We are hearing the last gasps from Lycos.

[sem4u]

And I thought that search was the future...

[Clark]

Lycos To Get Out Of The Search Business

They were in it?

[edit_g]

There's plenty of room still on that bandwagon...

[webdev]

Bummer I do great on all my sites in Lycos.....who feeds Lycos?

[outland88]

Thanks for the tip Seth. A Lycos rep had just talked me into investing more money into the Insite program, but I was holding off till the end of February. I guess I'm still stuck with Positiontech/Inktomi which quit working on me four months ago. I'm wondering why Ask.com submissions went off line. Wonder what will happen to All the Web submissions.

I'm trying to get away from Google but the top search engines seem to be in a state of flux.

Many of these companies don't seem to give a though to taking your money and then changing the rules.

[xbase234]

Fast feeds Lycos.

[cfx211]

Apparently their UK site lycos.co.uk looks a lot like where the US version is heading.

[Warren]

Ask Jeeves are still accepting submission. However, due to an upgrade in reporting technology, new sites won't be indexed until the last week in Feb.

Warren

[Robert Charlton]

The late nineties were all about buzzwords... there was a different buzzword every week. The current buzzword in the venture capital sector is "social networks."

Lycos To Get Out Of The Search Business

They were in it?

ROFL

[Chris_D]

Hey Clark - cracked me up too!

Chris
Wiping up the coffee I just spat all over my monitor....

[Rosalind]

"Social networks" just about describes any website with a thriving forum and community of regular users. It's a buzzword that describes something that has been around since Usenet, and tells us nothing new.

[markd]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but does anyone think this will have a deterimental effect on Fast?

Having lost track on who owns Fast this week, does this represent a 'loss of business 'for Fast?

[conor]

Yahoo owns FAST don't they?

[sem4u]

Yes they do, but it looks like Yahoo will be using Ink for their main search results.

[OddDog]

seems to me that second tier (or if you wish 3rd or even 4th tier) search product is getting out of the way from the fight that is brewing between google and microsoft.

which in my opinion will seriously hurt the smaller players, as the two big boys fight it out.

[sidyadav]

fight that is brewing between google and microsoft.

um.. more like Google and Yahoo , MSN uses Inktomi's results which is owned by Yahoo now. Yahoo also owns FAST, Ink and AV (also the Overture PPC), MSN is nothing in front of Yahoo at the moment.

However, MSN is building their own search engine which is spidering with the name of 'msnbot' , rumors say that they plan to launch it in 2005, who knows what will happen next?

Sid

[donpps]

And I thought that search was the future...

Make that social-networks-personalized-search-applications.

Actually, I can see that happening.. oh wait eurekster did that eight?

[Clark]

Maybe all the has-been internet sites should join a social networking group, put some old friends together and leave the rest of us alone.

I can just see it, Excite and Lycos and AltaVista, and Pets.com all chatting together.

For the record I think social networking is a great idea. The one that started it AFAIK is MyFamily.com. All those features are not hard to build and will probably be added to all kinds of sites, but as a standalone site? No way.

What does it do? Maybe bring a few teenyboppers together? So what will you do? Sell them some branding of your latest gameboy? That's about as far as it can go.

I'm part of LinkedIn, a "serious" group for "professionals". Saw some big shots there. Could not figure out for the life of me how to use it for anything constructive. Hiring people? Go to ELance. Make friends? Go to "Cheers". I can't believe "adults" (Lycos) are wasting breath on this.

[Rumbas]

Just read that Lycos.dk (Jubii) are laying off 30 people.