New paid services at Lycos.com

turning visitors to customers?

[heini]

Two new offers at Lycos.com aim at generating new revenue sources.

The first offer is a gaming subscription service, allowing broadband users to play online.

Gamesville on Demand ... allows broadband users to play popular PC games such as Roller Coaster Tycoon, Slingo and Centipede at any time without having to buy the software.

Details see here:Press release [terralycos.com]

The other new offer aims at the popular community hosting, which Lycos has pioneered with Tripod and Angelfire.
Those services will remain free, but with the well known ads on it.
Additionally Lycos now offers an enhanced model of community and small business intranet hosting.
Besides being adfree, the community areas allow for

A contact database
Announcement posting
Group calendar
The ability to sync information with Microsoft Outlook or a Palm device
Wireless access via WAP enabled phones

Press release [terralycos.com]

Lycos Business Intranets, aimed at small business, offers some additional features, especially secure, password protected access.

Prices are $29.95 per month for five users, and $5.95 for each additional user.

What strikes me about those offers is the new perspective on turning vistors to customers. It's not the usual "premium content" stuff, but real services... I think it could work.

[grnidone]

That is so *obvious*. I can't believe other portals didn't think about going for the BIG $ gaming market.