Lycos Introduces the Lycos Network
Audience Reach Soars to More Than 40 Percent
Showcases Top Brands, Including Newly Acquired HotBot
WALTHAM, Mass. --- October 6, 1998-Visitors to Lycos, "Your Personal Internet Guide", today announced The Lycos Network, offering a unified set of properties that delivers mass reach and diversity of audience and programming. The Lycos Network is currently composed of best-of-breed services: Lycos.com, Tripod, WhoWhere, Angelfire, MailCity, and, as part of an acquisition announced today, HotBot and other Wired Digital Web sites. With its reach of more than 40 percent of Web users, the Lycos Network has strengthened its position as the Web's second most visited hub or portal, with a business model that allows for continued expansive growth.
Based on a proven media model, the Lycos Network combines diversity of programming with mass audience reach in an eminently scaleable format. Lycos began to develop this concept of a true network, supporting multiple brands within a coordinated environment, with the acquisition of Tripod in February 1998. By acquiring Wired Digital (see today's announcement), Lycos has expanded its audience reach from 14 percent before the Tripod acquisition to more than 40 percent today. Today's announcement positions Lycos just six reach points from Yahoo, as compared to a 35 point spread in January 1998.
“When we acquired Tripod, we quickly realized the value of bringing one of the fastest-growing brands on the Web into Lycos. In maintaining and supporting Tripod, we developed the Lycos Network concept and began to gain significant momentum in the market,” said Robert J. Davis, president and CEO of Lycos, Inc. YOur strategy is to bring the Web's strongest brands, including WhoWhere, Angelfire, and now HotBot, into the Lycos Network in order to implement a proven media model. The Lycos Network is another bold step that will power the growth of individual Web properties, giving consumers better content and choice while consolidating the business side of the Internet for increased efficiency and better commerce opportunities.”
“ The Lycos Network takes the best aspect of the network television model - its incredible reach - and combines it with the best aspect of the cable television model - its terrific audience and programming segmentation - and puts those assets into the framework of the far more trackable, more accountable form of Web media,” said Bo Peabody, vice president of network strategy for Lycos, Inc. and president of the Tripod business unit. “With Lycos and HotBot we lead in search and navigation. With Tripod and Angelfire we lead in community. We are fiercely committed to making the Lycos Network the most visited online destination in the world.”
The Lycos Network-Consumer Impact
With leading Web sites such as Angelfire,
MailCity, WhoWhere, HotBot, Tripod and Lycos.com, consumers now have more choices
than ever before within the Lycos Network. Each site within the Network offers excellent
utility, speed, service, tools or content that enhance the Web experience. The Lycos
Network also delivers tailored programming for specific audiences in a way that
a single large site cannot.
In addition, the Lycos Network offers consumers broad, premier Web navigation through the Lycos and HotBot search engines, diverse Web communities and publishing opportunities through Tripod and Angelfire, and myriad ways to access friends, family and like-minded individuals with WhoWhere and MailCity. All of these activities, packaged with tools such as Webmonkey, personalization and shopping as well as with cutting-edge commentary and breaking news from Wired News and Suck.com, make the Lycos Network a true home base and primary Web resource for its users.
The Lycos Network-Business Impact
The Lycos Network allows this collection
of the Web's top brands to benefit from shared technologies, services and research.
In addition, each brand team can leverage the cost efficiencies in infrastructure,
operations and distribution that come from being a part of the same larger organization.
The network model offers Lycos properties the ability to expand audience reach at
far lower costs than the sites could independently.
The Lycos Network-Advertiser Impact
The Lycos Network offers advertisers and
commerce partners access to the broadest, most diverse and fastest-growing audience
than that of any single large Web property. The Lycos Network represents a market-leading
"one-stop-shopping" approach to Internet marketing. Advertisers and commerce partners
can use the Lycos Network to achieve incredible 40 percent reach, branding impact
and sales results with a single, customized media buy. The comprehensive coverage
of the Network represents a market concentration of preferred demographics and psychographic
targets across a broad segment of the Internet market.
“The convenience and power of the Lycos Network makes it a virtual 'must-buy' for a vast number of ad and commerce campaigns,” said Rob Bethge, vice president of marketing, Datek Online. “The network model that Lycos is offering gives advertisers the benefit that we have been seeking from the Web for so long -- the ability to core down, and reach widely, with a single effective media buy, rather than shopping around among hundreds of secondary Web sites.”
About Lycos (www.lycos.com)
Founded in 1995, Lycos, Inc. (NASDAQ: LCOS) owns the Lycos Network, the second most visited hub on the Internet, combining all aspects of community, leading Web navigation resources and cutting-edge business and consumer e-commerce solutions. The Lycos Network, a unified set of properties that delivers mass reach and diversity of audience and programming, is composed of best-of-breed services: Lycos.com, Tripod, WhoWhere, Angelfire, MailCity, Guestworld, HotBot, HotWired, Wired News, Webmonkey, and Suck.com. Located at http://www.lycos.com, Lycos.com -“Your Personal Internet Guide”-is dedicated to helping each individual user locate, retrieve and manage information tailored to his or her personal interests. Headquartered near Boston in Waltham, Mass., Lycos, Inc. maintains U.S. offices in New York City, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mountain View, Calif. and Williamstown, Mass. International offices are located in Germany, Italy, France, Japan, the UK, Spain and The Netherlands.
Note to media: There will be a conference call with Bob Davis at 11:30 a.m. EDT today, October 6, 1998. Contact Ross Levanto at Schwartz Communications, 781-684-0770 x6518, for more information.
For Further Information, Please Contact:
Kirsten Rankin
Lycos, Inc.
781.370.2691
krankin@lycos.com
Ross Levanto
Schwartz Communications
781.684.0770 x6518
rlevanto@schwartz-pr.com