Lycos

Template:Short description Template:About Template:Infobox website Lycos, Inc. (stylized as LYCOS), a subsidiary of Brightcom Group, offers a search engine, web portal, chat service, domain name registration service, and email client. The company also owns Tripod and Angelfire. It was established in 1994 as a university spin-off from Carnegie Mellon University.

The name "Lycos" is short for "Lycosidae", which is the Latin name of wolf spiders.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

Lycos began in May 1994 as a research project by Michael Loren Mauldin of Carnegie Mellon University.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Lycos was funded with approximately US$2 million in venture capital funding from CMGI.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Bob Davis became the CEO and first employee of the new company in 1995.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He concentrated on building the company into an advertising-supported web portal, led by Bill Townsend.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In April 1996, the company completed the fastest initial public offering from inception to offering in NASDAQ history, ending its first day of trading with a market value of $300 million. It also became the first search engine to become a public company, before rivals Yahoo! and Excite.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In May 1997, the company formed Lycos Europe, a joint venture with Bertelsmann.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Lycos began offering e-mail services in October 1997.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

That year, it became one of the first profitable Internet businesses.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In February 1998, Lycos acquired Tripod.com for $58 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In March 1998, Lycos paid $4 million for a 9% stake in GlobeComm, which powered its free email service.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In August 1998, Lycos acquired WhoWhere for $133 million in stock.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In October 1998, the company acquired the digital assets of Wired for $83 million in stock after the print version of the magazine was sold to Advance Magazine Publishers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The deal also included Hotbot<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and WebMonkey, which was shut in 2004 but relaunched in 2008.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In a brief surge in April 1999, the website was visited by 52% of all internet users, which was more than the reach of Yahoo.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1999, the company abandoned its internal search technology and outsourced search technology to AlltheWeb.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In April 1999, Lycos launched an internet radio service.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In September 1999, the company acquired Quote.com for $78 million in stock.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In November 1999, Lycos acquired Gamesville for $207 million in stock.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In December 1999, the company formed Lycos Asia, a $50 million joint venture with Singtel.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In June 2000, Lycos acquired Matchmaker.com for $44 million in cash.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> it was sold in February 2006.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In July 2000, Lycos began using Microsoft Windows 2000 software and Intel processors to power its platform.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>

In October 2000, near the peak of the dot-com bubble, Lycos was acquired by Terra Networks, a division of Template:Lang, for $12.5 billion and was renamed Terra Lycos.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In January 2001, the company acquired RagingBull.com.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In October 2002, the company acquired GetRelevant.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In October 2004, Terra sold Lycos to Daum Communications Corporation, now Kakao, for $95.4 million in cash, less than 2% of Terra's initial multibillion-dollar investment.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In July 2006, the company sold the digital assets of Wired to Condé Nast Publications which remerged it with the print version of the magazine.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In February 2006, Lycos sold Quote.com and RagingBull.com to FT Interactive Data Corporation for $30 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In March 2006, Lycos introduced phone call services, including video chat, real-time video on demand, and an MP3 player.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In November 2006, Lycos introduced Lycos Cinema.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In February 2007, Lycos Mix was launched, allowing users to pull video clips from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! Video and MySpace Video and allowed users to create playlists where other users could add video comments and chat in real-time.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Lycos was sold for $36 million in August 2010 to Ybrant Digital, an Internet marketing company based in Hyderabad, India.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref><ref>Template:Cite press release</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Ybrant Digital paid $20 million at signing and there was a legal dispute over magnitude of the second installment between Ybrant and Daum. In 2018, a New York court ruled in favor of Daum and appointed Daum (by then merged with Kakao) as receiver of Ybrant's 56% ownership interest in Lycos.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In May 2012, Rob Balazy was named CEO.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In June 2015, Lycos announced the Band and Ring wearable devices.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In October 2016, Lycos sold the HotBot.com domain name for $155,000.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The parent company of Lycos, YBrant Digital, was renamed Brightcom Group in May 2018.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• List of search engines
• Comparison of search engines

External links

• Template:Official website