Lycos
Lycos is an Internet search engine and web directory. It was born from a research project by Dr. Michael Mauldin of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in 1994. The original Lycos search engine went on to be used in Carnegie Mellon's Informedia Digital Library project.
The name "Lycos" comes from Latin, lycosidae, meaning "wolf spider".
Shortly after the development of the Lycos Search Engine, the Lycos company was formed using venture capital and initial internal support from CMU. The CEO of the Lycos company was Bob Davis, a native of Boston who moved the headquarters of Lycos to Waltham, Massachusetts from Pittsburgh, and concentrated on building it into an advertising supported Web Portal, arguably at the expense of the Information Retrieval research on which the company was founded.
Lycos suffered under competition from Google, which concentrated on driving its business primarily on the basis of fast, effective web search, but remains a viable business as of early 2004.
The Lycos company was eventually purchased by Terra SA, a subsidiary of the Spanish telephone company Telefónica, and renamed Terra Lycos. Terra Lycos has since dropped the Lycos moniker from its corporate identity and goes by the name .
Recently, Terra Networks SA has contacted the investment bank about the possiblity of selling its Lycos Inc. subsidiary. As of August 2nd, 2004, Terra Networks SA said it reached a definitive agreement with Seoul, South Korea-based Daum Communications Corporation in which Daum will acquire 100% of the issued and outstanding shares of Lycos Inc. for $95.4 million in cash. The transaction is subject to the expiration of the 30-day Hart Scott Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act on substantial mergers and acquisitions. Following conclusion of the transaction, Lycos Inc. will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Daum Communications Corporation, based in Waltham, Massachusetts.
See also
