IAR: Lycos U.S. Changes…Everything

In what might be the largest Internet company about-face in the industry's short history, Lycos will regear its site to join the faddish and crowded social networking space, shedding its search engine focus. Not content to merely change its focus and content completely, Lycos will also jettison its internal sales force in favor of an outsourced deal with 24/7, as it anticipates subscription revenues will take over a larger portion of its income.

Aghast Jupiter analyst Gary Stein said, "Everyone else claimed great results, a rebound in online advertising. [The success of] Yahoo, AskJeeves, DoubleClick and aQuantive makes it seem that they weren't able to catch any part of the next wave."