Yesterday I printed a rumour circulating through the search marketing world that Lycos was giving up the ghost of organic search. The story stemmed from a blog posting from John Battelle who I consider to be one of the most credible and well informed observers in the sector.
This morning, Lycos Director of Public Relations, Kathy O’Reilly, sent me an email in response to the article.
Hello Jim,
In response to your article today – Lycos Turning Search Lights Out? — Lycos has had a recent restructuring, which did involve members of the search team. But Lycos is NOT divesting in Search and has not abandoned search. Search is still a very important business for Lycos. As Lycos evolves into a destination for content consumers and content creators, Search will continue to provide the platform for finding quality content on Lycos. And Lycos recently signed a deal with myGeek to provide the platform for our Lycos AdBuyer business. We are also very excited about our renewed relationship with CMU, to bring more innovative products to the Lycos audience, through the combined efforts of Lycos and Daum engineers. Going forward, Lycos will continue to capitalize on the engineering resources of our parent company, Daum Communications, the leading internet portal in Korea. These resources include search talents as well. The restructuring last week consolidates operations between Lycos and Daum to run a more efficient operation by capitalizing on the strengths and core assets of both companies.
Thank you.
Kathy O’Reilly
Director – Public Relations
Lycos, Inc.
100 Fifth Avenue
Waltham, MA 02451