Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Lycos Sold To South Korean Company

Posted by timothy on from the profit-and-loss dept.

maggeth writes "Terra Networks has finally decided to dump its struggling web portal, Lycos, to the South Korean-based Daum Communications Corp. Terra bought Lycos for $12.5 billion and they managed to sell if for $105 million. More details at the story on eWeek."

19 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. So... by lingqi · · Score: 4, Informative

    Lycos owns Wired and Webmonkey and a slew of other actually really cool stuff right...
    I even vaguely remember monster.com being part of their network.

    Lycos portal I don't care, what happens to these?

    --

    My life in the land of the rising sun.

    1. Re:So... by jasonla · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wired carried a much more detailed story about the purchase.

      http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,64431,00.htm l?tw=wn_tophead_9

      Will be be seeing wired in Korean next? Christ NNNNNOOOOOOOO!

    2. Re:So... by XemonerdX · · Score: 1, Informative

      Read paragraph 2 of yer linked article:
      In a move that emphasizes the growing global ambitions of South Korean technology companies, Daum said on Monday it will pay 111.2 billion won for 100 percent of Lycos, which Terra bought in an all-stock deal in May 2000. (Wired News is owned by Lycos.)

    3. Re:So... by jasonla · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have received two replies from Wired News staffers, regarding my email. They confirm that Wired News, as part of Lycos, was sold to Daum.

      No one, including the staff, knows what will happen to Wired News as it is too early to tell, both staffers said. One staffer said there had been talks of splitting Lycos's various entities and selling them individually, but the idea was dropped.

      The staffer also pointed out an interesting difference between the Wired News website and Wired printed magazine. The magazine is owned by Conde Nast and is not part of Wired News. Lycos owns the website and publishes articles from the magazine through a deal the two forged a few years ago.

    4. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Daum did not buy Wired Magazine in the Lycos deal. Wired Magazine is owned by Conde Nast. Wired News is owned by Lycos. Wired News publishes the content from Wired Magazine on its web site, but news stories from the web site do not go into the print magazine.

      The Daum purchase of Lycos, therefore, does not affect Wired Magazine. It affects only Wired News. It would affect Wired Magazine only if Daum makes changes to the Wired News web site that somehow have an impact on how the print magazine content is handled online.

  2. Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    They weren't sold

  3. RTFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Lycos owns Wired and Webmonkey and a slew of other actually really cool stuff right...
    I even vaguely remember monster.com being part of their network.

    Lycos portal I don't care, what happens to these?

    Read the fine article.

  4. Logout by deadmongrel · · Score: 2, Informative

    Clear the cookie and reload the page. The error mainly occurs when you log in.

  5. Re:Terra is that strong? by lothar97 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I imagine most of the "loss" was in intangible assets, such as brandnames, goodwill, etc. To buy Lycos, Inc., Terra just printed $12.5 billion in stock certificates (see this article), which made the then stockholders of Lycos (valued in 2000 at $70ish per share) significantly happy. Terra is owned by Telifonica, which is the national phone company of Spain.

    --

  6. Re:ripped off! by lothar97 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Take a look in the URL for the image, and you'll see how Google does their ranking. They don't analyze the picture, they do keywords. For example, the URL for the stuffed bear is "rooth.org/check/ ebay/logo.jpg"

    --

  7. Re:Gone downhill by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Informative
    And, um, here is the real story on the dog logo: http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/13471

    A Dog Day For New Lycos Campaign
    -- ClickZ News

    By Beth Cox | November 6, 1998

    Lycos Inc. which just launched a nationwide ad campaign featuring a Labrador retriever as a logo, was sued for trademark infringement by Labrador Software Inc.

    You guessed it, the software company wants the Internet search directory to halt its advertising campaign that features "Lycos," the expert-fetching retriever. ....
    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  8. Re:New variant of an old joke. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Well, I know of one dating back to 1993. No doubt there are others, going back further.

  9. Telefonica by jjga · · Score: 2, Informative
    Telifonica, which is the national phone company of Spain

    Telefonica stopped being a state-owned company several years ago. So it is not the "national" company anymore, or at least not more than any of the many more that currently exist in Spain.

  10. Re:ripped off! by super+awesome · · Score: 2, Informative

    it does look familiar. I think the Daum logo looks better. Maybe for a +1 Interesting, the pronunciation of Daum is Dah-eum. Not damn or dayam.

    --

    m y k a r m a i s m o r e p o s i t i v e t h a n y o u r s.
  11. Re:Worth it? by jebiester · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, it would be more than that - since they seem to have been running at a loss for a while. According to their report they did become profitable late last year though. Maybe revise that estimate to over 11.9 billion.

    There's a finacial report here.

  12. Re:I sure hope they bought this domain too. by Achoi77 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know it's meant to be a joke, but Koreans can pronounce their L's fine. Actually, they can have more trouble pronouncing R's. Which means that Lycos would be preferred over Rycos. Don't confuse Japanese with Korean.

  13. Re:My how times change by waimate · · Score: 3, Informative

    Take heart:- if, when you were in high school, you had a favorite search engine, then it is not too much of a while ago ;)

  14. Re:Now you know why the bubble burst by metalhed77 · · Score: 3, Informative

    IIRC Terra also paid 60 million for the now extremely defunct sonique media player. Yes, 60 million for a skinnable MP3 player.

    --
    Photos.
  15. Ummmmm, 2%? by tehdaemon · · Score: 3, Informative
    At that price, you would earn about 2%/year on your money. Not all that hot. The only way that this makes sense is if you think that Google will a) double (or better) its profits by cost cutting etc., or b) double (or better) it's revenue with the same profit margins, and you think that Google's market value will not fall. Or you think you can sell it back soon to an even bigger sucker than yourself before reality sets in.

    If not, well, 10 year Treasuries are yealding 4.5%, and you will get your money back. Given the risk factors, $5 billion sounds a little high to me. It almost looks to me like the bubble lost some air, but did not pop.

    --
    Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.