Lycos Takes On Yahoo In Korea

The successful debut of Lycos Korea is posing a threat to Yahoo! Korea, which has been the leading portal site in the country.

Lycos Korea, which was established last March as a 50-50 joint venture
between Lycos Inc. and Mirae Corp., launched its Korean-language search engine ‘Lycos Korea’ on July 1, with its first day’s pageviews recorded at nearly one million.

The initial achievement is considered as remarkable since Yahoo! Korea,
Lycos Korea’s biggest rival, took almost six months to hit one million pageviews after its launching of Internet search service in Korea.

“Such an unbelievable record in page views was due partly to the rapidly
increasing number of Internet users in Korea. However, it also
reflects the fact that Korean Internet users had long been waiting for a new Internet portal service like Lycos Korea,” said Chung Moon-Soul, president of
Lycos Korea.

Chung noted that stock information is the most popular service among
Lycos Korea’s services, reflecting the bullish Korean stock market.

Lycos Korea has succeeded in attracting Netizens to the search site by offering stock market information more precisely and easily than its competitors and enabling users to compare securities information such as recommended stocks and market outlook along with market information provided by local securities firms
at the same time, according to Lycos Korea.

Also, it is known that its search engine is favorably received among
Korean Netizens because of its convenience and accuracy in search results compared with other search sites in Korea.

Lycos Korea plans to offer Tripod service from next month which helps personal homepage building by providing 11 MB of disk space, and to offer a free Web-based e-mail service, MailCity.

“Based on the structure of Lycos of the U.S., we are seeking to localize
our service through strategic alliances with various Korean companies,
and
to establish itself as the most efficient Internet guide in Korea,”
Chung
said.

Industry analysts say that only a few large Internet portals such as
Lycos and Yahoo! will survive in the midst of toughening competition
among local portal sites.

But, the current trend of the Internet industry shows that specialized
secondary portals such as Women Plus or Kids’ Home have a great growth
potential and will become strong contenders in the near future because
large Internet portals will not be able to meet with all the needs of
Netizens.

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