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To: RikRichter who wrote (955)	4/20/1999 10:10:00 PM
From: TFF	Respond to of 2802

moneycentral.msn.com

To: RikRichter who wrote (955)	4/21/1999 6:58:00 AM
From: TFF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2802

Lycos beats Yahoo in number of users over month By Andrea Orr Wednesday April 21, 12:14 am Eastern Time PALO ALTO, Calif., April 21 (Reuters) - More than half of all Internet users visited a Lycos Inc. (LCOS - news) property last month, helping the online service surpass Yahoo! Inc.'s (YHOO - news) long-standing lead, according to a survey being released on Wednesday. The new Media Metrix survey, which is closely watched by Internet advertisers and investors, shows that Lycos attracted 31.9 million users in March, compared with Yahoo's 31.3 million. It was the first time Lycos' reach has surpassed that of Yahoo, which has typically ranked first among the Internet portals -- the online hubs that offer everything from news and stock quotes to shopping links, sports scores and chat rooms. The latest data also mark the first time that Internet underdog Lycos, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, has attained an audience reach of over 50 percent. The survey shows 51.8 percent of Internet users visited a Lycos property at least once during March, vs. 50.8 percent for Yahoo and 30.6 percent for Excite Inc. (XCIT - news) ''I think it's phenomenally significant,'' Lycos Executive Vice President Ron Sege said. ''I expect it will help us attract more users as well as advertisers.'' Yahoo stressed that the numbers only reflected a one-month snapshot and said it did not believe they marked a trend. One survey clearly does not make or break a company, and in the new Internet medium, audience reach is just one of many measurements of a company's success. By other gauges, Yahoo arguably remains the leader. In its latest quarter, Yahoo averaged 235 million page views a day, or more than four times Lycos' average. Page views are the number of individual pages all Internet users combined call up in a given day. In addition, while Yahoo is a profitable business, Lycos is still losing money. And though name recognition is harder to quantify, Yahoo appears to be a better-known brand than Lycos. Nonetheless, Lycos says the latest numbers show the strength of its business, and they come as the company's valuation has been subject to wild dispute. Although Lycos belongs to the group of high-flying Internet stocks, its share price is languishing at around half its high for the year. The drop has been largely linked to criticism that its pending acquisition by USA Networks Inc. (USAI - news) undervalues it. The dispute surrounding the merger remains unresolved, and some close to the company have said other parties are interested in buying Lycos at a premium over what USA Networks has offered. Sege would not comment directly on whether the new data might affect the merger. But he said: ''Anything that proves the effectiveness of our strategy makes us more valuable. These numbers matter a lot.'' One reason Lycos may still not be as much of a household name as Yahoo is that its strategy involves compiling multiple businesses. Unlike Yahoo, which has focused on developing a single strong brand, Lycos is a network of different services, including the Tripod and Angelfire online communities, the HotBot search engine, the Wired technology news service, and the Suck.com collection of commentary on media and culture. This strategy, it argues, has helped it grow rapidly by reaching multiple demographics. In recent months, Lycos has moved aggressively to offer some of the hottest new features available online, including a search service for online music recorded in the Internet-friendly MP3 format. Lycos said it became interested in the format when it discovered that ''MP3'' was second most commonly searched word on the Internet, after ''sex.''