Terra Lycos U.S. lays off 90 workers, refocuses core Web offerings

Computerworld - Global Web search engine company Terra Lycos is restructuring its U.S. operations to reinvigorate its online portals and attract new site visitors.
In an announcement yesterday, the U.S. division of the Barcelona, Spain-based company said it is bringing in vendor 24/7 Real Media Inc. for online advertising sales and audience research as Lycos expands its reach into new portal offerings.
Brian Payea, a Lycos spokesman, said that the company's search business will remain an important part of the new strategy and that all upcoming online offerings will rely on search as a key function. "It's actually fundamental to the whole thing going forward," he said. "The experience of Lycos.com will be much different than you have at any of the other portals."
The new services and features will be launched in several weeks, he said, and will mark substantial changes from the existing generic search portal. "It's a radically different approach," Payea said, although he declined to offer further details about the portal.
As part of its planned changes, about 90 of Lycos' approximately 400 employees in offices across the U.S. have been laid off, Payea said.
In the near future, Lycos will be featuring more portals that provide connections between people, as is the case with the company's existing Matchmaker.com and Angelfire.com portals, he said.
Mark Stoever, executive vice president of Waltham, Mass.-based Terra Lycos U.S., said in a statement that the company's new "primary focus is to grow audience across critical properties that fit our strategies."
Terms of the multiyear ad deal with New York-based 24/7 Real Media weren't released. Under the agreement, Lycos portals, which attract 50 million unique U.S. users monthly, will enter 24/7 Real Media's Web Alliance, which is the company's portfolio of more than 700 Web sites.
Other Lycos U.S. Web sites include a network of highly branded Web sites, including Quote.com, Tripod.com and HotBot.com.

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