Business/Technology Editors
WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 22, 2002
Enron and K-Mart Business Woes Stir Online Interest
The Lycos 50(TM) For Week Ending January 19, 2002
Terra Lycos (NASDAQ: TRLY), the largest global Internet network, today announced
The Lycos 50(TM)Top 10 Search Terms for the Week Ending January 19, 2002:
1) Chu Mei-Feng 6) The IRS 2) Dragonball 7) Britney Spears 3) Morpheus 8) Lord of the Rings 4) Martin Luther King, Jr. 9) Tattoos 5) NFL 10) Taxes
Notes of Interest:
Last week, news of the international Internet sex scandal involving Taiwanese politician Chu Mei-Feng propelled the ex-newswoman onto The Lycos 50. This week, Mei-Feng scored twice as many searches as Internet juggernaut Dragonball, taking over the number one spot on the list, pushing Dragonball back to number two. A secretly shot tape of Mei-Feng in a sexual encounter with a married Taiwanese businessman has turned up for sale online and offline around Southeast Asia. News of the sex scandal pushed searches for Taiwan up 550 percent and searches for Taiwan news up 1,240 percent over last week. Ironically, only one percent of search requests came from Taiwan. The majority of search queries originated in Singapore (23 percent) followed by the U.S. (14 percent), Thailand (12 percent) and Malaysia, Australia and Spain (four percent each).
Business Scandals:
The embattled Enron (#25) made and the financially challenged K-Mart (#26) each made The Lycos 50 for the first time, as searches for both companies tripled over the past week.
Black Hawk Up:
The recently released war film Black Hawk Down (#50) is the latest Lycos 50 "One to Watch" to make the list. In November 2001, The Lycos 50 predicted the film would be hot, based on increased search activity. Meanwhile, two stars of the film, Josh Hartnett (#31) and Orlando Bloom (#24) remain popular with Web users. Bloom is also wildly searched online due to his role in Lord of the Rings (#8).
About Terra Lycos
Terra Lycos is a global Internet network operating in 43 countries in 20 languages, reaching 109 million unique monthly visitors worldwide. Created by the combination Terra Networks, S.A. and Lycos, Inc., in October 2000, Terra Lycos is one of the most popular Internet networks in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia and Latin America, and is the largest Internet access provider in Spain and Latin America. The Terra Lycos network of sites includes Lycos.com, Terra.com, Angelfire.com, ATuHora.com, Gamesville.com, HotBot.com, Invertia.com, Lycos Zone, Matchmaker.com, Quote.com, Rumbo.com, Sonique, Tripod.com, RagingBull.com and Wired News (Wired.com). The company's headquarters are in Barcelona and it has major offices in Boston, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Miami, Monterrey and Sao Paulo among others. It is listed on the Madrid stock exchange (TRR) and on the Nasdaq electronic market (TRLY). For more information, please visit our corporate Web site at http://www.terralycos.com.
(c)2002 Lycos, Inc. Lycos(R)is a registered trademark of Carnegie Mellon. All other product or service marks mentioned herein are those of Terra Networks, S.A., Lycos, Inc. or their respective owners. All rights reserved.