Chu Mei-Feng, Center of Taiwanese Sex Scandal, Conquers Dragonball to Take Over Number One Spot...

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).