The Lycos 50 for Week Ending March 18, 2000; March Madness Hits the Web and Author Stephen King Makes His First-Ever Appearance on The Lycos 50

Business Wire, March 21, 2000

Business Editors/Entertainment Writers

WALTHAM, Mass.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--March 21, 2000

The following information is from The Lycos 50(tm), the 50 most popular user searches for the week ending March 18, 2000.

For a complete list of The Lycos 50(tm) and for in-depth text of The Lycos 50 Daily Report, go to http://50.lycos.com. -0-

       The Lycos 50(tm) Top 10 Search Terms for the Week Ending
March 18, 2000
     1)  Pokemon                    6)  WWF
     2)  March Madness              7)  Pamela Anderson
     3)  Dragonball Z               8)  The IRS
     4)  Britney Spears             9)  Tattoos
     5)  St. Patrick's Day         10)  Jennifer Lopez

Notes of Interest:

Web surfers were hoop hungry as this year's NCAA Basketball Tournament got underway on March 16, pushing March Madness into the number two spot on The Lycos 50. Users searched for one thing: brackets, brackets and more brackets. Picks , pools, scores, tickets and Final Four were also popular search terms with the users.

Other Notes of Interest:

Author Stephen King made his first-ever appearance on The Lycos 50 coming in at number 30, thanks to the hubbub over his online story, "Riding the Bullet." The novella, King's first since he was injured in a hit-and-run car accident last summer, was made available as a downloadable e-book on March 14. King's publisher reported that 400,000 users went online to download the book in the first 24 hours.

New to The Lycos 50:

Skateboarding made its debut at number 31, after rising nearly 50 percent in the past six weeks. The Sims, a new PC game from the makers of Sim City, crashed onto the list at number 42.

Biggest Drop:

With the presidential nominations all but decided, queries for George W. Bush dropped about 30 percent, while searches for Al Gore dropped 20 percent. Searches for Senator John McCain dropped a whopping 73 percent.

About Lycos, Inc.

Founded in 1995, Lycos, Inc. is a leading Web media company and owner of the Lycos Network, one of the most visited hubs on the Internet reaching nearly one out of every two U.S. Web users. The Lycos Network is a unified set of Web sites, attracting a diverse audience by offering a variety of services, including leading Web search and navigation resources; Web community and communications services including free homepage building, free Web-based e-mail, clubs, chat, instant messaging; a personalized My Lycos start page; a comprehensive shopping center featuring more than 2,400 merchants; and an assortment of compelling content such as games, music, news, fun and educational information and activities for kids as well as information about investing, technology, entertainment, sports, small business, travel and more. The Lycos Network is composed of premium sites: Lycos.com, Tripod, WhoWhere, Angelfire, MailCity, HotBot, HotWired, Wired News, Webmonkey, Suck.com, Sonique, Quote, Gamesville and Lycos Zone. Lycos.com (http://www.lycos.com), "Your Personal Internet Guide," is dedicated to helping each individual user locate, retrieve and manage information tailored to his or her personal interests. Headquartered near Boston, in Waltham, Mass., Lycos, Inc. is a global Internet leader with a major presence throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America.

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