The Lycos 50 for Week Ending November 4, 2000; Election 2000 is This Week's Hottest Web Topic, While George W. Bush's 1976 DUI Arrest Sparked Little Interest Online

Business Wire, Nov 7, 2000

Entertainment Editors

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 7, 2000

The following information is from The Lycos 50(TM), the 50 most popular user searches for the week ending November 4, 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.

The Lycos 50(TM) Top 10 Search Terms for the Week Ending November 4, 2000

1)       Election 2000                   6)  Britney Spears
2)       Dragonball                      7)  Pumpkin Carving
3)       Napster                         8)  Al Gore
4)       Halloween                       9)  George W. Bush
5)       Playstation 2                   10) Christmas

Notes of Interest:

While Election 2000 was the hottest Web topic on this week's Lycos 50, the revelation of George W. Bush's 1976 DUI arrest (and his 1998 lie about the incident to a Dallas reporter) produced almost no waves online. In fact, less than one percent of Bush searches mentioned the story. More people (three percent of searches) were interested in Bushdance.com, a Hamster Dance knockoff, than in Bush's DUI arrest. The number one term, Election 2000, included searches for specific elections, the electoral college, which was a particularly hot topic, voting and presidential polls. The two major presidential candidates each dropped one spot, but both remain extremely popular with Lycos users. Democrat Al Gore (#8) actually put a slight amount of distance between himself and Bush (#9), rising by about two percent to 51.9 percent, compared to 48.1 percent for Bush when measured head-to-head.

Backstreet Burnout?

Once again, pop music's number two boy band The Backstreet Boys fell out of The Lycos 50 despite the recent release of its new album, Black and Blue. Once on top of rivals 'N Sync (#24) for the first six months of our rankings, 'N Sync passed the Backstreet Boys on February 8, six weeks before the release of their album. Album sales will tell the tale, but based on Web searches, 'N Sync seems to have stolen the hearts of American teenagers away from their boy band predecessors.

Final Factoids:

Lucy Liu proves to be the most popular Charlie's Angel online. In a three-way race with her co-stars, she gets 35.4 percent of searches, with 33.7 percent searching for Drew Barrymore and 30.9 percent looking for the movie's biggest name, Cameron Diaz. Bill "Bosley" Murray finishes a distant fourth.

About Terra Lycos

Terra Lycos is a new global Internet network operating in 40 countries in 19 languages, reaching 91 million unique monthly visitors worldwide. Created by the combination of Terra Networks, S.A. and Lycos, Inc., Terra Lycos is one of the most popular Internet networks in the U.S., Europe and Asia, is the leading portal to Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking markets, and is the number three access provider in the world. The Terra Lycos network of sites includes Lycos.com, Terra.com, Angelfire.com, ATuHora.com, Gamesville.com, HotBot.com, htmlGEAR.com, Invertia.com, LycosZone.com, Matchmaker.com, Quote.com, Rumbo.com, Sonique.com, Tripod.com, Webmonkey.com, WhoWhere.com and Wired News (Wired.com). The company's corporate headquarters are in Barcelona, Spain and its operating headquarters are in Waltham, Mass.

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