The Lycos 50 Presents This Year's Hot Holiday Toys; Web Searches Indicate Game Consoles and Harry Potter Legos are the Must-Have Toys This Holiday Season

Business Wire, Nov 29, 2001

Business/Technology Editors

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 29, 2001

Terra Lycos (NASDAQ: TRLY and Madrid Exchange: TRR), the largest global Internet network, today announced The Lycos 50(TM) list of the most searched toys this holiday season. The Lycos 50 (http://50.lycos.com) is a weekly authoritative list of the most popular people, places and things users are searching for online.

    The top 10 most searched toys based on Lycos user searches for the
week ending November 24, 2001:

1) Xbox                             6) Gameboy Advance
2) Gamecube                         7) Leap Frog/Leap Pad
3) Playstation 2                    8) Transformers
4) Barbie                           9) Model Trains
5) Legos                           10) Hello Kitty

Last year, three of the top five most searched toys were video game consoles, while scooters were also very hot. "This year, it seems every kid still wants a new video game console, although Game Boy Advance continues to lag behind the video game console machines in popularity," said Aaron Schatz, writer of The Lycos 50. "It is interesting to note that while Xbox gets the most searches, the specific video games with the most searches are all Playstation 2 games. Right now the most-searched video games are Grand Theft Auto 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, and WWF Smackdown: Just Bring It - all PS2 games. The most popular Xbox game with Lycos users is Halo, while the most popular Gamecube game is Super Smash Brothers Melee."

Scooters dropped out of this year's top ten replaced by one of the hotter toys this season, Harry Potter Legos. Legos reached number seven in popularity with Web users last year but appear to be much more in demand this year due to Harry Potter mania. "The Harry Potter Legos seem to be the most popular of the Harry Potter toys when it comes to online searches," Schatz added. "We received five times as many searches specifying Harry Potter Legos the week after the movie opened when compared to the week before."

Another big toy trend with Web users this year is Transformers. After a few years of futuristic, animal-to-robot Transformers, Hasbro recently brought back the classic car-to-robot type models, which have received many Web search queries. The educational Leap Pad/Leap Frog series of toys also appear to be more popular this year, resulting in about twice as many searches as last year.

"Some folks expected that with the nation at war, war toys and war action figures would be more popular," Schatz said. "We discovered that neither toy soldiers nor G.I. Joe action figures seem to be any more popular this year than they were last year. Also less popular this year are the finger boards and finger bikes."

The top 10 most searched video and computer games based on Lycos user searches for the week ending November 24, 2001:

1) Grand Theft Auto 3                  6) Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
2) Metal Gear Solid 2                  7) Half-Life
3) The Sims                            8) Return to Castle Wolfenstein
4) Diablo 2                            9) Civilization III
5) WWF Smackdown 3: Just Bring It     10) Gran Turismo 3

About Terra Lycos

Terra Lycos is a global Internet network operating in 43 countries in 20 languages, reaching 103 million unique monthly visitors worldwide. Created by the combination of 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)2001 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.