Internet Entrepreneurs, The

The Lycos acquisition strategy

Acquisitions may have expanded the Lycos network substantially in the past three years, but it is the knitting together of the different businesses that has been at the root of the company's success. 'Integrating acquisitions is nothing short of a religion here,' says its chief executive proudly.

The cross-pollination and cross-fertilization from different parts of the Lycos Network has driven traffic from one site to another, reinforcing the overall brand and creating multiple opportunities for e-commerce and other revenue-generating ideas. Indeed driving traffic to another part of the Lycos Network is a key criterion used to measure individual managers' performance. 'Attracting an audience to one's own site is ...