Daum is South Korea’s biggest Internet-service provider, with more than 35 million registered members. It caters to a Korean audience with a vernacular Web portal that features shopping, games, chat rooms and job-hunting services.
In acquiring Lycos, Daum believes it can succeed in the U.S. market by introducing some of the hallmarks of its Korean service, such as features that allow users to build personalized multimedia Web sites. Daum also said it plans to upgrade Lycos’s e-mail and search engine.
Hmmm…sounds familiar. Sounds just like another company with aspirations to enter the US market by buying a portal….oh yeah, Terra, former owner of Lycos. I dunno, but it seems like a rough time to be entering the portal wars in the US. Yahoo, Google and MSFT have fistfuls of cash and monster brands. Good luck Daum…but I smell another sale – maybe of component parts – in Lycos’ future.
(thanks, Rafat)