Lycos Europe To Close Its Doors. Is This First Step to Tech Company Closures?
There have been a lot of huge companies here in the UK shut down of late because of the economic crisis, such as Woolworths, MFI and others. In the technology world there havent been too many casualties so far. However that being said, it has been reported this morning that Lycos Europe will be closing its doors. A date still hasnt been confirmed but it is rumoured to be before the end of the year.
Lycos Europe, the portal and Web hosting service, said on Wednesday that it has concluded a strategic review process and will shut down operations and seek a sale of remaining assets. The company is separate from Lycos in the U.S., and was launched as a joint venture between Telefonica’s Terra and Bertelsmann.
“As a result of this strategic review process the Management Board and the Supervisory Board of Lycos came to the conclusion that the best available option of the company is to (i) strive for a sale of its domains, Danish portal and shopping activities and (ii) to discontinue the portal and webhosting activities,” the company said.
Lycos Europe will also return about $60 million to its shareholders.
What other technology companies are going to follow in the footsteps of Lycos? It tends to be old brands that are struggling to actually build a strong brand in this ever growing environment. My tip has to be on Napster being of the big boys to close its doors very soon!
12 Comments
Hi,
I have had Lycos mail for many years now and used it for professional uses.
I haven’t heard or received any communication from Lycos about an impending closure. Do you know if this will affect me?
I am based in Europe, the account was made through http://mail.lycos.com/
If it’s closing, I need to recover my emails, how shall I do that?
Thank you for your feedback,
Manuel Trindade
Lycos Europe is closing, which effects lycos.co.uk, but I haven’t seen any news about lycos.com.
See http://www.contactclean.com/news/2009/02/lycoscouk-closes-its-email-service
I originally had my account with mailcity.com in fact I still type it in and it refers me to mail.lycos.com. My question is will I still be able to access my account? Im based in europe but use the world site of lycos.com. Peter Harrison
Lycos closed without any warning email, and ive lost my website and my pop3 email account!
Thanks lycos..
NOT
Lycos gave very little notice. They claim there was a lot of prior publicity about their site closing but I didn’t see any of it. So unfortunately I lost all my emails and worst several contact addresses. No wonder there were no buyers for most parts of the company. They won’t be missed.
hmm, thanks lycos, i now cant get on to my facebook account because my email address is invalid, i cant change my email address without logging on, i cant log on because my email is invalid!!!!!! i could go on but have a new facebook site to set up.
Becki! The same thing is happening to me! I was able to use facebook just couple of days ago and suddenly I can’t anymore. I been trying to contact them but you need your old log in email to do it… FRUSTRATING
Becki/Jack i have the same problem with not being able to access my facebook account as my lycos address is now invalid! I’m stuck on what to do. I’ve e-mailed facebook but no reply!! Surely we shouldn’t have to set up a new account, i’m going to keep on e-mailing facebook til something gets sorted!
If you need to contact facebook their email is: info@facebook.com
If we all keep e-mailing them with the same problem then they might sort it out!!!
Having the same problem too with the facebook/lycos saga!
If anybody finds a solution, can they please let me know, i’m missing my facebook dearly and do not want to set up a new page loosing all my contacts, photos messages etc.
Ive emailed facebook 3 times now with no responce. You would think a multi-national company like facebook would have a better service for technical problems.
Fingers crossed we dont all lose our pages.
xx
I can’t believe that after being a Lycos customer for over 5 years now, I haven’t received even a warning mail! This is a scandal. I’m waiting for very important email. What do I do now?