Steve’s breakdown: Lycos? That’s right – I said it. Lycos, whose ad from 1999 is above, has a new CEO. Talk about an uphill battle. He’ll need all the help he can get so give him a ring. Additional brands in this network of community and social sites include a games portal, Gamesville.com, a web hosting service, Tripod.com, and Angelfire.com.

WALTHAM, MA: Lycos Inc, a search engine and web portal, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Ybrant Digital, an end-to-end global digital marketing company has appointed Rob W Balazy as its new CEO.

Commenting on the new appointment, Jacob Nizri, President of Ybrant Digital said. “We are excited to bring Rob back in to lead Lycos. Rob is a strategic thinker, having shown strong market awareness and creativity by leading a successful turnaround at Inform. His experience and creativity will help position Lycos as a leading global platform for premium and user-generated content – in the well-known Lycos portal, its entertainment and shopping arms, Tripod web-publishing, and Gamesville online games.”

Balazy has been working with Lycos since 2003 and has been involved in strategic partnerships, M&A as well as product management with NameMedia, Register.com, and applied semantics. Before Lycos, he was the President and CEO of Inform Technologies, a Spark Capital backed developer of semantic web technology based in New York City.

“Rob is a very enthusiastic person, ready to embrace challenges in this dynamic market of global digital marketing. With his experience and leadership, he will spearhead Lycos to positive results for Ybrant.” said Suresh Reddy, Chairman & CEO of Ybrant Digital.

Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Lycos was originally established as a search engine in 1995 but over the years has also ventured into a network of email, webhosting, social networking, and entertainment websites. Besides its prominent lycos.com portal, some of the well known brands in its network of community and social sites include a games portal, Gamesville.com, a web hosting service, Tripod.com, and Angelfire.com. These are supported by various in-house tools and applications allowing plug-and-play adaptability to social and mobile environments.

Since 2010, Lycos has been owned by the Indian media group, Ybrant Digital which has its headquarters in Hyderabad, India.

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