Lycos to launch organic Internet index By ANDREA ORR

PALO ALTO, Calif. (April 18, 1999 8:24 p.m. EDT) Internet portal Lycos Inc. will unveil a new practice Monday to provide a more comprehensive and user-friendly index of the World Wide Web, by offering a homespun open directory that is compiled by volunteer experts, editors and assorted computer hobbyists.

The company said it has entered an agreement to feature the Netscape Open Directory on its two leading Internet gateways, Lycos.com and HotBot.com, making it available to the 28.5 million people who visit Lycos sites each month.

Netscape, now a division of America Online, last year began putting together the open directory by soliciting volunteer editors, also called contributors, to host category pages in their areas of interest and expertise.

The directory now has 8,500 volunteer editors hosting Web pages on everything from Buddhist tradition to motorcycle repair.

The existing directory on any Internet portal today has 200 or fewer editors which means they can catalog a relatively finite number of Web sites, said Lycos Executive Vice President Ron Sege. The Open Directory relies on an organically growing number of editors, all contributing in areas they are keenly interested in.

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