Lycos Europe And Meetic Announce Cooperation In Online-Dating Sector

Meetic becomes premium dating partner of LYCOS

GUTERSLOH, PARIS (PRWEB) June 4, 2004 -- Within the scope of a two-year co-operation agreement concluded by LYCOS Europe, one of the leading European Internet portal providers, and Meetic, the biggest dating- community in Europe with 5 million members, LYCOS Europe will integrate the Meetic database as an additional service for the online dating-platform, Love@LYCOS, and Meetic will become the premium dating partner of Lycos. With more than 4 million registered users, Love@LYCOS is among the most prominent dating-platforms in Europe.

Search queries within the dating-service Love@LYCOS will also show consistent profiles of the Meetic database additionally to the Love@LYCOS search results. These search results will be marked as so called "sponsored links" and will provide highly relevant results for users. Direct marketing measures, such as newsletters, and the opportunity to co-register when registering for Love@LYCOS, will inform the users about the new service. Besides a co-branded dating service, an online-media campaign will promote the new service-offering by means of target group specific addressing of the users on the Lycos portal.

The launch of this unique service will start midyear 2004 in Germany, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands. The total volume of this cooperation amounts to a medium seven figure number.

"With the integration of Meetic, we are happy to offer an attractive added-value service for our users. As serious dating is Meetic's clear focus, its services are an excellent amplification of our dating platform Love@LYCOS, which is mainly positioned as a fun and flirting community," says Michael Rohowski, Head of European Business Development/Sales at LYCOS Europe.

Marc Simoncini, CEO of Meetic, states, "With this full integration into the advanced dating product, Love@LYCOS, including co-branding and a media campaign promoted on the entire LYCOS network, Meetic becomes the premium dating partner of LYCOS. In this regard the integration of sponsored links in a context other than the classical search surrounding is a downright novelty. In the past, context-sensitive keyword advertising has proven to be an extraordinarily successful vehicle for advertisers, that also exhibits high user acceptance. We expect this over-all advertisement arrangement to be very promising."

About Lycos Europe

Lycos Europe (Prime Standard: LCY / Nouveau Marche: 5770) is one of the leading European Internet destinations operating a pan-European network of websites in eight languages. The company's combination of search, communication services, content channels, Internet access, homepage building and online communities addresses a wide range of target groups. The Lycos Europe Network provides an attractive medium not only for consumers but also for advertisers and e-commerce partners throughout Europe. Every month about 20 million users visit the Lycos sites in Europe. Today, Lycos Europe generates about 2.5 billion page views each month. With a network of websites covering Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, Lycos Europe has a large geographical reach in Europe.

About Meetic

Founded in November 2001 by Marc Simoncini (Founder of iFrance sold to Vivendi Universal in April 2000), Meetic(C) is the European leader in dating services (the cumulated European leading audience). The web site has quickly become the most successful online dating service in Europe with 5 millions registered members. Meetic(C) is a multi-access (phone, SMS, WAP & i-Mode) dating service for singles looking for their soul mates. Meetic(C) is the first pan-European dating service, launched in Spain, Belgium, Italy, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands. Meetic(C) is number three worldwide within two years with 10.2 millions unique visitors (according to a worldwide ComsScore Media Metrix Survey in January 2004).

Meetic(C) is serious, reliable and efficient. One third of the team from seven nationalities is customer care. All pictures and texts presentations are manually validated. All the exchanges are highly automatically monitored to prevent from any abuses.

For further information please contact:

LYCOS Europe

Monika Schneider

Telephone: +49-(0)5241-80-71052

Email: monika.schneider@lycos-europe.com

Meetic

Virginie Andouard

Telephone: +33158170577

Email: v.andouard@ilius.net