I spent some of the $75 on music in iTunes. While listening to my purchases I decided to research Matchmaker a bit to shed some light on the events which led to their recent acquisition.
1996- Jon Boede — who wrote the original Matchmaker BBS software — developed Matchmaker.com. Previously, the Matchmaker system existed as a national network of BBSs began in San Antonio in the early 1980s. Link
2000- Lycos bought Matchmaker from MetroSplash for $44M. At the time, Matchmaker had a community of more than four million members who exchanged close to eight million e-mails each month and enrolled approximately 160,000 new members each month. Rated as the most engaging site of 1999 by the Industry Standard, Matchmaker.com was the stickiest of all online dating sites and the fourth stickiest of all Web sites with users turning an average of 100 pages per month. Link
2002- Terra bought Lycos for $12.5 billion. Ka-ching! Link
Feb 04- Lycos announced that it planned to exit the search space and focus on becoming a social networking site. Mark Stoever, executive vice president of Terra Lycos, U.S., explained that the move would allow Lycos to focus on the company’s experience in online dating and publishing. Link
April 04- Lycos was put up for sale in April at an asking price of $170 million with investment bank Lehman Brothers acting as advisers.
August ’04- Terra sold most of Lycos to South Korea’s top website operator, Daum Communications for $95 million. Daum, the fifth-biggest stock on the junior Kosdaq exchange, said it would finance the deal with 70 billion won of its cash reserves and a bond issue. In the past, Daum also tried to acquire Mail.com. Link
Today- Who knows if Daum will be able to capitalize on MatchMaker. South Korea is a long way from Waltham, MA.
