“Web portal Terra Lycos on Tuesday made a big push into broadband entertainment, signing deals with video-streaming site iFilm.com and Net music service Listen.com. Under its agreement with iFilm, the Waltham, Mass.-based company will provide access to its library of 80,000 movie shorts, trailers and alternative videos, expanding on the portal’s entertainment site, Lycos Entertainment. Lycos also plans to use iFilm’s advertising technology to bundle commercials with film clips; the two companies will share revenue from the ads. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company expects the deal to last for an indefinite period. Separately, Lycos launched an online music-subscription service in partnership with Listen.com. The service, called Lycos Rhapsody, sells access to a collection of 10,000 albums from four of the five top record labels, including BMG Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music and Warner Music Group. After a free trial period in June, the subscription service will sell for between $4 and $9.95 a month.
“The moves aim to lift Lycos in two areas: by improving advertising opportunities and subscription revenue. Due to the shrinking ad market, Lycos, along with other major Net publishers, has been hard-pressed to lure marketers to spend online. By streaming entertainment over broadband connections, the company can take advantage of iFilm’s iStream technology for incorporating ads into Webcasts. The company aims to appeal to marketers hoping to reach more affluent, at-work visitors…”
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