CMG@Ventures purchases exclusive rights to Lycos; forms Lycos, Inc. to develop and market Carnegie Mellon University's Internet catalog and search technology.

WILMINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 20, 1995--CMG Information Services, Inc. (NASDAQ symbol: CMGI) today announced that its strategic investment and development company, CMG@Ventures, has purchased exclusive rights to the Lycos Spider Technology, source of the largest catalog of sites on the Internet, from Carnegie Mellon University, located in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Under the deal, CMG@Ventures will pay an upfront fee to Carnegie Mellon. In addition, Carnegie Mellon, and Lycos' developer Dr. Michael Mauldin, will also receive a minority stake in a new company, Lycos, Inc. CMG@Ventures ("@Ventures") has formed Lycos, Inc. as a subsidiary to develop and market the technology. The new company will immediately enhance current technical resources. Moreover, Lycos, Inc. will continue to provide free access to the Lycos service.

Carnegie has provided the Internet community with an easy to use, comprehensive catalog and search tool since October 1994. With more than 3.7 million pages in the catalog, Lycos has more than twice as many documents catalogued as its nearest competitor.

Developed at Carnegie Mellon by Dr. Michael "Fuzzy" Mauldin, Lycos has experienced tremendous acceptance in the Internet community. With nearly 3.5 million hits from as many as 500,000 users per week, Lycos has established itself as the pre-eminent Internet catalog, and one of the most popular sites on the Internet.

The Lycos catalog is built weekly by dozens of software robots, or agents, which we call "spiders," explained Dr. Mauldin. "Each day these spiders roam the web, finding and downloading web pages, creating abstracts of those pages. Each week, the resulting lists of abstracts are merged, older versions are discarded, and the new catalog is distributed to 11 Lycos servers, as well as the licensees."

Lycos, Inc. will offer advertising space on its site and will also license key technology components. With the number of users visiting the site growing rapidly, Lycos is one of the premier advertising locations on the Internet. Lycos, Inc. plans to develop a number of other related products and services, all built on the Lycos catalog.

"Catalog and search technology is key to the growth of the Internet," said Dave Wetherell, @Ventures' managing partner and CEO of CMG Information Services. "What's more, @Ventures expects that Lycos will be an invaluable partner to our existing and future investment partners."

"Anything on the Lycos home page will be seen by hundreds of thousands of Internet users a week," continued Wetherell. "There is no better way to publicize the products and services of our other investments."

Lycos, Inc. will continue to enhance the Lycos technology as well as provide the system resources necessary to service the increasing number of search requests. Dr. Mauldin will be actively involved in Lycos, Inc. as a consultant. He will be Director of the Technical Board guiding further development of the Lycos technology. In addition, other members of the Lycos core team are joining Lycos, Inc.

Carnegie Mellon is one of the nation's top-ranked centers of higher education well-known for its leadership and strength in computer science, and is compose of seven colleges and numerous multi-disciplinary research institutes.

"We have had a number of offers to commercialize Lycos from the venture capital and software development communities," said Dr. Mauldin. "We chose @Ventures because it was uniquely strong in both fields, and the University felt that @Ventures would be best able to fulfill the potential of the Lycos technology consistent with the spirit of the Internet."

@Ventures is the first strategic investment and development firm to focus exclusively on commercial opportunities afforded by the Internet and interactive media. @Ventures' strategy is to create a portfolio of investments in companies that generate overall greater value for this industry. Recent investments include ProductView Interactive and Ikonic Interactive, an advertising-sponsored Internet services company and a developer of interactive television and Internet software products, respectively.

@Ventures provides intellectual and financial capital to companies seeking to further the commercialization of the Internet and interactive media. @Ventures is a limited partnership focused on strategic investing and development and is wholly owned and funded by CMG Information Services, Inc.

Founded in 1968, CM is one of the world's largest providers of direct marketing lists and list services to publishers, and of product and service literature fulfillment to financial services, high technology, and consumer electronics. @Ventures is located at 187 Ballardvale St., Suite B110, Wilmington, MA 01887-7000, [phone]. The Lycos Web site can be found at http://www.lycos.com. -0-

Note to Editors: @Ventures and Lycos have been applied for as registered trademarks.

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Mark Coticchia, 412/268-7392 or [e-mail]