Not especially. In 1996, Wired's online arm, HotWired, had launched a search engine, HotBot, using technology from Inktomi, now part of Yahoo. In the spring of 1997, I briefly worked as a freelancer copyediting marketing materials in which HotWired pitched advertisers on buying keyword advertising. Had Wired managed to go public in 1996, as it hoped, instead of being sold off in pieces to Condé Nast and Lycos, might it have raised enough money to build HotBot out? Possibly. Google didn't launch until 1998, after all.

But it's an academic point. Few of Google's ideas were wholly original; timing, execution, and clarity of vision played greater parts in its success. Not to mention luck. Wired always had more of that in chronicling the digital revolution than in living it.

He's Back!
Webmonkey was the original Web-developer's resource. now it's reborn as the go-to destination for programmers of all levels. Flex your skills at Webmonkey.com.

"From: Mike Jandreau <[redacted]@lycos-inc.com>
Date: February 2, 2007 11:04:24 AM
To: [redacted]@gawker.com
Subject: http://tinyurl.com/2ftcg6 violation of my privacy.

Hello,

As a retaliation for enforcing company policies, one of our users, has been slandering me across various message boards and blogs.

Now, I find that an unauthorized photograph of myself is posted on "consumerist.com", violating my personal privacy.

I have had 81 death threats since last night, and 6 individuals have shown up at our corporate offices, looking to speak with me. All 6 of those individuals were asked to leave the premsises. [sic]

My photograph is located on: http://tinyurl.com/2ftcg6

I immediately request that this website and photograph be removed, as it is a violation of my privacy.
Under Federal Law, you must comply with this request."

Dear Mike,

We're sorry, no one here has any intentions of helping you with anything.

We are the manager of all of Customer Service. There is no one higher than us that you will speak with.

You violated our policy, which is, despite what you say, to not be a jerk to your customers.

Your image will be held hostage. After you apologize to Whitney and restore her emails, your image will be deleted.

P.S. The picture was gleaned from your site, MovieSnobs. You may want to cc your letter to Google Images as well. — BEN POPKEN

Previously: Lycos Deletes All Of Customer's Email, Tells 'Em To Suck It
(Original blog entry down to CPU overload, here's a Google cache).

He's the guy who, after you complain, tells you to go suck an electrical socket.

Your job is to ask, "how hard?"

At least that's what happened to Whitney. When she bemoaned the evaporation of 104 weeks of her personal correspondence, Mr. Jandreau at Lycos responded,

"I'm sorry, no one here has any intentions of helping you with anything.

I am the manager of all of Customer Service. There is no one higher than me that you will speak with.

You violated our policy, which is, despite what you say, completely clear.

No one is holding anything hostage. Your e-mails have been completely deleted, and no amount of money can now restore them. "

Policy it may be, but this is no reason to treat a customer, even if most people aren't even sure that your company exists anymore. Lycos owes Whitney an apology and the restoration of all her deleted email.

For the future, why can't email services let us port our email archives just like address books? That way customers like Whitney could dump Lycos for something that doesn't suck, like Gmail. — BEN POPKEN

Lycos SUCKS: they held my emails for ransom for $19.95, then deleted them [idaho-hum]
UPDATE: Original blog entry down to CPU overload, here's a Google cache.

A glorious partnership for two unstoppable up-and-comers!

Ask.com and Lycos team up in search deal [Reuters]
Ask and Lycos death-spirograph [Alexa]

We had a little party at Wired. We got together with the magazine folks and tore down the Lycos sign that's been hanging outside the Wired News office door since the Conde Nast acquisition.

Then we shattered it with a hammer.

Above: Wired Digital general manager (and Gawker Media alum) Kourosh Karimkhany. Below: Shattered memories of a dark time.

Photos by Michael Calore [Flickr]
Other broken stuff from Lycos: Lycos can kill morale with a coffee mug [Valleywag]
And others: Exclusive leak: Editor says Lycos will shutter Webmonkey [Valleywag]

A Wired News staffer, thankful that Condé Nast has rescued the company from Lycos, sends a hilariously telling schwag shot.

Lycos sent us these nifty mugs in celebration of their 10 year anniversary. This is the shape they were in when our EIC opened the box. They instantly became a metaphor for our life under Lycos.

Earlier: Wired insider: Wired News staff are bedraggled Lost characters

——-Original Message——-
From: [redacted]
To: [redacted]
Subject: The Death (again) of Webmonkey
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 17:00:22 -0700

i could just say "SSAI" but allow me to elaborate. as you may have
heard, Conde Nast (owners of Wired Magazine) have purchased Wired News
and the wired.com domain. here's the news bit:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,71366-0.html

now, i'm an employee of wired news, which means that i work on conde
nast properties (wired news) as of this week. webmonkey, being a lycos
property, is off of my desk now. i've asked around about the details,
and i just got word that lycos is mothballing webmonkey. no new
content, no new employees. they say it's "just for now", but
considering that they were never willing to spend a dime to provide me
with any resources for anything relating to site maintenance or
improvement, i can't imagine they'd start doing so now.

chances are, lycos will do a completely new site at the domain and
take all of the old stuff offline. this sounds like a really bad idea,
but they've already done the same with Cocktail, RGB Gallery,
HotWired, Netizen, Suck.com, and Animation Express. so, it's not that
big of a jump to consider that they'll eventually do the same to
Webmonkey. this is the third time webmonkey has "died" (1999, 2004,
2006) and i have a feeling the third time's a charm. one month short
of its tenth birthday!

i advise you all to make PDFs of everything that you've written for
webmonkey. it may still be online in six months, but it just as likely
may not. if you take the article and run it on your site or your blog,
lycos might send you a cease and desist letter. but quite frankly, i
really don't think they have anyone that will be checking. i've been
handling the policing of all of the content thieves for the past
couple of years, and i know that nobody else was doing it. just please
don't say i gave you permission to run your webmonkey article
somewhere... because (for the record) i never said that.

the gravy train has run off the tracks and the conductor has fled into
the woods. if you're currently working on an article, please lift up
your pens and stop writing for Webmonkey right now. the budget is
frozen and there's nobody at lycos who will be able to handle posting
the articles. i hang my head in shame as i write this, because i
really didn't want to have to tell assigned authors that their
assignments won't be running. but those is the breaks, as they say.

please let me know if you have any questions about any of this. also,
i'll still be working at wired news doing web dev news, but we haven't
decided if i'll be reporting on news, editing how-tos, doing software
and book reviews... it's still all up in the air. the blog will live
on, but it probably won't be called Monkey Bites as of august.

if you're interested in writing for wired news, let me know, give me
story ideas. i probably won't be fully folded in to the wired news
process/CMS/etc for a little while yet, but i'll still take pitches.
why not, right?

i wish you all the best.
so, send me questions if you have them! talk to you all soon.

-[redacted]

PS: i apologize for the form letter. please tell all of your friends
and co-workers who are former monkeys about this... emailing every
single author is going to take a really, really long time.

RIP Webmonkey 1996-2006

• The remaining eight writers at Wired News can stop worrying about getting fired. (And Wired ought to grow the team back to its dot-com-boom size — this ragtag remainder has been worked to the bone.)
• Lycos will continue its death spiral. It still owns HotBot and Webmonkey, but these are dead properties. Now Lycos is carried by Tripod and Angelfire — two almost-healthy-but-getting-sicker brands.
• The $25 million price means Condé Nast paid $2-3 million per Wired News employee.
• Condé Nast can finally relaunch Wired Magazine's web site (a Wired News property) in the style of Portfolio, the publisher's upcoming business mag.
• "Internet" is capitalized again.

Earlier: What Wired's editor told me before Condé Nast bought Wired News

Last month, when I reported that Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson maligned Wired's online edition, several readers pointed out that Wired News publishes Wired Magazine's digital edition. Anderson was complaining because he had no control over his own magazine's online presentation.

So I e-mailed Anderson about the issue. On June 27, he replied:

We have an excellent working relationship with WN, probably better than many print/web relationships within a single company. We're working together to improve the site, and I think you'll see the fruits of this labor before the end of the year.

Pretty juicy fruits. Congratulations, Wired — it's good to see the family reunited.

Condé Nast Buys Wired News [Wired News]
Earlier: Editor dooms Wired Magazine's site to fugliness [Valleywag]
Picture: The Obvious [Splash page]