I was a panel member with Bob Davis of Highland Capital Partners this afternoon. Our panel dealt with the VC investment climate in the Search field.

For those not familiar with Bob, let me refresh your memories. Bob was the first employee and only CEO of Lycos (1995). Lycos went public in 1996 and Bob rode the Interent wave for four years --- Lycos was sold to Terra Networks in 1999 for nearly $13 billion. Bob has been in the VC arena since the sale.

One point to remember from Bob's talk today: Lycos has some interesting assets that might have been overlooked. Mainly that it has a variety of "communities" such as Tripod that have never (until now) been terrific at garnering revenues. However that is about to change now that contextual ads are the rage. This development means that Tripod's traffic/community might very well become a signficant money-maker. The same holds for several Lycos communities.