Lycos Opens Millennium Store

“The clock is ticking.” 5123:33.23 and counting. When users visit the newly launched Millennium Guide, powered by Lycos, Inc. (Nasdaq: LCOS), they’ll be greeted with not only a Y2K countdown meter, but with opportunities to catch up on Y2K news or play a countdown to 2000 trivia game, as well.

Even if surfers view the possibility of a Y2K computer bug through an ‘end of the world as we know it’ perspective, why not party like it’s 1999? After all, it is, and a quick stop by the site’s Millennium Store offers e-commerce choices like the famed Prince CD or the bluefly 1999 G-shock Y2K watch, among other highly useful items.

The Millennium Guide also gathers together a wealth of useful information, including a book section, chat areas, daily news updates, editorials, links to hardware and software-related Web sites and Y2K site reviews, and an opinion section. Users can also download Y2K bug fixes, compliance tests, system checkers, and search the FTP directory for Y2K-related files online.

If users grow weary of pure information and resource bingeing, they can lapse into the more whimsical, trying for a dream nature excursion for two to Baja California and the Sea of Cortez playing Trivia 2000, a game supplied by Uproar.

“There has been a tremendous amount of misleading stories and a dearth of valuable resources,” commented Cindy Brown, director of content for Lycos. “We’ve tried to change that with the Lycos Millennium Guide by creating an objective resource where consumers can go to learn more about Y2K issues from experts and peers.”

The guide will be available through, yes, January of 2000. Founded in 1995, Lycos maintains numerous Web sites, including HotBot, HotWired, Wired News, Webmonkey, Angelfire, MailCity, MyTime.Com, Suck.Com, Tripod, and WhoWhere.

In Other Y2K News – Viva Las Vegas!

San Jose, California-based Secure Computing (Nasdaq: SCUR) will hold its Black Hat Briefings ’99 security conference in Las Vegas from July 7 through 8. The company’s intention is to bring corporate and government engineers and software programmers face-to-face with security experts and “underground” security specialists.

Discussion at the conference will focus on a number of issues including how Y2K will impact a company’s security. According to Jeff Moss, director of assessment services at Secure Computing, “taking a myopic approach only to the Y2K issue that does not involve diligent attention to security could lead to severe consequences.”

Moss commented, additionally, that “being Y2K compliant really won’t matter for much if an organization’s network is rendered ineffective by hacker attacks and intrusions.”