Make way for USA/Lycos, a new hybrid vehicle in the race for supremacy on the World Wide Web - yet another hastily assembled contraption that is part fast-moving Internet machine, part slow-moving traditional business.
USA/Lycos Interactive Networks, under a merger announced this week, would marry Internet gateway Lycos with two ventures owned by Mr Barry Diller's media conglomerate: cable television stalwart Home Shopping Network and Ticketmaster Online-Citysearch Inc.
Mr Diller and Lycos chief executive Mr Robert Davis said the new firm would become an e-commerce powerhouse, potentially selling goods to an audience that already includes more than 30 million Internet users and 70 million TV households.
Eventually, they said, the married companies would be able to refer people considering whether to buy a gemstone on Home Shopping Network to a Lycos website to read more about it. Or people buying something from a Web store owned by Lycos could ask follow-up questions to the same telephone operators who service Home Shopping Network customers.
"We have created a framework for becoming the largest electronic commerce entity anywhere," Mr Davis said, adding that the Home Shopping Network's staff of 3,500 telephone operators, warehousing operation and delivery system will give USA/Lycos an edge over Internet competitors.
"I think we are entering a period of new convergence - of information, entertainment and direct selling," Mr Diller said.
USA/Lycos will join other newly merged Web/media competitors that are trying to get big quickly to dominate the on-ramps to the Internet, called "portals".
