The Email Wars

Interesting news in light of all the new email clients, services and more we see each week. Seems that we could be hitting the tipping point of too many email services and not enough users to justify the free model of email. To me this is a good thing. There are simply too many email services and ISPs. We need focus on the majors while supporting the fringe. 

News follows in the rest of the post for you. But in the end looks like Feb 15th is is all over for Lycos mail in the US and EU.

Lycos Europe Kills Jubii While They’re At It

Looks like troubled Lycos Europe is killing more than just Lycos Mail and Tripod. The company is also shuttering Jubii.

Jubii was a former Danish search company acquired by Lycos Europe in 2000 which was ultimately relaunched for the U.S. market with a social software product that integrated chat, text messaging, file-sharing, storage, blogging, e-mail and mobile communications. The name Jubii was chosen because Lycos Europe was barred from selling itself in the States using its own name. Ironically, the last sentence of that article went something like this, quoting former CEO Christoph Mohn:

“Give us two or three years. You’ll see a lot different Lycos Europe than you see now.”

Well that’s true, but not in a good way.

According to the Wikipedia entry for Jubii, the service was put up for sale in September 2008, but the homepage now reads:

Dear User,

This service will remain available only until 15 February 2009. After this date, all accounts will be closed, and any stored content and access authorizations related to your e-mail account will be deleted in accordance with legal requirements. For this reason, we ask that you back up all important data from your Jubii e-mail account in the next few days and switch to another e-mail provider.

We regret this measure and would like to thank you for the trust you have placed in us.

Your Jubii Mail Team

Lycos To Shutter Lycos Mail, Tripod On February 15

Troubled Internet company Lycos is shutting down its email service and website creation and hosting service Tripod, the company is saying via emails to users that begin with “We regret to inform you that our parent company has decided to discontinue all unprofitable activities.” Both services will be discontinued as of February 15 2009.

Both were early Internet services but have languished under heavy competition from better known and better financed rivals. Tripod has actually been around since 1992, and was bought by Lycos for a reported $58 million in 1998.

A new version of Lycos Mail was released in August 2006, but Comscore says it has less than half a million worldwide users and it’s nowhere near the top ten mail providers, which each have more than ten million users.

Below is the email sent to Lycos mail users. The company says it is working on “finding a solution to provide you the service through another provider,” but don’t hold your breath. After February 15, all data is history.

Dear User,

We regret to inform you that our parent company has decided to discontinue all unprofitable activities.

One of the activities that will be discontinued is our E-mail business division. For this reason, we are hereby terminating your account as of 15 February 2009. Currently, we are still working on finding a solution to provide you the service through another provider. If we should succeed to do so, we will inform you within the next 4 weeks. But as this is currently doubtful, we would like to ask you to assume the end of the service.

Prior to this date, you may continue to log in to your e-mail account and receive and send mail as usual. After this date, however, we will close your account and delete all content and access authorizations stored with Lycos in relation to your e-mail account, in accordance with legal requirements.

You will then no longer be able to receive or send e-mail under your e-mail address. The contents of your mailbox will also no longer be accessible. For this reason, we ask that you back up all important data from your Lycos e-mail account in the next few days and switch to another e-mail provider.

Should you still be entitled to services for any additional paid options, we will of course reimburse the balance to the bank account you provided.

We regret this measure and would like to thank you for the trust you have placed in us.

Kind regards,

Your LYCOS Mail Team