Qumana Signs Deal with Lycos
Qumana, one of Canada's few Web 2.0 companies, has signed a major deal to provide Lycos with its desktop blog editing tool - creatively called the “Lycos-Qumana Desktop Blog Editor”. Lycos users can use the editor to publish their Tripod and Angelfire blogs as well as other blogging platforms. For Lycos, the deal is a way to quickly expand the functionality of its blog tools in a cost-efficient manner. The company, which launched blogs in 2003, has about 500,000 active bloggers (people who have posted in the past 90 days). Qumana and Lycos will make money through Qumana's AdGenta advertising network, which is re-named Q-Ads. This network lets bloggers place content relevant ads within their posts. Any revenue generated from click-throughs will be split between Qumana (25%), Lycos (25%) and bloggers (50%). Qumana has quietly been expanding the functionality of its blog publisher. For anyone with several blogs, Qumana is an elegant and user-friendly tool. It's free to use so worth downloading.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:14 am
How does this qualify as a web2.0 company?
April 5th, 2006 at 10:21 am
given canada has so few “web 2.0″ companies, qumana qualifies because they are involved in blogging, they have an RSS reader and have an online advertising network. but i do get your point because qumana could also be described as a software company.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Mark it was great chatting with you this morning (good thing for strong coffee!) and thank you for the write up.
Why are we a web 2.0 company? Well I think it comes down to philosophy. We really believe in the publishing revolution that blogging and rss have brought to us. Qumana actually was born of this passion. Could we have built an online-app to do this? Sure. Could we have built a blog-based social networking site? Sure … and we still could. But most importantly we want to give bloggers more power, control, and flexibility with their works.
If you have any questions pls feel free to ping me directly at tris AT qumana DOT com.
April 5th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Thanks Mark,
This is great regardless whether they are a 2.0 company, it's about the value and this is a nice step forward for blogging with an easy interface and some added value. I look forward to trying it out.