Both Lycos and Excite have editorial staffs dedicated to generating original content as well as gleaning news from other online and offline sources. Lycos employs six full-time editors and about 25 freelancers who surf the Web constantly to retrieve articles from newspapers, magazines, discussion groups, and news wires all over the world. Yes, there are more retreads from Reuters here, but the 13 editors on staff also review nearly everything out there, from the slickest new Web venues to rantings on Usenet. The effort is still in its infancy and so, not surprisingly, it is occasionally infantile. In the end, the crawlers may find that you can sell news in the subway, but it won't slow down the trains.
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