The things you're searching for.	March 1, 2000

Hail, Freedonia! Lycos is whooping it up this week over the launch of our new free Internet service. Getting in the spirit of things, we at the Lycos 50 scanned last week's search results to see which free things web users asked for most. The top 20: 1.   Free greeting cards 2.   Free games 3.   Free pictures 4.   Free screen savers 5.   Free stuff 6.   Free MP3s 7.   Free ISP 8.   Free chat 9.   Free wallpaper 10.  Free clip art 11.  Free e-mail 12.  Free Internet 13.  Free music 14.  Free downloads 15.  Free web hosting 16.  Free samples 17.  Freebies 18.  Free web pages 19.  Free money 20.  Free fonts Who'd have guessed greeting cards would be the #1 free request? They're hot, even if nobody can agree what to call them -- the top search-getters: online greeting cards, e-cards, e-mail cards, electronic cards, and virtual cards. MP3s get more searches than greeting cards overall -- but more people ask for free greeting cards than for free MP3s. Our theory: with old mediums translated online (like greeting cards), people assume they may have to pay; whereas for Internet-specific mediums like MP3s users assume things are already free. A surprising number of general users pay attention to computer visuals: three of the top 10 items -- screen savers, wallpaper, and clip art -- fall into that category. (A fourth, pictures, is probably more about fans looking for celebrity shots.) During holiday seasons we always get heavy traffic for visuals: "Christmas clip art" or "Halloween screen savers," for instance. You've got to like the number of people who come online and just want free stuff (#5). Toss in free samples and freebies and you've got three of the top 25 terms. It's one of those basic human urges the Internet plays to so well. But frankly, what can people be expecting when they type in free money? Or is that how you find venture capital these days?

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