Lycos has launched a new web page builder called Webon. The service appears to be the latest salvo in Lycos's mission to remind people that the once powerful web portal still exists. A few weeks ago Lycos also updated its Lycos Cinema media player to allow users to chat in real time while watching movies together over the web.

Webon is sort of like a cross between Google Page Creator and Google's Blogger. There are a variety of templates for creating several different types of web page. You can make a standard home page, create and update a blog, a photo album, a travelogue, or a wedding web site. No HTML knowledge is necessary. You just pick a template and start adding content. You can customize the look and feel of your site by adding widgets or custom HTML code.

You can try out Webon without signing up for the service, which is a nice touch. But if you want to publish your page for the rest of the world to see, you're going to need to register for a free or paid account. Free sites are hosted at username.webon.com, while you can register a custom URL (username.com) for $8.95/month. While that might seem a bit steep, the Webon personal plan also lets users upload an unlimited number of images. Yeah, it still seems kind of steep.

[via WebWare]

Remember Lycos? Once upon a time they were a search engine and internet portal, just like Google and Yahoo! And today they're... well, actually they're still around, much to our surprise. And today the company launched its most interesting product in ages: an online video site with a social twist.

When you start watching a movie in Lycos Cinema, you can invite friends to watch along with you, no matter where they are. The video will play back on all of your computers at almost exactly the same instant. So users can chat about the movie in real-time as they watch. The person who starts the movie can pause, rewind, and fast forward the video stream. And the controls are almost instantaneous. If you've got a broadband connection, you can skip ahead to the end of a movie in just a matter of seconds, with no buffering.

The site features both free and paid content. When you rent a movie, you can pay one fee for a one person rental, another for "5 seats," and the top price for "10 seats." The prices seem reasonable, topping out at around $6 for 10 seats. But there's one major problem. The content sucks. We're talking, makes Joost, and even Babelgum look good sucks. The most exciting thing we could find in the free content was a Godzilla movie. The rental store content is about as fresh, with titles like Convoy and Monster from a Prehistoric Planet in the featured content section. You can imagine what the non-featured content looks like.