I have long admired the originality of Barry Diller. He might be one of the few Internet business people that is older than this writer! But more interestingly he is one of the few business people to come from another industry and do really well in the Internet space. There are others out there who have come from other sectors and taken over reasonably strong Internet franchises and done well. But Diller is different. He saw the Net in the mid-90s --he was pre-emptive with his actions and has created a terrific company at InterActiveCorp (IAC).

I have written about Diller before --check my article in June of 2001. I was on the mark. And interestingly in all of the coverage of IAC's potential acquisition of AskJeeves.com none of the professional writers out there have brought up Diller's move on Lycos.com back in the late 1990s. Barry saw then the power of search and the power of eyeballs. He was not successful then in getting Lycos, but I think he scores big today with AskJeeves.

Barry is one of the few "real" strategic players in the Internet space that I have watched during my career. Russ Horowitz now of Marchex.com is another (remember how he put together Go2Net.com in the 1990s and the bundle of money he made for himself and his stockholders?)

Both Barry and Russ see over the horizon. Watch them and learn.

In the meantime there are not too many of us around from the 90s who can remember Barry's run at Lycos and other such events. I will try to keep the financial press on their toes.

(I own shares in Marchex. I do not own shares in IAC)