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-----------> This message was posted to the ONLINE-NEWS list. <-----------

kevin.f wrote:
> 
> -----------> This message was posted to the ONLINE-NEWS list. <-----------
> 
> Not to be ignorant, but to follow this thread without simply making
> educated guesses, I need a definition of "portal."
> 
> This may make me look under-educated, but so be it. I learned in college
> way back when that it's better to look stupid by asking a dumb question
> than to be stupid by failing to ask it.....

Congrats Kevin you are one of the few that learned something in College.

A portal is your jumping off point to Internet Navigation. One of the
classes I teach is Internet Navigation and a question I ask my students
is, "If a person is to navigate a ship or plane what is the most
important thing they must know before starting?" Their answers are along
the line of "where are we going, how do we get there, what's the route"
but the answer is "where are you when you start". What is your home
base. You can not navigate if you don't know where you are. 

Portals are trying to be that home base or homepage. Netscape and
Microsoft have an advantage because when you install their browsers
their portal page is the default homepage. The homepage is the first
page you see when you bring up your browser. Most new users either don't
know how, are too lazy to change or they like the default page so they
begin their browsing experience every time with one of these two
portals. As users get more experienced some change their preference to
something else. YAHOO, Excite and others who started out as search
engines and where usually the second page of choice have positioned
themselves to be first by adding new services such as e-mail and ability
to build your own pages. 

All of this as a business model is based on getting millions of eyeballs
to use their portal and then selling themselves to you or banner ads to
advertisers to pay for the service.

IMHO
It is doomed. What door do we humans go out of each morning? Our home.
What portal do we then go into? Our work. The ultimate portal is your
own. The ultimate portal for a company is their Intranet. Presently very
few own their own portals or are capable of building them. This is
changing. Portals for sale or rent just give me a call;-). BTW on-line
local and regional news services are one of the best positioned
industries to take advantage of this personal intranet/portal concept.

-- 
Michael S. Garber * click below for business card * Mexico Communicates
          -> http://www.tou.com/host/mgarber/buscard.html <-

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