> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask]
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Ian Tilsed
> Sent: 11 January 1999 10:56
> To: Richard Poynder
> Cc: [log in to unmask] ac. uk
> Subject: Re: After portals - hubs and home bases ?
>
>
> On Mon, 11 Jan 1999 10:35:31 -0000 Richard Poynder
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Based on how they describe themselves to journalists they are all
> > simply whatever the latest fashionable term is. The problem with
> > the term portal, people have discovered, is that a portal is a
> > doorway, rather than a destination. So they just pass through --
> > not much good for attracting advertising dollars, or for selling
> > content!
>
> So why did Excite invest $70 million in Netscape for the right to
> sell advertising space for Netcenter (the Netscape portal) last year?
> According to Excite officials, in just the first two months the
> company sold $21 million of Netcenter advertising space.
>
> I would tend to agree , however, that there seem to be several
> different definitions of the 'portal' concept.
Because a) everyone is desperately trying to find a business model,
and using the now ubiquitious web mode of 'suck it and see' and
b) companies are advertising on these 'portals' for the same reason.
But will they continue to?
The issue I guess is: 'where in the long term does the business model lie?'
No one yet
knows, but with a lot of investors' money to throw around these companies
are trying everything
they can. Once investors stop throwing money at the web, and advertisers
seriously question
the value of advertising on these sites, the situation will
look very different. The question for services like BioMedNet and ChemWeb,
like
all the consumer portals out there, is: if they continue to throw money at
developing these sites when will (if ever) they achieve a long-term business
model? And what
is the most likely successful model? In the same way we can see large media
companies like Time Warner and Disney moving in to this space, so in the
professional information market companies like Reed Elsever are buying into
them. Apart from
anything else, they are the only people with deep enough pockets to take
the gamble!
Aware of the likely short-term nature of these advertising revenues the
focus is shifting rapidly
to e-commerce. Here a whole range of different issues come into play.
There is an interesting piece around this at:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C30682%2C00.html
The added problem for professional sites is that they are not even getting
the kind of
short-term advertising dollars that the consumer portals are attracting.
Richard Poynder
Freelance Journalist
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/df04/
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