Re: UKNM: Re: Portals and Eyeballs

[Phil Gyford]

At 15:20 20/08/98 +0100, you wrote:


>1. Is there a definitive definition of a 'portal' somewhere out there? 


FWIW, here's the definition from whatis.com:


portal and portal space 


1) Portal is a new term, generally synonymous with

gateway, for a World Wide Web site that is or proposes to

be a major starting site for users when they get connected

to the Web or that users tend to visit as an anchor site. In

July 1998, leading portals included Yahoo, Excite,

Netscape, Lycos, CNet, and Microsoft Network. With its own private array

of sites when you dial in, America Online (AOL) could be thought of as a

portal to its own Web portal at AOL.com. A number of large access

providers offer portals to the Web for their own users. Most portals have

adopted the Yahoo style of content categories with a text-intensive, faster

loading page that visitors will find easy to use and to return to. Companies

with portal sites have attracted much stock market investor interest because

portals are viewed as able to command large audiences and numbers of

advertising viewers. 


Typical services offered by portal sites include a directory of Web sites, a

facility to search for other sites, news, weather information, e-mail, stock

quotes, phone and map information, and sometimes a community forum.

Excite is among the first portals to offer users the ability to create a

site that is personalized for individual interests. 


The term portal space is used to mean the total number of major sites

competing to be one of the portals. 


2) In fantasy games, science-fiction, and some "New Age" philosophies, a

portal is a gateway to another world of the past, present, or future, or to an

expanded awareness. 


3) In 3-D graphics development, portal rendering is a technique that

increases the effect of realism and speeds up presentation. 




   Phil Gyford

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