Nando joins portal ranks
The site is the latest of a slew of sites to offer the add-ons of the "traditional" portals, but observers say it takes more to be a true Net gateway.
In just one of the latest examples, Nando, the site for the new media division of McClatchy Newspapers, today changed its name to Nando Media.
"One of the most contagious diseases for Web marketers today is portalitis--and communityitis," said Gregory Wester, director of Internet marketing strategies for the Yankee Group.
"Everyone wants free email," he added, citing the online version of Business Week as a recent example of a content site offering the add-on.
But, he added, most sites dressing themselves as portals are, well, just Web sites in portal clothing.
"Everyone's kind of positioning themselves as little baby portals," he said. "Forget it. You're a Web site."
But what's the difference?
Though there is no standard definition, especially since the concept is still so new, the basic idea is that a portal is a place that serves as a gateway onto the Net. Those sites try to offer users everything they need and want: free email, stock quotes, paging services, and an array of content--original or aggregated. Most of the "traditional" portals, such as Yahoo and Excite, began as search engines or directories.
The older, proprietary online services such as Prodigy, CompuServe, the Microsoft Network, and America Online started off with the same concept in mind more than a decade ago. Only back then, the services were not just gateways to the online experience. In most cases, they encompassed virtually all of that experience.
Enter the search engines, places where users could go to find information on the Net.
Since traffic has flocked to the portals--which consistently make up the top ten most-visited sites on lists by measurement firms such as Media Metrix--everyone else has been trying to jump on the portal bandwagon to become one of the handful of sites expected to win the portal war.
But simply adding the extras does not a portal make.
"A portal is a site that can successfully broker a significant share of consumer needs in three areas: information, communications, and commerce," Wester said, emphasizing the word "significant."
And most analysts and observers agree that in the end, only a handful of sites will succeed in becoming true portals.
And the others?
They're just what they look like, Wester said: Web sites.