NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> Portals, Networks or Destinations?
ONLINE-ADS>> Portals, Networks or Destinations?
Rick Bruner (rick_at_x-summary.com)
Wed, 5 Aug 1998 13:29:35 -0500 (CDT)
Greetings,
In my last week's Executive Summary, I carried a brief about a new study on
portals by the Gartner Group which led me to ponder whether "portal" was an
apt word to describe this type of site, given the "stickiness" such sites
are trying to achieve. The brief seems to have struck a chord, as Danny
Sullivan, editor of the excellent resource Search Engine Watch, and John
Mracek, marketing VP of AdKnowledge, both wrote back with well-considered
thoughts on the matter.
Since my newsletter isn't the best forum for an open discussion, I thought
I'd throw out their comments to this list and see if others had some
insights into the question. So, below is my brief and, with permission,
their responses.
Rick
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick E. Bruner, strategic Web marketing consultant
Author, "Net Results: Web Marketing That Works"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1568304145/executivesummaryA/
Editor, Executive Summary, http://www.x-summary.com info_at_x-summary.com
Free weekly Net marketing analysis, profiles, news and advice
rick_at_x-summary.com (415) 351-2489
Gartner Group Cheers Portal Strategy
Going way out on a limb, the Gartner Group predicts that by
2000, the "top five portals" will be the most important online
consumer brands, according to a new report. The press release
does not venture which five properties those may be. It likens
portals to TV networks, saying most users will gravitate to those
main Web properties, so other businesses must align themselves
with he portals for online exposure. It raises the question in
my mind, if users are going to spend all their time at the
portals, why are they called "portals" and not "networks" or
"destinations." We shall see.
http://gartner11.gartnerweb.com/public/static/aboutgg/
pressrel/072198internetportals.html
(RECONNECT the above URL in order for it to work)
=====
Rick,
The Gartner Group blurb from your recent Executive Summary
tweaked something in my brain. I've been pondering this notion
of portal as network quite a bit and see a bit of a disconnect in
the metaphor.
The conventional wisdom is that portal=TV network. I think that
you really have to consider this across two different audiences:
people who buy media and actual viewers.
When you look at the former, I think the analogy holds. In
either media, the network is an aggregator of eyeballs. There is
a clear economy to this for both the publisher and the media.
Not much discussion here.
However, when you look at viewers, its a bit different. Networks
didn't succeed because viewers said "I am loyal to NBC or ABC."
Most people don't give a <insert favorite expletive> about the
network, only the content. The fact that the networks were only
on one channel is a forced grouping dictated by the technology.
People become loyal to particular shows (ie show brands) not the
network.
So the notion of "Search Engine X" as a meaningful
brand to customers starts to fall apart. Yes, "Search Engine X,"
is and will be a big aggregator of eyeballs and therefore a
powerful media property, but in the long run, will viewers "care"
that they are "going" through a portal to get their info. No,
they will be focused on the particular content area of interest,
which will be supplied (maybe exclusively to "Search Engine X's"
benefit) by another vendor. Does this mean we should short
"Search Engine X?" Absolutely not. I just think it means that
the "Search Engine X" Network brand, in the long run, will only
be meaningful to the people who place advertising and less so to
the average viewer.
Thoughts?
John Mracek AdKnowledge
Vice President, Marketing 2191 East Bayshore Rd
mailto:mracek_at_adknowledge.com Palo Alto, CA 94303
650-842-0660 http://www.adknowledge.com
================
Hey Rick--
This was my initial thought when the term "portals" came up way
back last year. The idea then was that portals were the key
places where people started their journeys on the web. It's like
being in a big room and deciding which door portals you'll start
with: Excite, Yahoo, Infoseek, etc. There are lots of little
doors, but these sites are the main portals through which most
people will flow.
Now the services themselves hate this idea. They obviously wish
to be destinations, first and foremost. Thus the addition of
e-mail, chat and various other goodies are designed to make
people stick around longer, or to bring people to the service
for reasons other than search.
Obviously, they can't keep everyone. So next on the priority list
is the idea of at least making money off the departures. Here we
get the advantages of partnership deals with the likes of
Amazon, etc. And, of course, there's always the old standby of
banner ads.
Myself, I've long thought of these services with the network
metaphor. They essentially program the web by the choice of sites
they feature and partner with. What they choose in many ways
becomes the programming most people tune in to.
Searching-wise, you're going to see more moves towards directing
people to predetermined channels or content. For example, if I do
a search for "travel," now I still have a good chance of winding
up at a relatively small web site. In the future, I'm going to
almost certainly be directed to Travelocity, Preview Travel,
Expedia or branded-areas of large travel services like this.
At the moment, we're still at a time where everyone can
broadcast, and those with public-access type small sites can
still compete against the large, professionally produced ones
for representation on the portal networks. That will always
continue, but those large sites are going to be much more
dominant on the portals for popular topics.
That doesn't mean the small sites or independently run ones have
to lose hope. There are many other ways for them to be found. But
the reality is that will be harder for them to be "discovered"
via the portals, as time passes, in the same way a wanna-be
independent TV producer can expect to put their production on a
network schedule.
So there's a little of everything bundled into the term portal:
being gateways, being destinations and being networks. I think
the most important destination is that a portal is a site
through which many people flow outbound on to the web. That
doesn't mean the portal can't make money. In fact, this outbound
traffic is why they are so valuable. They can direct the flow of
visitors in many ways, in particular ways that make them and
their partners money.
I've just banged this out in a hurry, but feel free to use it, if
you think a) it makes sense and b) it's of interest to others.
cheers,
danny
------------------------
Danny Sullivan
Editor, Search Engine Watch
http://searchenginewatch.com
>From US: 011-44-181-446-0443
>From UK: (0181) 446-0443
