Portal-Potties?

Portal Por"tal, n. 1. A door or gate; hence, a way of entrance or exit, especially one that is grand and imposing.

If you. ve been anywhere near the . net for the last six months, you. d know that there is a great struggle among web sites to become Internet portals . that is, they want to be your place of entrance to the World Wide Web. They. re trying to create a home base of sorts, where you can check ever-changing information throughout the day, sift through their directory of web sites, or use their search engine to find a destination.

These Internet Players want to be the means to an end. A tool or a service to be used. The middleman.

But not all is right in Netsville. In this day and age of direct sales, is middleman really where these Internet giants should be? Some would say that the overriding concept of the new Economy, this version 2.0, that the middleman should be left behind. That the . net should free the consumer.

At first glimpse, it would seem that sites like Snap, Lycos, and Netcenter are spitting in the proverbial face of the New Economy.

Not so. In fact, they epitomize it.

Not to say that current portals have it all figured out, because the Yahoo. s and Excite. s of today are a far cry from true day-to-day havens for . net goers. They have nothing more than an unorganized conglomerate of gadgets, boards, and links. But the potential is there, and it. s on its way to being fully realized.

The bottom line is that portals are the future. Not merely because they offer the local weather forecast or a couple of Java-based news tickers . we. ve seen that before. A portal can offer useful, organized, and relevant services and information. They can build entire communities of readership to increase an individual. s productivity, and they can do so in a personalized environment - tailored specifically to the reader. s needs and interests.

These changes won. t come quickly. In order for a portal to be organized and executed in a way that actually enhances productivity, entire systems will have to be overhauled; databases will need to be merged; order will need to be molded from chaos. Not a small undertaking to say the least, but even the faster runners learned first to crawl.

The rush toward the Perfect Portal has begun, and I for one welcome it.