Eyes Wide Open
Learning From Broadband Portal Pioneers
By John Bloomer
As technologies for print, telephone, radio, TV, and PC become more integrated, media mergers, acquisitions, and strategic marketing relationships abound. Companies are making it harder to tell the difference between them. Soon, if not already, they'll be providing bandwidth-heavy applications and services, led by compelling content. They're already known as broadband portals (BBPs), and there's much to learn from them if we take a close look.
The Snap Example
The best way to understand BBPs is by example. Most BBPs in existence today are modeled after traditional broadcast companies. For instance, if we visit one of the better portals out there, www.snap.com (see
Figure 1) we get a generic network feed, sized to fit down the ubiquitous dial-up connection, loaded with links. Take away the news headlines and weather snippets and the page is composed mostly of links to information that info junkies at large are interested in. Most portals can be customized to respond to the consumer's content and bandwidth.
If you hit the "Turn on higher-speed features" link, you'll get an eyeful of full-color images and scrolling headlines with menus-on-the-fly.
Figure 2 is a richer, more entertaining view than
