Sam Hinton. Portal sites: Emerging
structures for Internet control
Portal sites are Web sites – places on the Internet
– designed primarily to attract large numbers of
Internet users, and from this, to generate revenue through
advertising and ultimately the sale of goods and services.
Over the course of 1998 and 1999, fierce competition between
portal sites has led to their development into specialised
‘transactional spaces’ that aim to mediate the
Internet user’s entire online experience, from sending
and receiving email, to locating content and publishing
their own content.
The emergence of these portal sites represents a
significant stage in the development of the Internet, and
moves a substantial way towards establishing the Internet as
a commercial mass medium on par with conventional forms of
mass media. This report charts the development of portal
sites, and aims to place them in the overall context of the
ongoing development of the Internet.
In Chapter One, it is suggested that resource discovery
in a smaller pre-commercial Internet was supported by user
communication and a limited number of software tools.
Chapter Two suggests that resource discovery has become
problematic since the Internet has become commercialised
because the amount of available information has increased
and there has been a significant increase in less
experienced fee-paying users. Portal sites are seen as a
logical extension of this development, and are described in
detail in chapter three. Chapter Three shows how portal
sites have developed, and identifies the main stakeholders
involved. Chapter Four examines some of the implications
that portal sites hold for the Internet. It is argued that
portal sites constitute a form of ‘transactional
space’, establishing themselves as both user
destinations and content providers in their own right rather
than simply providing a navigation function, a development
that has implications for the future of the Internet and the
way people use it.
The report concludes that while it is still too early to
make predictions about the possible long term effects of
portal sites on the Internet – it is not even certain
that portal sites (or their descendants) will be able to
meet challenges such as the viability of the advertising
model or the possibly fickle usage habits of tomorrow’s
more experienced Internet user. However, when viewed in
context with the history of the Internet and its ongoing
commercialisation, one thing is clear: portal sites are part
of a much larger game for control of the Internet that has
only just begun.
Copyright 1999 Sam Hinton and the La Trobe University
Online Media Program
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