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Portals/Start
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About.com
At
first glance, About.com looks like any
other directory or portal, but who are
those people on the home page? They're
a few of the site's 650 "guides,"
people who have signed up to take responsibility
for a particular subcategory within the
site's 18 major categories. Anyone with
a particular area of expertise is invited
to apply, and those who become guides
are paid on the basis of the traffic they
generate. The end result is hundred of
specialized miniportals that are great
starting points for learning something
new or increasing your expertise.
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Lycos
In
the past, we've questioned Lycos's strategy
of letting each addition to its network
(Angelfire, HotBot, Tripod, and the rest)
keep its distinct identity. But now that
Lycos has universal registration across
all its sites and an omnipresent channel
bar, things are better. Meanwhile, the
site has beefed up its searching, with
tools to scan thousands of non-Web-based
resources, and its clubs are incredibly
full-featured, beating all the portal
competition. A personalized My Lycos page
can be created with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop
tool, and it's this kind of subtle addition
that makes Lycos so much better these
days.
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MSN.com
After
years of embarrassing stumbles, MSN.com
is now a highly evolved portal competitor
with a brand-new interface, featuring
a universal in-box that handles both e-mail
and chat threads; MSN Mobile, for sending
news headlines and stock quotes to wireless
gadgets, including cell phones; free home-page
building; a vastly improved search engine;
and a new shopping directory. It's great
to see that the whole package now adds
up to more than the sum of its parts.
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Yahoo!
Yahoo!
has long since evolved from a mere directory
into the center of many people's Web experiences.
It includes auctions, shopping, Web store
setup, chats, and instant messaging.
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Yahooligans!
Kids
use the Web, too, and they deserve their
own portal to guide them to appropriate
content. The editors who put together
Yahooligans!, a kid-friendly subset of
the massive Yahoo! directory, have done
a great job in creating a useful window
into the Web for children. Kids will find
games, almanacs, and special-interest
sections (hello Pokémon and Harry
Potter), while parents and teachers will
find related resources as well.
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