web portals - Salvino A. Salvaggio

Transcription

WEB PORTALS
Table of Content
Introduction
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Part I
Introduction to Portals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1. The key role of Portals in an Attention Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2. The evolution of Portals Towards destination sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3. The evolution of Portals Towards specialisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
.
.
.
.4
.5
.6
.8
Part II
The Business Impact of Portals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
1. What is their Business Model ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
2. Portals and Website Promotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
3. From Portals to Vortals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
4. From Vortals to Digital Marketspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Part III
The Situation in Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
1. How is Europe different? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
2. Portal reach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
3. Some Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Key Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Sources
Bios
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Michel Bauwens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Salvino A. Salvaggio Ph.D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
About USWeb/CKS
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Statistical Compilations
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1. Most popular Sites per Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
2. European Leading Portals per Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
3. European Leading Portals per Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
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Branding & Advertising
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Table of Supplements
WHO ARE THE PORTAL USERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
PERCENTAGE OF THE PUBLIC WEB COVERED BY SEARCH ENGINES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
HOW PORTALS MAKE MONEY ON SHOPPING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
WEBSITE PROMOTIONAL METHODS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
THE ROLE OF ERP VENDORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
PORTAL TRAFFIC TREND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Why are portals so important in the Internet landscape and what are their future prospects,
especially in the European context ? This is the key question that we attempt to address in the
second report of the OBSERVATORY OF THE DIGITAL ECONOMY, an initiative of US
Web/CKS Belgium.
The first part of our report summarises the key importance of portals in the attention economy,
as they can control a substantial part of Internet traffic towards electronic commerce related
sites. It looks at how directories and search engines have evolved to become portals and
gateways, but also at how they are transcending this role to become true destination sites.
The equally important trend towards geographic and thematic specialisation is also discussed.
The second part of the study examines the specific business role of portals. It first examines
their business model, with attention to their revenue and expenditure streams, and looks at the
key role they play in directing traffic to business sites. Finally, it looks at the trend towards vertical portals, i.e. the specialised industry-specific portals (which are also called Vortals) and their
possible role in creating entreprise-specific portals located on intranets. Eventually, they may
evolve to true digital marketspaces.
In the third part, the report puzzles over the specific situation in Europe, specifically the struggle between US imports and native projects.
The last chapter is dedicated to the relative reach of portals amongs the European user population, focusing particulary on pageviews and unique users as indicators of relative importance.
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Introduction
Part I
.
.
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.
.4
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.6
.8
Part II
Part III
2. Portal reach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Key Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Sources
Bios
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
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Michel Bauwens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
About USWeb/CKS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
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1. The key role of Portals in an Attention Economy
T
o define any commodity
as economic requires a
certain scarcity in order to
create a tension between
supply and demand. And it is precisely that scarcity which is missing in the so-called information
economy. As explained in the previous issue of the USWeb/CKS
Digital Observatory1 , the current
new economy is tipified not by
such scarcity but by an information overload phenomenon. This
creates an enormous paradox, in
terms of the impact of the Internet:
while the Internet and the Web are
without any doubt breakthrough
technologies in terms of enabling
the new economy to become the
dominant system of our time (as
indeed the Web allows for the production, distribution and consumption of information through a
universal system), it at the same
time in a certain fashion destroys
the direct economic value of information. However, the possession
of that information remains an
essential condition for economic
success. One needs more and
more information and content to
keep playing the game, but it cannot no longer be directly sold (the
so-called Grossman Paradox).
One attempt to understand the
new situation is to redefine the
rules of the new economy, in terms
of that abundance, as we did in
our previous issue. However, it is
also possible to examine whether
there is still a good that is scarce,
despite the overabundance of
information.
In many respect the notion that we live
in a information economy is a misnomer
appears that scarce good is nothing else than human attention.
Indeed, if we take into account the
exponential growth of information2,
and the fixity of human bandwidth
(i.e. the amount of information that
can be processed), as expressed
in the number of hours that any
given pair of eyeballs can devote
to the web3, we can see the
unfolding of an increasing struggle
for life by websites, in terms of
obtaining the attention of Internet
users. Between 8 and 20 sites are
visited on a regular basis by the
average user, with a few dozens
more deemed worthy of occassional visit. Nielsen/NetRatings
shows that in June 1999 35% of
all surfing time was spent on just
50 sites. The Mediametrix Top 50
listings of most visited websites
consistently shows most portals in
that top list as well. Nielsen confirmed as late as July 1999 that the
top 10 Web destinations are used
by 90% of the user population. Up
to now, portals have continued
growing, though with smaller one
to two percent increases per
month in the last semester.
able to direct that attention,
become a new type of power brokers.
It is precisely between this very
competitive space of user attention that portals have niched themselves as the new economic life
form playing a central role. The
Internet user wants and needs
guidance amongst the overabundance, as s/he has proven this
again and again by making
Internet portals the preferred destination of her/his surfing experiments. In an economy of attention,
it is the players who will direct this
traffic of attention that become the
dominant power brokers, hence
their absolutely essential role. But
portals have taken an even bigger
role : where pure portal sites are in
principle just throughfares, portals
have discovered that they can be
more, and become full-service
destination sites.
In other words, where users once
just used Yahoo ! to find the site
with the right information they
were looking for, they now have
less and less need to leave Yahoo!,
as the latter attempt to include a
These figures can therefore be
serie of services that can be of use
interpreted as the basis of a winto readers, and result in the extenner-takes-all marketplace, where
sion of their time at the portal.
being topdog in terms of attention
From mere collection of links or
is paramount for any site with a
search engines, they have
If we look carefully, it clearly commercial purpose. In such a
become destination sites, or even
context, the spin doctors who are
more : professional and life companions to the millions of users
who daily need infor1
Salvino A.Salvaggio & Michel Bauwens, Towards the Digital Economy, USWeb/CKS Belgium, septembre 1999.
mation or tools to
2
About two million new pages are added to the web on a daily basis, and this average figure is increasing as we speak.
manage their work or
3
An average 30 hours per month in the U.S., 10 hours in Europe, according to Jupiter’s study.
lives.
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2. The Evolution of Portals towards Destination Sites
I
n the very early days of
the commercial development of the Web, say in
the years 1994 and 1995,
the original portals came into two
formats. The first format was the
basic directory, as shown by
Yahoo ! The staff of the company
simply categorised websites
according to a universal classification system, much as librarians do
with books4. The essential advantage of this system is that humans
are highly contextual and that classification shows the interrelationship of things so that mental mapping becomes easier. The great
disadvantage is that humans are
simply too slow to follow the exponential growth of the Internet.
Hence Yahoo ! only indexes less
than 8% of the total of existing
websites. Hence the second category, machine-driven search
engines, which index all the words
of a page, create an index of those
words, so that if you look for a
word, you can identify all the
pages in which it is used. These
spiders and crawlers thus automatically index pages, not sites,
and automatically go from site to
site following the lead of hytertext
links. The advantage is the speed
of their word-crunching, and in
terms of searching the ability to
find the precise page which combines different concepts. However,
even these search robots only
index maximum 16% of the
Internet, according to recent studies. Together, the top 12 search
engines cover 42% of the total
number of pages of the public
Internet (800 million total in mid
1999
according
to
NEC
Research5).
The archetypal example of such
an approach was Altavista, followed by Lycos, Hotbot, Excite,
etc. As both kinds of search
engines were competing with each
other, most of them started to
blend different features, and many,
such as Excite and Lycos, ally
both elements of the search robot,
with some basic directory indexing
of the most popular sites, thus trying to combine the best of both
worlds. For example, Lycos provides spidered search engine-style
results after the directory listings,
and so does Yahoo!, which draws
on Inktomi if it doesn't find anything in the directory.
From there, portals just started a
war of feature-itis. Most of them
added news, through agreements
with press services such as
Reuters. They also internationalised, and added languages, local
versions and local directories for
countries, regions and cities.
Several of them added various
community-based communication
approaches, such as free email,
Geocities-like free home pages,
chat, discussion groups and even
instant messaging. It seems that
when staff noticed an emergent
and popular model, with Hotmail
for example proving the worth of
free email and Geocities the worth
of community-building through
free home pages, they simply took
it over by either copying it, or buying it. And if one portal expanded
in a certain direction, the others
followed by similar moves.
They also started to add electronic commerce features, even up to
allowing staff to build their own
stores for free, the main aim being
always to attract the highter number of users, and to convince them
to stay as long as possible. It
seems very hard for portals to distinguish themselves, most are
basically clones of the others, with
only very few distinguishing charactherics. This means that success also comes to an important
degree from being first to market,
strengthened by large amounts of
marketing clout.
Technically, there has also been a
race to better the results of the
search engines, and also to customize or even personalize (i.e.
my.yahoo.com) the offering so that
the needs of users can be serviced
to the utmost.
We may thus conclude with
already some elements that define
a successful portal :
Ø a easy-to-use and comprehen
sive directory and/or search
engine
Ø lots of content and useful services that make it a destination
site
Ø community-building tools
Ø customisation and personalisation as customer-retention features
Ø electronic commerce capabilities
Ø marketing clout
4
In fact, the Yahoo ! directory structure used is the Universal Decimal Classification system, the system in use by many libraries.
5
See the study Accessibility and Distribution of Information on the Web at http://www.wwwmetrics.com/
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WHO ARE THE PORTAL USERS
CyberDialogue published a survey comparing
the public of the different key portals
Ø Yahoo! draws many of the Internet's newcomers, 8.4 million of these users set
Yahoo! as their default home page.
Ø AOL.com has the highest percentage of
female (56 percent) and married (67 percent) visitors of any portal on the Web.
Ø MSN has the highest percentage of ethnic
minorities at 32% and they have the lowest
median.
Ø Infoseek draws more young single people
by percentage than any other portal.
Excite's users are affluent and well educated.
Ø Alta Vista has peak concentrations of online
bankers, investors, and those seeking information on products. Alta Vista also has the
highest percentage of online buyers at 53%.
Ø Lycos users are the oldest of the major portals at 42 years old (median age and the
highest personalization rate. Users are
also likely to use movie content, and visit
music sites.
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3. The Evolution of Portals towards Specialisation
A
major difficulty of portals
is that neither directories
nor search robots can
hope to index more than a
sizeable fraction of the web.
Hence, they are far from being
really universal information tools,
which means that specialised
audiences need their own portals.
We can thus see a strong tendency towards specialisation, and this
in terms of :
problem arising. To the extent that there is an exponential growth in the
number of portals, there emerges the problem of being able to find the
right specialized portal. Hence the creation of certain new models of
meta-indexes which are indexes of indexes, helping users to identify the
right specialized source or portal for their specific interests6.
1. geography : there are now portals in most of the wired countries
of the world, not only on the
national level, but also down to the
regional and city level ;
2. subject-matter : there is a thematic specialization and there are
hundreds of portals dedicated to
special topics and interest groups;
3. application : there are portals
and search engines specialized in
certain technological formats, for
example musical mp3 files, pictures, certain applications, like the
Macintosh for example.
We can immediately see a new
6
Source: (NEC 2/99)
Examples are Argus Clearinghouse, About.com, Suite101, TradeWorlds.com
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Introduction
Part I
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.
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.
.4
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.8
Part II
Part III
2. Portal reach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Key Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Sources
Bios
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Michel Bauwens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
About USWeb/CKS
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1. What is their Business Model
H
ow do portals generally
make a living ? The
essential strategy is to
focus on obtaining the
largest possible number
of users who stay at the site utilising the largest possible number of
page views. In short : obtaining
eyeballs and selling them.
Banners are sold on the home
page, and generally for a higher
price on the specialised category
pages. Here are some data on the
kind of categories most visited on
U.S. search engines:
Advertising is therefore the key
income stream, though it can
come in different formats :
Classic banner advertising is
important, despite their clear and
well-known limitations in terms of
efficacy. Indeed according to
Netratings the average surfer sees
about 330 banners each month
and clicks on only 2.5, a very low
clickthrough rate.
Source: Mar. 1999 Cyber Dialogue
American portal sites like Yahoo! get the majority of their banner income
through the selling of keywords. In this system, whenever a user enters
a particular keyword, the right targeted banner appears. Prices are higher, but so are the number of clickthroughs, i.e. the number of times a visitor actually clicks on the banners that s/he sees. They are also a variety
of preferred listing schemes, whereby clients can buy preferred positioning among the search results. Goto.com does it straigthforwarderly (you
only are part of the search results if you pay), but most portals refuse to
manipulate the search results, and thus use yellow-page inspired
approaches, whereby the paid clients are shown separately from the
search results proper.
Advertising can also come in the form of email banners, small messages
inserted in email-based newsletters. Signature files in free web-based
email programs can also be used to put extra messages. This approach
is sometimes called viral marketing, as it is the email users themselves
who spread the messages simply by emailing7.
7
On average, AOL users send four emails per day, according to Iconocast, 8/99
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A
key income stream are the
so-called portal deals or
partnerships.
Certain
clients pay very high
amounts for a privileged position
on the home pages, or on the lead
pages of certain specialised
« channels ». Large portal sites
have signed different multi-million
dollar deals. For example WebMD
pays over $53 million to Lycos for
a three-year healthcare content,
sponsorship and e-commerce
arrangement.
However, a study published by Jupiter Communications in April 1999
warns that this bonanza may not continue, as firms are discovering that
they do not get the needed traffic and return-on-investment on these
deals. Their Shopping Forum survey revealed that only 5% of commerce
executives with current portal deals categorized themselves as "highly
likely to renew" their current agreements. More than 60% indicated that
these deals contribute less than one-third of total online sales. A April
1999 study by Media Metrix, who surveyed 1 million online buyers, found
that 7.6% of all online purchases are generated from AOL referrals, 4.1%
were generated by Yahoo !, 3% by Netscape, 2.4% by Excite.
This approach is thus also used for
the shopping channels. These
deals can go so far as to co-brand
certain content pages, in so-called
sponsorship deals. According to
the Internet Advertising Bureau
(IAB), sponsorships accounted for
30% of Internet advertising, down
from 37% in 1997.
EXAMPLES OF PORTAL DEALS
Ø First USA, credit card company,
paid $90-million to MSN
Ø Bank One paid $125 million to
Excite.
Ø N2K's music store paid $18
million for a three-year slot in
AOL's shopping
October 1999
HOW PORTALS MAKE MONEY ON SHOPPING
Ø AOL: Merchants pay rent for presence on
shopping pages
Ø EXCITE: Merchants pay 'click referrals' for
every visitor delivered
Ø LYCOS: Merchants pay a fee for every
transaction and buy customer profiles
Ø YAHOO: Merchants pay rent for storefront,
and large vendors pay transaction fee
as well.
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Electronic commerce related income is regularly increasing
in importance. This can come either in the form of licencing
fees, whereby key ecommerce providers pay for privileged
positioning, or as a percentage of the sale, the so-called
transaction fees. Finally, some portals like Yahoo! 'rent'
electronic stores for a fee.
T
his is an income stream
with a very high potential,
according to a study by
Keenan Vision, who concluded that « Internet portals are in
the best position to capitalize on
the new market of e-tailers, … as
only portals can offer a complete
stack of e-commerce services ».
The number of e-tailers on the
Web will have grown from 17,500
in 1998 to 45,000 by the end of
1999 and is expected to reach
215,000 in 2001 and 400,000 in
2003. The Keenan Vision study
predicts that banks, credit card
companies, and other financial
institutions will look aggressively to
partner with portals in ways that
allow them to provide services to
the growing class of e-merchants
and online buyers. Portal driven
retail sales will increase from
USD2.4 billion this year to USD8.7
billion in 2002.
With the recent trend towards
more and more free Internet
access in Europe, many free
Internet services need content and
portals to be able to commercialize the eyeballs that they are
attracting, so this could become a
serious market. An example is the
deal
between
the
British
FreeServe, and the UK Plus portal.
Content deals and partnerships : Portals can license their content
either openly or in the context of private label deals where there own
brand name does not appear openly. Portals are either directly paid
for this content, or share in the advertising revenue. Sometimes it is
they who pay a small fee for each visitor from the co-branded site,
knowing that they get more out of it themselves through advertising.
O
ur chapter on business
models would not be
complete without a word
on the expenditure side of
the equation. It takes a lot
of clout to be a player.
A first important expenditure is
technology, either in terms of a
continuous bettering of search
engines and the tweeking of their
results, or in terms of people, if you
have a human-produced directory.
Recently, analyst Mary G. Meeker
of Morgan Stanley estimated that
to build a search engine with directory from the ground up, would
now cost from between $500 million to one billion dollars.
But the more important factor may
be
marketing
expenditures.
Portals must remain leading players in their categories and to be a
top 100 site in popularity requires
that at least 40% of the operating
budget is dedicated to marketing.
In the top 10 this percentage goes
up to 60 and even 80%. Portals
sites must continuously advertise
online, pay for their own portal
deals, for example to be present
on the launch pages of the
Netscape or Explorer browsers, or
increasingly organise equally
expensive multi-million dollar radio
and television campaigns.
A third factor concerns the
acquisition of all the different services that are required to become
destination sites. Acquisitions of
services such as Hotmail and
Geocities were expressed in
amounts that are regularly in
excess of $50 million.
October 1999
Strategy
12
USWeb/CKS
2. Portals and Website Promotion
P
ortals remain the most
popular destinations in
terms of reaching the
attention of Internet
users, with a very high
audience reach. Website Story
analysed referral logs in websites,
showing the origins of search
engine user visits and found that
Yahoo ! drew 45.92% to the examined sites, Excite 21.68%,
AltaVista 9.70%, Infoseek 5.32%
and Web Crawler 3.35%. A different study by Media Metrix is based
on use during the last month,
shows Yahoo ! to have 50.5%
audience reach, MSN 36.1,
Infoseek 31.9, Netscape Center
30.6 and Excite 25.0%. In any
case, most websites analysing
their referral logs should notice a
sizeable amount of traffic coming
from portal sites, and if they don't
they should be worried as this
means they are losing out on a key
opportunity to generate traffic.
From our own client experience, it
will be the case that one third to
two thirds of traffic is generated by
Internet sources, and that within
that category, the majority comes
from the combination of key international and locally dominant portals, as well as sectoral directory
sites. When asked « which method
do you use to find web information? », more than 80 percent of
users generally state that their preferred method is the search
engine. A recent study (9 /99) by
Activmedia (http://www.activmedia.com), entitled « Real Numbers
behind the Online Retail Industry »
confirms that 66% of the professional retail site marketers they
October 1999
interviewed, said that search
engine positioning was the single
most effective traffic driver, above
banner advertising.
ActivMedia Research, LLC, 1999
For any site interested in consumer
visits, a good positioning in portals
thus becomes important.
But
search engine traffic is especially of
interest to smaller sites who cannot
afford other more expensive marketing strategies. A survey by
NetGambit (8/97) showed that 70%
of the small and midsized site masters interviewed, said that they got
more than 10,000 visitors per
month from these sources. A recent
survey of Forrester with top
European ecommerce leaders concluded that they attributed about
40% of their site visits to portals.
This can be achieved through banner advertising, portal deals, content sponsorships etc. as described
in the previous section. However,
the very basis of such positioning is
Strategy
based on simple registration. It is
essential to manually register in
directories, eventually helped by
experts, and to adapt the source
code for search engines, if one
wants to be listed in say the top 20
of the search results. If you do
make an effort to work on the
source code, you should know
that only about 30% of business
sites actually use them, so the
simple fact of using them may
already put a site in a privileged
position.
This is no trivial matter, as failure to
do this diminishes to a great extent
the capacity to be found, and listing down in the search results, is
paramount to absense as
research has shown that users do
not go deep into these pages.
NetGambit says that 13% of professionals users go to the top 10,
40% to the top 20 and a further
30% to the top 50. But these were
site owners they interviewed, so it
can be expected that the general
public is even less motivated. As a
result, about 48% of commercial
websites have budgets for online
promotion thus creating a cottage
industry of artisans/website promoters on the one hand, and professional traffic companies like
Itraffic.com on the other hand.
While registration is the basis of
permanent presence, banner
advertising is useful but expensive,
while sponsorships have the
advantage of insuring a permanent
presence. Most interesting are
partnership deals with portals.
13
USWeb/CKS
3. From Portals to Vortals
W
e said earlier that universal search engines cannot
possible hope to index
the whole web and that
their share of indexed
pages is actually declining. One of
the results is that, even though
85% of Internet users are still using
them at least occassionaly, analysts believe that this share of traffic would decline to 20% by the
beginning of the next millenium.
But we do caution readers to be
careful in accepting such predictions at face value. For example, a
comparison of the portal site figures in the Mediametrix Top 50 list
show that portal numbers are still
increasing, and that the relative
share in terms of unique users
show no sign of declining yet,
though the growth rate has subsided.
Nevertheless, professional users
and specialised hobbyists are
therefore turning toward 'vertical'
subject-specific portals (which are
also called Vortals) and that are
identified as the key trend for the
next three years. Mediametrix figures do confirm the growth of several such vertical portal sites, and
our own list of portal reach, published in the appendix, confirms
the importance of several vertical
portals on the European scene.
For each industry, or even subindustry, a portal is arising, and it
can be said with a certain confidence that each area will be dominated by 2 or 3 portals. The best
of them will evolve to full electronic commerce service sites, that will
regulate supply and demand in
October 1999
their particular industry. They are
becoming the key industrial electronic intermediaries of the near
future, particularly important in a
business-to-business context.
A key element of the success of
vortals is that the Internet is to a
very large extent used at the place
of work, and so these universal
and specialised portals will be able
to reach, and are already reaching,
according to a recent report by
Forrester Research, up to 85% of
all business users.
Which is why Forrester believes
that after two-three years of development, vortals will move into the
intranet business, and propose
customised portals on company
intranets. Their research has
proven that currently, intranets are
barely appreciated by their users,
as they contain little information of
value, but as this will change, and
the clamour for truly specialised
industry-specific information will
rise, these portals and vortals will
be privileged partners. From their
broader offerings, the vortals will
offer customised versions that can
fit in a particular corporate context.
Strategy
There are already a spate of specialised companies which can help
in the production of those specialised
vortals,
such
as
Aeneid.com,
Autonomy.com,
TradeNet.it and Epicentric.com.
The Gartner Group believes that
the number of vortals will hit the
10,000 mark before the end of the
year. An early player is
VerticalNet.com which uses a
common format to power different
segmented sites. Another example is EarthWeb which has a network of 20 vertical sites all focused
on tech-industry segments of fering a combination of content and
services, such as a jobboard.
14
USWeb/CKS
4. From Vortals to Digital Marketspaces
A
s indicated above, vortals
are not the end of the
story, as they are part of a
broader
tendency
towards
business-tobusiness marketspaces. The evolution started with sell-side catalogs whereby suppliers created
electronic catalogs to have direct
access to the intranets of their
clients. On the client side, many
companies started internet versions of their procurement procedures, so that suppliers could be
seamlessly inserted in the
process. Neither type of solution is
satisfactory, except for a few big
mulitnational companies who can
invest in their own proprietary system. The current system is frustrating for suppliers who discovered that most companies have
their own historic channels and are
not ready to change suppliers
merely because they have an
automated website. The buy solution on the other hand, requires
suppliers to make too many adaptations to the different client websites.
There is therefore a need for digital
marketspaces that are flexible
enough to bring supply and
demand together, but in such a
way that buyers can be flexible
about who they are doing business with. Specialised vortals are
well positioned to become the
embryo of such digital marketspaces, as they have the specialised sectoral knowledge to
make such ventures successful.
Indeed, past experience have
shown that generic initiatives,
October 1999
such as IndustryNet, failed
because they were to general, and
unable to adapt to the specialised
features required by each sector.
But the potential of specialised
players is huge, because, as they
streamline operations for both
buyers and sellers, they result in
huge savings for all partners concerned, and hence can charge
sizeable margins. For examples
check out sites like Chemdex,
Plastics.net, or e-Steel. A report
on
the
subject
by
Net
Marketmakers (http://www.netmarketmakers.com), linked to
technology provider Tradex,
explains the different business and
technology models behind these
marketspaces. From a technical
viewpoint, it distinguishes between
catalog-based and auction models, 'exchange models', and barter
models. From the point of view of
business models, it distinguishes
procurement marketplaces, business ePortals, and vertical marketplaces or vortexes. As this is outside the scope of our report, we
refer readers to their excellent
website which also offers a
newsletter.
Strategy
How big is this market ? A recent
report by Bear Stearns, has
coined the term of 'metamediaries' and estimates that they will
handle up to $438 billion in business-to-business sales in 2003.
The report estimates that there are
already 200+ of such marketspaces. A report by investment
banker Volpe Brown Whelan,
which uses the more restrictive
definition of 'electronic hubs', estimates the 1998 revenue at $290
million, predicting it is set to rise to
$20 billion in 2002. In between
these optimistic and conservative
estimates, the Precursor Group
calculates the b-to-b 'exchange'
revenue to be between $50 and
$130 billion by 2003. Finally, the
magazine Business 2.0 writes that
even if they make only $10 billion
in three years, these hubs will be
able to charge transaction fees of
5 to 10% with gross margins of up
to 85%, comparable to the eBay
consumer hub which has gross
margins of 80%.
It is clear that different players will
enter this market, amongst them
technology players such as
Tradex, but even SAP and Oracle
have plans. Nevertheless, the portals and vortals are well placed in
the sense that they indeed have
the right contextual knowledge as
well as already being traffic regulators in their sector.
15
USWeb/CKS
THE ROLE OF ERP VENDORS
Quite a few players are positioning themselves on the emerging
vertical portal market, one of these being the producers of software
for Entreprise Resource Planning, such as SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft.
For example, i2 is creating a trading community for electronic distributors in cooperation with Hewlett-Packard. The site will allow participants to buy and sell goods over the Web within an integrated supply chain. PeopleSoft will take a somewhat different approach, and
will create 'horizontal' communities around functions such as travel ,
expenses, and benefits.
Still different, Oracle is promoting an internal market based on its
Oracle Supplier Network, to which all clients will in the future have
access and that they can use for their own procurement as well.
Only at a later stage will vertical markets evolve out of this initial initiative. SAP has launched mySAP.com as an umbrella for ecommerce
intiatives, that will also address vertical markets, with specialised
content. More importantly, it will allow customers to apply advanced
planning and collaborative forecasting capabilities to the transactions
conducted in the vertical marketplaces.
Their strength is the integration of the industry-tailored online content
with concrete applications that many employees are already using.
According to a report published in February 1999 by Forrester., the
market for business-to-business transactions will balloon from $43
billion last year to more than $800 billion in 2002. A big part of these
transactions will take place in online marketspaces bringing buyers
and sellers from specific vertical industries together.
Introduction
Part I
.
.
.
.
.4
.5
.6
.8
Part II
Part III
2. Portal reach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Key Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Sources
Bios
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Michel Bauwens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
About USWeb/CKS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
October 1999
Strategy
17
USWeb/CKS
1. How is Europe different?
The U.S.-Europe gap
If portals are big and established
players in the U.S., what can we
expect in Europe ? There are key
differences in the European marketplace :
Ø First of all, Europe is simply
behind in terms of Internet uptake.
While the U.S. has a 53% PC penetration in terms of households
with computers, Europe has only
32%. In terms of Internet penetration, the situation is even worse,
as we have an average of 9% in
Europe compared to 37% in the
U.S. Jupiter Communications predicts an average in Europe of 31%
in 2003, which means that even
then, we will not have reached to
situation of the U.S. today. This
has of course an influence on the
uptake of Internet business revenue streams and on electronic
commerce, which means there is
generally less money available for
investing. There is also a time gap,
with Americans surfing 30 hours
per month on average, and
Europeans only 7 to 10 hours. The
pricing of metered telephone
charges is of course instrumental
in causing this effect, as compared
to the flat rate in the US. A good
sign is the arrival of free Internet
providers, which may speed up
both the uptake and the average
time spent online. As we write this,
the free Internet phenomena is
practically exploding in different
countries such as the UK, where
Freeserve started the trend by raking almost 1.5 million subscribers,
but also in France, the
Netherlands, and even placid
Belgium following the race for free
connections. In general though,
the telecommunications pricing
October 1999
structure is a huge drawback for
Internet penetration, which will
take a number of years to go
away. The free Internet only solves
part of the budgetary problem of
Internet users, as it does not touch
on the high cost of local phone
calls.
Ø A second big drawback is the
fragmentation of the European
market in countries with different
languages and cultures. Where
Americans can set up websites for
a huge North-American market
numbering tens of millions of
users, in Europe multiple investments and local adaptations have
to be made.
Ø A third drawback is the lack of
venture capital and financing in
general. Even leading country portals like Ilse in the Netherlands find
it difficult to obtain the kind of
financing that would make them
really competitive.
Which brings us to a fourth point :
the invasion of U.S. players. With
ready-made technology, years of
prior experience, and enormous
financing, these players are simply
installing themselves on the
European market, either making
local adaptations or simply buying
over the locals.
Strategy
18
USWeb/CKS
The European players
There are for the moment three
main kind of universal country portals (universal in the sense that
they are cross-subject in their coverage, but nevertheless geographically-specific). First of all we have
the local adaptations of the U.S.
portals with all major players like
Yahoo !, Lycos, Altavista, MSN,
etc. having built versions in several countries. Yahoo ! France is a
typical example. A second key
category are the local independents like Ole in Spain, Virgilio in
Italy, UK Plus, Ilse, some of whom
are members of the AllEurope.com
collective ad brokerage service. A
third category is local portals
owned by the big telecommunications companies such as Belcast
in Belgium, Voila in France, etc.
The reason both types of local
portals should be differentiated is
that for example Forrester
Research estimates that while the
latter have the financial clout to
survive and thrive, the former will
not, and will either disappear or be
taken over. A perhaps too harsh
judgment but one that clearly
shows the weaknesses of local
independent players. Forrester
recently identified 43 leading portals operating over 90 different
consumer
portals
scattered
around 15 countries. This of
course also scatters the kind of
user numbers as compared to
U.S.-based international portal
giants.
million page views, we can see
why they will become important.
Indeed, they are busy building
content of making alliances to
become portals in their own right.
They stand a good chance of success since more than 80% of subscribers do not change their home
page settings, which in this case
favors the ISP's own portal. They
will often make deals with existing
portals though, as building their
own content is a very expensive
proposition.
For
example,
Freeserve uses UK Plus, and the
provider Skynet uses the Belcast
portal in Belgium (in this particular
case, Skynet was a for-pay portal
at the time of the deal). The existing for-pay portals, some of which
offering free access as well, have
their own portals and content
deals, a good example being the
active policy of World Online in
terms of getting content on its site.
Yet another kind of emerging portal type is the ISP portal, especially the new free players like
Freeserve. If we notice the latter's
rapid growth of Freeserve in the
UK , where in February 1999 1.2
million users generated over 60
October 1999
Strategy
19
USWeb/CKS
2. Portal reach
A
s a concluding part of this report, US Web/CKS undertook its
own research to determine the reach of various portals in
Europe, by selecting some key EU countries.
Our methodology
Limitations and scope
The data were collected by a variety of methods. We started with
desktop research by visiting the
portal sites, in many cases verifying the figures with direct emails
and telephone contacts. We then
doublechecked these figures with
summaries of reports published by
the professional press as well as
with data obtained from advertising brokers, and in certain rare
cases, with the audience certification agencies. Overall we believe
our data to be reliable and usable
for comparative purposes but nevertheless we cannot guarantee
their exactictude. We looked for
two criteria especially, namely
pageviews per month, and the
number of unique vistors.
Our aim was to start the process of something which had not been
done before, at the same time realising that such work will be done in
the future by more specialised Internet market researchers. For example, Mediametrix will start compiling data in major European countries
which should be made available in the coming months. Our objective
was thus simply to have a basic tool allowing us to examine for example the relative success of U.S.-led portals vs. local initiatives. We also
believe that even with this limitations, Internet professionals will be able
to draw from it specific bits of information that they may need.
Nevertheless, because we did not obtain consistent data using the
same variables, but have to compare in one case pageviews, with in
another case only the number of unique users, it has been difficult to
offer definitive ratings. The graphs we have chosen to highlight do not
therefore insure a true comparison of like numbers, but merely give an
indication of the relative importance of key portals. We hope that others will take up the challenge of offering validated market research data
that can be publised on a regular basis.
October 1999
Strategy
20
USWeb/CKS
Some conclusions
A cursory glance at some of the
countries we have highlighted
quickly shows the importance of
U.S. imported local derivations of
the well-known international portals. They are a key player in every
European they have chosen to
invest in and have proven to successfully adapt themselves to local
markets. The situation of the
native competition differs in each
country. In both France and
Germany, the U.S. pack seems to
do markedly better, with especially
Yahoo ! which has proven that it is
able to build on its successes. In
Sweden however, the figures
seems to indicate that locals have
defended themselves very well.
This would suggest that the game
is not played out yet, and that
some countries will succeed in
developping a local portal industry.
However, we concur with the conclusions of Forrester that the long
term future of native players is
somewhat bleak, unless they take
initiatives soon to combine their
collective strength.
For
the
moment,
the
AllEurope.com alliance of local
portals merely sends ad inventory,
and is not able to react quickly to
for example offers of portal deals
which transcend national boundaries.
We strongly suggest they
1) ally themselves,
2) create common technologies
where possible and especially for
future enhancements,
3) create a strong marketing
organisation, and
4) obtain the financial means to do
so.
October 1999
Strategy
21
USWeb/CKS
Introduction
Part I
.
.
.
.
.4
.5
.6
.8
Part II
Part III
2. Portal reach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Key Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Sources
Bios
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Michel Bauwens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
About USWeb/CKS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
October 1999
Strategy
22
USWeb/CKS
Key Conclusions
T
he key conclusions of this
study are the following
Internet' players, will become
more important, though they will
provide content mostly through
deals with existing players.
1 Portals will most likely remain key
players in the attention economy of
the Internet, as they direct large numbers of users in a winner-takes-all
market. They will further evolve from
being mere gateway sites, towards
fullfledged destination sites offering a
variety of tools to users who will
spend increasingly long amounts of
time with them. They will remain key
players in terms of generating traffic
(both general and e-business traffic).
5 National European players will
not be able to survive long term
without additional means. We
strongly suggest that national
players, such as Nomade in
France, Virgilio in Italy, Ad Valvas in
Belgium, either link themselves to
other local players with financial
clout, or create an integrated
alliance, which does more than
just selling ad inventory. Ventures
like AllEurope.com should become
real companies that are able to
obtain finances. Without an
aggressive marketing stance,
these players may not survive.
2 Universal portals cannot hope to
cover even a large percentage of the
publicly available web pages and
sites, hence the trend towards specialisation is inevitable. In the business context, this trend will express
itself in the growth of the number of
sector-specific vertical portals (also
called Vortals).
6 To offset the advantages of scale
and the lack of financing, we also
suggest European public and/or
private agencies take an active
role in stimulating multi-country
alliances of European players.
Without some quick action the
time and market window of opportunity for a native European portal
industry will soon close. We would
particularly urge some short-term
initiative that would bring native
portal players together.
3 The most successful Vortals will be
those playing a key sectorial role in
being a marketspace for supply and
demand within their sector, where
they will offer multiple services to the
industry. Universal portals and Vortals
will have opportunities to become
key players in the enterprise portal
market, as they can customise their
offerings to client needs.
4 In Europe, there will be fierce competition between the local versions of
US-led universal portals with large
financial means and years of prior
experience;
telecom-supported
national portals intent on keeping the
home market, and locally innovative
country portals which have to struggle to obtain the necessary funds to
compete. In addition, provider portals, especially the emerging 'free
October 1999
Strategy
23
USWeb/CKS
Introduction
Part I
.
.
.
.
.4
.5
.6
.8
Part II
Part III
2. Portal reach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Key Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Sources
Bios
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Michel Bauwens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
About USWeb/CKS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
October 1999
Strategy
24
USWeb/CKS
Salvino A.Salvaggio PhD, Michel BAUWENS. (1999),
Towards the DIgital Economy, USWeb/CKS,Strategy, Branding & Advertising,
http://www.benelux.uswebcks.com/DigitalObservatory/
Net Market Makers, www.netmarketmakers.com
October 1999
Strategy
25
USWeb/CKS
Introduction
Part I
.
.
.
.
.4
.5
.6
.8
Part II
Part III
2. Portal reach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Key Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Sources
Bios
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Michel Bauwens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
About USWeb/CKS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
October 1999
Strategy
26
USWeb/CKS
Michel Bauwens
Avant de devenir consultant en marketing interactif sur
internet, en publicité on line et en commerce électronique,
Michel Bauwens a notamment été rédacteur en chef de
Wave, le premier périodique européen a se consacrer à
l'impact de la révolution digitale. Il a ensuite occupé le
poste de Managing Partner chez Kyberco, une société de
marketing interactif.
Michel Bauwens est l'auteur de nombreux essais et articles sur le marketing par internet ainsi que du Cybrarian's
Guide to “Cyber-Marketing", qui était une référence
majeure dans le domaine informatique.
Auparavant, il était directeur d'information chez British
Petroleum.
October 1999
Strategy
27
USWeb/CKS
Salvino A. Salvaggio
D'abord chercheur et enseignant dans plusieurs universités
américaines, canadiennes, européennes où il s'occupait de
théorie des systèmes de communication et de cybernétique
de deuxième ordre, il a obtenu en 1993 son doctorat en
social sciences tout en travaillant également comme analyste des marchés Internet dans divers pays. En 1997,
Salvino A. Salvaggio a quitté le milieu académique pour
déployer son activité comme consultant en Internet Business
Strategy. Depuis 1999, il est Practice Leader en Business
Strategy auprès de USWeb/CKS.
Reconnu dans sa fonction d'expert international, il a conseillé des décideurs politiques et des capitaines d'industrie et de
la finance sur l'impact des ICT. L'utilisation corporate des
nouvelles technologies de la Communication et de
l’Information constitue le point focal de ses interventions.
Plume alerte, Salvino A. Salvaggio a aussi remporté en 1993
un prix européen de littérature.
October 1999
Strategy
28
USWeb/CKS
Introduction
Part I
.
.
.
.
.4
.5
.6
.8
Part II
Part III
2. Portal reach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Key Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Sources
Bios
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Michel Bauwens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
About USWeb/CKS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
October 1999
Strategy
29
USWeb/CKS
About USWeb/CKS
USWeb/CKS (Nasdaq: USWB) is the leading professional services firm that works
with clients to define strategies and implement innovative ways to build their
businesses through a combination of expertise in strategy, internet technology and
marketing communications.
USWeb/CKS helps clients differentiate their products and services, strengthen
customer relationships, leverage human capital, and improve business efficiency
in the new electronic economy.
The Company provides a broad selection of services from brand development and
advertising to business process automation and e-commerce solutions.
Available Publications:
Towards the Digital Economy,
Michel BAUWENS, Salvino A.SALVAGGIO Ph.D.,
Strategy, Branding & Advertising, USWeb/CKS,
september 1999 ( French only - FREE)
Additional information about USWeb/CKS
is available at http://www.uswebcks.com
or at http://www.benelux.uswebcks.com
Belgium
Chaussée de Tervuren 198F
B-1410 Waterloo
Belgium
Tel.: +32 (0)2 352 08 28
Fax: +32 (0)2 352 08 69
Contact: Dirk Matheussen
[email protected]
October 1999
Luxembourg
Route d'Arlon, 283
L-8011 Strassen
Luxembourg
Tel.: +352 31 31 141
Fax: +352 31 31 14 200
Contact: Laurent Kratz
[email protected]
Strategy
Netherlands
Korenmolenlaan 2
NL - 3447 GG Woerden
Postbus 139
NL - 3440 AC Woerden
Tel: +31 (0)348 43 60 00
Fax: +31 (0)348 43 60 09
[email protected]
30
USWeb/CKS
USWeb/CKS is the largest internet
professional services firm in the world.
The solutions we deliver to clients create new businesses and integrate the
digital economy deeper into organisations
than
anyone
else.
At
USWeb/CKS, we know how today's
corporations need to use information
for everything from strategic marketing
to customer relationship management
to enterprise resource planning. We've
built and implemented strategic
branding and advertising, systems
integration, network design and ecommerce solutions for Fortune 500
companies around the globe. We have
eight different practices:
Branding and Advertising
At USWeb/CKS, we create new
brands and extend the reach of established ones. We work in all media web, print, packaging, signage, environmental design - integrating your
message and brand identity into creative and relevant marketing communications.
Business Systems
At USWeb/CKS, we integrate enterprise processes, tools and systems
into standards-based environments.
We've built web-enabled databases
and ERP applications, implemented
workflow automation over intranets
and extranets and built customised
data management systems for over
200 clients. Our expertise spans a
wide range of technical knowledge
from system-level software engineering to sophisticated web application
development.
Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship management
leverages advanced technology to
improve the customer experience at
every customer "touch point," from
marketing to sales to support and
service. USWeb/CKS combines direct
marketing, new media strategies,
advanced data mining, data warehousing and call centre program management to enhance consumer loyalty,
increase sales and lower consumer
acquisition costs.
E-Commerce Systems
USWeb/CKS has built sites that not
only increase sales, but also extend a
brand's reach to entirely new consumer market segments. And we've
built smart, cost-saving business-to
business applications that streamline
processes and maximise efficiency.
Our professionals have the technological, marketing and business strategy
experience to develop and implement
comprehensive e-commerce solutions.
Internet Communications
USWeb/CKS's Internet Communications Practice (ICP) leverages web
technologies to provide companies
with a revolutionary new way to communicate over the Internet, dramatically reducing traditional communication costs.
Knowledge Management
USWeb/CKS has a wealth of experience in helping companies identify,
create and leverage organisational
knowledge that directly impacts both
top and bottom lines. Whether your
needs are strategic, operational or
technical, our professionals have the
tools, expertise and techniques to help
you increase your company's collective IQ.
Network Solutions
At USWeb/CKS, we provide network
services ranging from custom network
and systems management to security
solutions. We support the full lifecycle
of your network including business
assessment, design and architecture,
implementation, integration, operations and optimisation.
Strategy
At USWeb/CKS, we've developed
successful strategies for corporations
in industries ranging from finance to
manufacturing, from transportation to
entertainment. Our Strategy professionals combine knowledge of global
business practices with experience in
knowledge management, marketing,
branding, and e-commerce.
Upon these practises, the offices in
the Benelux region can offer services
in the following domains:
Training
In the Benelux region, we offer one of
the finest training services available to
professional developers anywhere. We
cover the areas of internet, object orientation, client/server, data warehousing, application testing, management
training… All listed training's can be
organised on request. Each planned
session can also be adapted according the desiderata's of the customers.
Testing
The introduction of rapid application
development tools has made it possible for developers to produce new
software versions in record time. Test
automation is essential in matching
the development pace. USWeb/CKS
can assist its customers in training in
methodology and tools, setting up a
testing environment, implementing
professional testing in a project, and
performance testing and stress testing.
Our offices in the Benelux region:
Belgium:
Chaussée de Tervuren 198F
B-1410 Waterloo
Belgium
Tel.: +32 (0)2 352 08 28
Fax: +32 (0)2 352 08 69
[email protected]
Luxembourg:
Route d'Arlon, 283
L-8011 Strassen
Luxembourg
Tel.: +352 31 31 141
Fax: +352 31 31 14 200
Contact: Laurent Kratz
[email protected]
Netherlands:
Korenmolenlaan 2
NL - 3447 GG Woerden
Postbus 139
NL - 3440 AC Woerden
Tel: +31 (0)348 43 60 00
Fax: +31 (0)348 43 60 09
[email protected]
Introduction
Part I
.
.
.
.
.4
.5
.6
.8
Part II
Part III
2. Portal reach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Key Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Sources
Bios
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Michel Bauwens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
About USWeb/CKS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
October 1999
Strategy
32
USWeb/CKS
1. Most popular Sites per Country
Compiled by drs. Monique Van Dusseldorp
of Van Dusseldorp & Partners
Germany
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Focus Online; http://www.focus.de
TV Spielfilm http://www.tv-spielfilm.de
TV Today Network, http://www.tv-today.de
praline interaktiv, http://www.praline.de
Sat1, http://www.sat1.de
Stern online, http://www.stern.de
Spiegel online, http://www.spiegel.de
Bild online, http://www.bild.de
ProSieben Online, http://www.pro7.de
Coupe, http://www.coupe.de
News magazine
TV Guide
TV Guide
Erotic magazine
private tv-broadcaster
News and society magazine
Magazine
Boulevard newspaper
Private tv broadcaster
Erotic magazine
Source: Data from German Audit Bureau of Circulation IVW (http://www.ivw.de);
ranking designed by kress-online (http://www.kress.de)
Italy
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Virgilio, http://www.virgilio.it
Repubblica, http://www.repubblica.it
Gazzetta, http://www.gazzetta.it
Il Sole 24 Ore, http://www.ilsole24ore.it
TIN, http://www.tin.it
IOL, http://www.iol.it
Yahoo Italy, http://www.yahoo.it
Lycos, http://www.lycos.it
Microsoft, http://www.microsoft.it
Mondadori, http://www.mondadori.it
Search engine and portal site
National newspaper
National sport newspaper
National financialnewspaper
ISP and portal
ISP and portal
Portal
Portal
ITC vendor
Multibrand publisher
(no strict order/no offical ranking)
Netherlands
1. World Online, http://www.worldonline.nl
2. Ilse, http://www.ilse.nl
3. World Access / Planet Internet,
http://www.wxs.nl, http://www.planet.nl
4. Publieke Omroepen, http://www.omroep.nl
5. KPN, http://www.kpn.nl
6. IDG, http://www.idg.nl
7. Lycos, http://www.lycos.nl
8. Veronica, http://www.veronica.nl
9. De Telegraaf, http://www.telegraaf.nl
10. VNU, http://www.media
ISP/Portal with news and links
Search engine (has some news and services, portal)
ISP/Portal news and links
Combined public television site
KPN Dutch telecom (incl. telephone directory)
Computer magazine
Search engine, Dutch version
Commercial broadcaster
Newspaper
Collective site of major publisher
(Source Multiscope.nl)
October 1999
Strategy
33
USWeb/CKS
Compiled by drs. Monique Van Dusseldorp
of Van Dusseldorp & Partners
Norway
1. Scandinavia Online, http://www.sol.no
2. Yahoo!, http://www.yahoo.no/,
http://www.yahoo.com
3. Verdens Gang, http://www.vg.no
4. Nettavisen, http://www.nettavisen.no
5. Dagbladet, http://www.dagbladet.no
6. Aftenposten, http://www.aftenposten.no
7. NRK, http://www.nrk.no
8. TV2, http://www.tv2.no
9. Din Side, http://www.dinside.no
10. IT-avisen, http://www.itavisen.no
Portal owned by Schibsted and Telenor/Telia
Portal
Norway's largest newspaper
Newspaper (online only)
National newspaper
Oslo's largest newspaper
Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation
Largest commercial television channel
Consumer Magazine (online only)
Internet and telecom magazine
Source: Gallup, 4Q98.
United Kingdom
Page impressions
( in millions )
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Yahoo! UK, http://www.yahoo.co.uk
BBC, http://www.bbb.co.uk
Freeserve, http://www.freeserve.co.uk
MSN, http://www.Msn.co.uk
LYCOS/Tripod UK, http://www.Lycos.co.uk
Excite, http://www.Excite.co.uk
Daily Telegraph, http://www.Telegraph.co.uk
Netfind, http://www.Netfind.co.uk
Virgin.Net, http://www.Virgin.net
The-Times & The Sunday Times,
http://www.times.co.uk
70m
52.4m (24m news)
45m (NMA estimate) (free ISP)
37m
31m
20m
13.5m
13m (AOL)
12m (free ISP)
11.4m
Source: New Media Age march 99.
October 1999
Strategy
34
USWeb/CKS
2. European leading Portals per Country
Belgium
Unique Users
2400000
348000
90000
32000
http://www.advalvas.be
http://www.webwatch.be
http://www.belcast.be
http://www.planetinternet.be
http://www.chello.be
Danemark
Unique Users
http://www.eemli.net
France
http://www.infoseek.com
http://www.wanadoo.fr
http://www.club-internet.fr
http://www.nomade.fr
http://www.infonie.fr
http://www.boursorama.com
http://www.francite.fr
http://www.lokace.fr
http://www.jeuxvideo.com
http://www.comfm.fr
http://www.multimania.fr
http://www.voila.fr
http://www.yahoo.fr
http://www.fr.chello.com
http://www.caramail.com
Germany
Unique Users
30000
Unique Users
19000000
50000
180000
450000
350000
Page Views
Page Views
1500000000
28000000
13000000
13000000
12500000
12000000
10000000
5200000
4500000
3000000
16000
48000000
Unique Users
Portal Type
Search Engine
Search Engine
Portal
Portal
Portal
Portal Type
Search Engine
Portal Type
1000000
950000
http://www.yahoo.de
http://www.fireball.de
http://www.infoseek.de
http://www.focus.de
6248500
http://www.web.de
http://www.aol.de
http://www.dino-online.de
http://www.aladin.de
http://www.spider.de
http://www.eule.de
http://www.allesklar.de
140000
http://germany.intersearch.net
http://www.paperball.de
330000
http://www.kresch.com
http://www.comdirect.de
http://www.primus-online.de
http://www.tonline.com
October 1999
Page Views
8238500
http://www.yahoo.dk
Finland
Page Views
Page Views
79000000
40000000
35000000
26321000
17700000
10200000
8684000
3946000
1902725
1816000
1700000
1200000
1000000
150000
Strategy
Portal Type
Search Engine
ISP
Search Engine
Search Engine
ISP
Vertical Portal (bourse)
Vertical Portal (francophone)
Search Engine
Vertical Portal (VideoGames)
Vertical Portal (radio TV)
Hébergement
Search Engine
Search Engine
Portal
free E-Mail
Portal Type
Search Engine
Search Engine
Search Engine
Portal
Search Engine
Portal
Portal
Search Engine
Portal
Search Engine
Portal
Search Engine
Search Engine
Vertical Engine (webmaster tools)
Portal
Vertical Portal (E-Commerce)
Portal
35
USWeb/CKS
Italy
Unique Users
32000000
1800000
600000
450000
108896
http://www.virgilio.it
http://www.venere.it
http://www.shiny.it
http://www.iltrovatore.it
http://ragno.plugit.net
http://www.arianna.it
http://www.yahoo.it
Netherlands
Unique Users
7500
Unique Users
http://www.yahoo.no
http://www.nettavisen.no
http://www.telenor.com
http://www.dagbladet.no
http://www.sol.no
http://www.spray.no
http://www.vg.no
http://www.dinside.no
http://www.chello.no
14192
Pan european
http://www.searcheurope.com
http://www.rent-a-holiday.com
http://www.euroseek.net
http://www.europages.com
http://www.chello.com
http://www.worldonline.com
Spain
http://www.yahoo.es
http://www.ole.es
http://www2.telepolis.com
http://www.ozu.com
http://www.iddeo.es
October 1999
Page Views
3000000
991000
500000
http://www.track.nl
http://www.nl-menu.nl
http://www.zoek.nl
http://www.chello.nl
http://www.ilse.nl
http://www.search.nl
http://www.wxs.nl
Norway
Page Views
Unique Users
100000
2000000
170800
Unique Users
3430000
400000
205000
Portal Type
Search Engine
Search Engine (Hotel reservation)
Portal
Portal
Search Engine
Search Engine
Search Engine
Portal Type
Search
Search
Search
Portal
Search
Search
Portal
Engine
Engine
Engine
Engine
Engine
Page Views
Portal Type
256000000
15500000
78720
Search Engine
Vertical Portal (Information)
Vertical Portal IT, telecom, media
Vertical Portal (Information)
Search Engine
Portal
Vertical Portal information
Portal
Portal
Page Views
500000
900000
80000000
1321000
Portal Type
Search Engine
Vertical Portal (holidays)
Search Engine
Search Engine
Portal
Vertical Portal information
Page Views
Portal Type
147000000
26350000
6000000
3400000
Search Engine
Search Engine
Portal
Search Engine
ISP
Strategy
36
USWeb/CKS
3. European leading Portals per Type
free E-Mail
Unique Users
http://www.caramail.com
334.000
Page Views
48000000
Country
French speaking
Hosting
http://www.multimania.fr
http://www.spray.se
http://www.freeserve.co.uk
16.000
8851000
45.000.000
France
Sweden
UK
12.500.000
UK
Spain
France
Sweden
France
(Free Hosting)
Isp
http://www.compuserve.co.uk
http://www.iddeo.es
http://www.infonie.fr
http://www.tele2.se
http://www.wanadoo.fr
180.000
934.000
28.000.000
Portal
http://www.algonet.se
940.000
http://www.allesklar.de
140.000
http://www.aol.co.uk
http://www.aol.de
http://www.bbc.co.uk
http://www.belcast.be
http://www.chello.be
http://www.chello.com
http://www.chello.nl
http://www.chello.no
http://www.comdirect.de
http://www.dino-online.de
http://www.dinside.no
http://www.focus.de
6.248.500
http://www.fr.chello.com
http://www.iltrovatore.it
http://www.passagen.se
982.000
http://www.planetinternet.be
http://www.scandinaviaonline.se1.904.000
http://www.shiny.it
http://www.spider.de
http://www.spray.no
http://www.telia.se
789.000
http://www.tesco.co.uk
http://www.tninet.se
550.000
http://www.tonline.com
http://www.torget.se
800.000
http://www.wxs.nl
http://www2.telepolis.com
400.000
October 1999
1.700.000
125.000.000
10.200.000
90000
8.684.000
26.321.000
450.000
13.600.000
32.000
600000
1.902.725
6.000.000
Strategy
Sweden
Germany
UK
Germany
UK
Belgium
Belgium
Paneuropean
Netherlands
Norway
Germany
Germany
Normay
Germany
France
Italy
Sweden
Belgium
Sweden
Italy
Germany
Norway
Sweden
UK
Sweden
Germany
Sweden
Netherlands
Spain
37
USWeb/CKS
Search Engine
Unique Users
Page Views
Country
http://germany.intersearch.net
1.200.000 Germany
http://ragno.plugit.net
108,896(August, 3 weeks)
Italy
http://www.advalvas.be
80.000(jour) Belgium
http://www.aladin.de
3.946.000 Germany
http://www.arianna.it
Italy
http://www.club-internet.fr
13.000.000 France
http://www.eule.de
1.816.000 Germany
http://www.europages.com
170.800
1.321.000 Paneuropean
http://www.euroseek.net
2000000
80000000 Paneuropean
http://www.euroseek.se
1200000 (page impression)
Sweden
http://www.fireball.de
40.000.000 Germany
http://www.ilse.nl
Netherlands
http://www.infoseek.co.uk
3.000.000 UK
http://www.infoseek.com
19.000.000 1.500.000.000 (52.000.000/jour)
France
http://www.infoseek.de
35.000.000 Germany
http://www.lokace.fr
350.000
5.200.000 France
http://www.looksmart.co.uk
4.200.000 UK
http://www.msn.co.uk
2.400.000
60.000.000 UK
http://www.msn.se
295.000
Sweden
http://www.nl-menu.nl
991000 Netherlands
http://www.nomade.fr
13.000.000 France
http://www.ole.es
3.430.000
26.350.000 Spain
http://www.ozu.com
205.000
3.400.000 Spain
http://www.paperball.de
330.000
1.000.000 Germany
http://www.search.nl
7500
Netherlands
http://www.searcheurope.com
100000
500000 Paneuropean (from US)
http://www.sol.no
Norway
http://www.track.nl
3000000 Netherlands
http://www.ukplus.co.uk
2.900.000
22.000.000 UK
http://www.virgilio.it
32.000.000 Italy
http://www.voila.fr
France
http://www.web.de
17.700.000 Germany
http://www.webwatch.be
348000 Belgium
http://www.yahoo.co.uk
UK
http://www.yahoo.de
79.000.000 Germany
http://www.yahoo.dk
8238500 Danemark
http://www.yahoo.es
147.000.00 Spain
http://www.yahoo.fr
950.000
France
http://www.yahoo.it
Italy
http://www.yahoo.no
256.000.000 Norway
http://www.yahoo.se
285.000
Sweden
http://www.zoek.nl
500000 Netherlands
http://www.venere.it
1.800.000 Italy
( Hotel reservation )
October 1999
Strategy
38
USWeb/CKS
Vertical Engine
http://www.kresch.com
Vertical Portal
http://www.boursorama.com
http://www.telenordia.se
http://www.primus-online.de
http://www.virgin.net
http://www.francite.fr
http://www.rent-a-holiday.com
http://www.aftonbladet.se
http://www.dagbladet.no
http://www.nettavisen.no
http://www.vg.no
http://www.worldonline.com
http://www.telenor.com
http://www.comfm.fr
http://www.evreka.com
http://www.sunet.se
http://www.svt.se
http://www.tv4.se
http://www.jeuxvideo.com
October 1999
Unique Users Page Views
150.000
Unique Users Page Views
Country
Germany ( Webmaster Tools )
Country
12000000
807.000
France
( Bourse )
Sweden ( Communication )
Germany ( (E-Commerce )
UK
( Entertainment )
450.000
10.000.000 France
( francophone )
(double click report)
900000 Paneuropean
( holidays )
28570000 Sweden ( Information )
(impression)
Norway
( Information )
15.500.000 Norway
( Information )
Norway
( Information )
Paneuropean
( Information )
14.192
78.720 Norway
( IT, telecom, media )
3000000 France
( radio TV )
934.000
40.645.000 Sweden ( Search Engine )
385.000
Sweden ( Swedish Univ. Network )
355.000
Sweden ( TV )
350.000
3390000 Sweden ( TV )
4.500.000 France
( VideoGames )
Strategy
39
USWeb/CKS

web portals - Salvino A. Salvaggio

Transcription

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