Several search services have added
"portal" features to transform themselves
into destinations, as opposed to transit
points. The chart below shows key
features that each service offers.
In each column, NO indicates if a
service doesn't offer a particular portal
feature. YES indicates that it does offer
a feature. Dates show when the feature
was launched.
Sometimes, the name of the company
that "powers" the feature is shown
instead of a YES. A date shows when
the feature was launched with that vendor.
Dates are in mm/dd/yy format.
If a company has changed vendors since
the feature was launched, previous vendors
are shown in parentheses. A date shows
when that partnership began.
Dates below the service name shows
when I last updated its information. The
? symbol denotes where I haven't
checked on offerings.
Also see the Portals page for articles
and resources relating to the "portal" nature
of many search services.
| Service | Personal Service | Chat | Message Boards | Paging | Home Pages | Internet Access | Comm unities | Slogan | |
| AltaVista | No | Yes iName | No | No | No | No | No | No | None |
| Excite | My Excite 8/96 | Yes 9/21/98 Software.com -was- 7/21/97 WhoWhere | Yes | Yes | Yes 5/12/97 | No | AT&T 6/11/98 | Yes 8/17/98 | Are You Experienced? |
| HotBot | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? | No | None |
| Infoseek | No | No | Yes 10/20/97 | No | No | Yes 6/11/98 | AT&T 8/24/98 | Expected late 98 | Once You Know, You Know. |
| Lycos (10/28/98) | Lycos Personal Guide 10/7/97 | iName 10/7/97 | Yes 10/7/97 | Yes 10/7/97 | No | Tripod, AngelFire 3.1 million members | AT&T 7/21/98 | No | Your Personal Internet Guide |
| Snap | My Snap 8/5/98 | Expected Fall 98 iName | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| WebCrawler | See Excite | Just what you're looking for. | |||||||
| Yahoo | My Yahoo 7/15/96 | Yes 10/8/97 (formerly RocketMail) | Yes 1/7/97 (ichat) | Yes | Yes 3/9/98 | Yes 1/5/98 GeoCities | AT&T (MCI 3/16/98) | Yes 8/18/98 | Do You Yahoo? |
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