A million points of entry - Red Herring Catch of the Day, 8/31/1999

It's important to realize that the ongoing Microsoft vs. America Online struggle over instant-messaging standards isn't really about standards, or serving the user, or anything warm and fuzzy. What's happening is that the portal strategies of AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and so forth are winding down. Yes, people still use Yahoo, but the value proposition is migrating towards specialty sites. Meanwhile, Net-connected micro-apps like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) give companies a way to keep the brand in front of the user all the time -- even when the user isn't playing the portal game.

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AOL's AIM and ICQ and Microsoft's Messenger are incredibly sticky applications, and that stickiness and constant desktop presence is extraordinarily valuable to marketers. There are several other micro-apps out there that also attempt to rent a place on your desktop in exchange for useful functionality, from the microportal iWare to the new group-browsing applets like Gooey and Hipbone. And, of course, everybody in the consumer electronics market -- from cell phone makers to refrigerator manufacturers -- is trying to figure out how to "portalize" products.

- Rafe Needleman
Editor, Redherring.com

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