Microportals hit it big
TEST DRIVE by Cory Kleinschmidt - December 6, 1999

Call them co-browsers, Internet toolbars, miniportals or a portal app. While there may not be a standard term to describe these gadgets, microportals (as we call them!) are hot. With the emergence of instant messaging, wireless devices, e-wallets and online radio, these stand-alone portal applications have finally hit it big. Offering everything you'd normally expect in a portal, microportals are finally starting to gain an audience.

Yahoo has had one for a few years now--it was originally called the Yahoo Pager--and 1998 saw several other players join the game, such as Excite with its Assistant, and AltaVista with its MicroPortal, an app that comes bundled with AV FreeAccess, a free Internet access service; and Entrypoint, a product of push pioneer Pointcast and incubator Idealab.

ENTRYPOINT
http://www.entrypoint.com
Platforms: Windows 95/98/NT4.0
Download size: 548 KB

Entrypoint isn't affiliated with any of the major consumer portals. It is powered by Pointcast technology, which many people may be familiar with. Entrypoint isn't strictly a microportal, however. While it does provide news feeds from Reuters and other notable news sources, Entrypoint also throws an e-wallet and CD player into the mix.

Entrypoint is a horizontal toolbar that docks onto the top of your window, whether you have a browser or a word processor active, so you can do your work and still catch news headlines that scroll by. And finance, sports and shopping are all one click away. Since Entrypoint is a toolbar, when you click on, say, the Sports button, a smaller window pops up on your screen that shows headlines, which can be further customized; and when you see a story that you'd like to read, clicking on the headline will take you straight to the news page on Entrypoint's site. Still following?

Entrypoint is full featured; there doesn't seem to be anything missing that other microportals offer. Its customization is robust, and content options are abundant. The interface is clean and unobtrusive. You can minimize it with one click and restore it with one more.

WHO SHOULD USE ENTRYPOINT
Someone who isn't already hitched to one of the major portals and wants to have a handy toolbar that docks permanently to your desktop until you turn it off, and who might find an e-wallet useful, as well as someone who often plays CDs on their computers.

YAHOO MESSENGER
http://messenger.yahoo.com/
Platforms: Windows, PowerPC Mac, Palm, Windows CE
Download size: 1.3 MB

As its name implies, the Yahoo Messenger is mainly geared toward instant messaging users. In case you're new to the idea, instant messaging is a lot like e-mail. You send text messages, but in this case they're delivered in real time to someone or a group of someones who are all using the same program. It's also similar to chat, except only the people on your "buddy list" can read your messages.

Messenger isn't a one-trick pony, though. Its usefulness really shows through if you're a Yahoo portal junkie. If you use My Yahoo, it will retain your personal preferences and display your chosen headlines, sports scores, etc. in the Messenger window, which can be expanded to full screen if desired. To move among the various features of Messenger, there is a set of tabs at the bottom of the screen. The tabs consist of Friends, Stocks, News, Sports, and Alerts. You can set up alerts for an endless variety of events, such as when Microsoft's stock reaches $100 or whatnot. One of Messenger's most useful features is the "new mail" alert that beeps when you receive a message in your Yahoo Mail inbox.

Messenger has superb customization options and is displayed in a small window, which can't be docked to the desktop, unfortunately. If this is a feature you want to have, try Yahoo Companion, an Internet toolbar that attaches to your browser's toolbar, whether Netscape of Microsoft IE. It doesn't have all the features of Messenger, such as instant messaging, but it is useful for alerts and shortcuts to Yahoo features.

If you only want the instant-messaging features, try Yahoo Messenger Java edition, a scaled-down version that runs in a small browser window. Because it is Java-based, it does not require downloading.

For even more Messenger fun, you can customize the program's interface, called the "skin," by visiting the Messenger home page and downloading custom interfaces.

WHO SHOULD USE MESSENGER
Anyone who already uses My Yahoo as their portal of choice and who has a use for instant messaging and would like to be notified whenever they get new Yahoo mail. Also, Macintosh users may want to use Messenger; after all, it's the only microportal available on the Mac!

EXCITE ASSISTANT
http://assist.excite.com/assist/html/download/
Platforms: Windows 95, 98, or NT
Download size: 570 KB

A flashy little gadget that seems more like Star Trek than the Internet, Assistant is another microportal that offers all the standard fare like news, stocks, sports scores, e-mail alerts, but also comes with some features that others don't have, such as TV listings, horoscopes and built-in online radio powered by the RealPlayer G2 streaming audio player, which allows you to listen to a plethora of radio stations across the world.

Navigation within Assistant is a breeze. You select from a series of tabs that run down the left-hand side of the app. The window itself is about the same size as Yahoo Messenger but a bit wider. And like Messenger, Assistant can't dock itself like Entrypoint, so you have to invoke it to use any of its features. One clever touch occurs when you minimize Assistant: It makes a hydraulic hiss and attaches to the side of your desktop like a little clip.

WHO SHOULD USE EXCITE ASSISTANT
Anyone who already uses Excite as their portal and would like to listen to online radio stations. Also, anyone who likes to check their daily horoscope. (You know who you are...)

ALTAVISTA MICROPORTAL
http://microav.com/
Platforms: Win 95,98,NT; IE 4.0 or higher required to access the free Internet system, but any browser can be used to surf the Web
Download size: 600 KB

What could be better than free Internet access? Um, we can't think of any! With the AltaVista MicroPortal, you get 100%, genuine free Internet access that comes bundled with the MicroPortal, a handy, miniature version of AltaVista.

MicroPortal also offers the standard content such as news, stocks, sports, etc. as well as several buttons that link to AltaVista content channels. Additionally, you can search the top-notch AV search engine from this window.

You don't have to access the Web with FreeAccess in order to use MicroPortal. But, if you're running the MicroPortal with FreeAccess, several things will be different. First, you have to click on at least one ad for every hour that you're connected or you will be disconnected. Don't worry, it warns you first so you won't be out of luck if you're in the middle of downloading MP3s or something.

The MicroPortal is an attractive piece of screen real estate, but it takes up too much of that precious real estate. Customization is decent, but nothing to write home about, and the content options are average as well.

WHO SHOULD USE ALTAVISTA MICROPORTAL
Anyone who already makes AltaVista their home base and anyone who wants free Internet access. That should leave out about 25 people in the entire world!