Maximize ROI: Conversion Funnel Design & A/B Testing

9/28/2004 - Tuesday, September 28, 2004 -   

2005 Personalized Portal Competition: MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL

There has been some excitement in the internet portal space this year. With MSN, Yahoo, Google and AOL releasing new tools and/or beta websites, we are getting set up for Major Portal Competition 2005.

In 2005 the focus will be to give away (more) FREE tools to personalize your web lifestyle. The more FREE users these portals have, the more long term revenue they can generate. Its simple: Portals give away personalized content (news), toolbars, and web browsers so the portals have better targeted advertising for increased revenue. The question is who will create the best complete internet solution? Seems like Google and Yahoo are taking the lead...

Google has Gmail, Froogle, AdSense/AdWords, ToolBar, Blogger, Picasa, Alerts and is rumored to be developing a web browser, GBrowser. Plus personalized search is still in beta. Could they also offer free web hosting too? This makes sense as it could integrate all of Google's tools.

Yahoo has Overture, Mail, Shopping, Small Business, Music Match, GeoCities, Toolbar, Banking, and so much more. They are bound to release a personalized search soon. Could Yahoo also be working on their own browser? It is very possible and could be similiar to the "toolbar war" from last year.