Site Seeing
Need a homebase on the Internet?
One student leads us through the virtual world
Tour by michael coppens
www.my.yahoo!.com
Yahoo! has always been one of the most widely used sites on the Internet,
so it comes as no surprise that they offered one of the first portals.
Portals provide consumers with personalized points of entry (or gateways)
to a variety of information on the Internet. My Yahoo! is actually the
most comprehensive portal you can find because of the breadth of information
that Yahoo! offers. When you sign up for a My Yahoo! account, you get
a permanent Yahoo! e-mail address, a Yahoo! Geocities personal Web site,
Yahoo! Calendar, Yahoo! Briefcase where you can store files and photos
and many more Yahoo! services. Also, for all of you instant messaging
fans out there, be sure to check out Yahoo! Messenger. It has all the
bells and whistles of AOL Instant Messenger with links to all of Yahoo!’s
services.
www.msn.com
A lot has been said about Microsoft in the past year with the whole Internet
Explorer problem. MSN, short for The Microsoft Network, has come a long
way. There isn’t anything particularly great about their portal site,
although I do like the quote and link of the day. The greatest part of
MSN is the new MSN Explorer. Basically it’s a new browser that is
easier to use. If you have a Hotmail e-mail account, MSN Explorer is at
least worth a try. It makes Hotmail easier and gives you a whole new,
more attractive, format to view your e-mail. It also has MSN Messenger,
Microsoft’s instant messaging program, and Windows Media Player built
in for easier use. It is definitely worth checking it out.
www.go.com
I’ve given the address to the Go Network because the whole site has
gone through major changes and the address to Go’s portal, MyPage,
is likely to change soon. Once you sign up for an account, it all gets
easy. It’s owned by Disney and they have had a hard time figuring
out the whole one-stop Internet information/entertainment site. They’ve
hardly ever been far off the mark though. The one thing Go has going for
it is the partners provided by Mickey and his friends. The news and information
you get from MyPage is gleaned from the Go Network, which is quite possibly
the best group of sites on the Internet for their respective uses. The
list includes ABC News, ESPN, Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound and, of course,
Disney. Regardless of using MyPage, I highly recommend the Go Network.
www.iwon.com
This is quite possibly the hardest portal to stop visiting. Here’s
the basic concept behind Iwon: everyday they give away $10,000, every
month they give away $1,000,000 and every year on the day income taxes
are due (April 15th), they give away $10,000,000. Here’s the catch,
you have to browse through the site to get entries for the drawings, all
conveniently tracked at the top of the Web page. You are allowed 100 entries
a day, and it’s not that hard to accomplish each day. Now I got hooked
by Iwon and have had a hard time giving it up. I mean come on, $10,000
a day? Who wants to give up that chance? As you can probably imagine there
is a high collateral involved with running this site. This is simply solved
by the deep pockets of advertisers and contributes to the main weakness
of Iwon. Sometimes it’s hard to see where the fun side of Iwon ends
and the corporate advertising begins. Try Iwon if you’re looking
for the thrill of possible cash, but be wary of the advertisers. Advertising
on the Internet is great, but not when you can’t tell the difference
between content and ads.