Connect the Dot.Coms

Training & Development, July, 2000 by Donna J. Abernathy

A turbulent spring stock market heaped extra attention on the future of dot.com companies. Some people claim that early success stories, such as online booksellers and software vendors, will be players in major consolidations this fall. Competition for online eyeballs is heating up, so e-customers are learning to flex their online muscle. There's also a different type of diversity at work in Web strategy rooms -- one of bricks-and-clicks balance.

Regardless of your role in learning or whether your company was born before or after the great wired migration, it's important to keep up with the trends and tools shaping dot.com life.

The Portal-Vortal Thing

In general terms, a portal is a broad information gateway and a vortal is a portal slice that targets a specific industry or topic. To compare them to another medium, think of NBC as a portal and The History Channel as a vortal.

Extending that concept to the learning industry is a bit stickier. Companies commonly referred to as learning portals -- Headlight.com and Click21earn.com, for example -- aren't information gateways to other sites. They offer online training resources and such tools as course trackers, publishing products, and course reviews, as do various competitors.

Some people say we should drop the portal-vortal terms altogether and use more accurate terms. According to Josh Rosen, corporate development associate at TrainingNet.com, "Although TrainingNet is often labeled a training portal, we never refer to ourselves as a portal, but rather a 'horizontal marketplace' or an 'e-hub' squarely focused on connecting buyers and sellers of corporate learning." The vortal concept, he says, also transfers to the training industry.

While TrainingNet offers training that reaches across industries to serve numerous vertical segments, there are training vortals -- vertical marketplaces -- that focus on specific industries, such as accounting and health care. An example is CE City (www.cecity.com) that caters to health-care training.

As the online training market matures and realigns, expect to see learning sites continue to define and refine themselves -- from who they are to whom they serve.

Slackers Need Not Apply

Quiz time: Name the heads of three Web companies.

Chances are that many of you will rattle off Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Jerry Yang (Yahoo!), or Steve Case (AOL) in that trio. Those gents have earned their heavyweight titles, but women are no slackers online. For instance, did you know that the CEO of that famous sock-puppet dot.com is a Julie?

Says MaMaMedia CEO Idit Harel: "Who better than women -- who've been multitasking all their lives -- to thrive in such a dynamic environment as the Internet?"

Here are the largest female-led Web companies, starting with number 1:

* pcOrder.com. Christy Jones, president

* Oxygen. Geraldine Laybourne, CEO; Marcy Carsey, Caryn Mandabach, and Oprah Winfrey, co-founders

* Women.com Networks. Ellen Pack, founder and senior vice president; Marleen McDaniel, CEO

* Petopia.com. Andrea Reisman, CEO

* iVillage. Candice Carpenter and Nancy Evans, co-founders

* Pets.com. Julie Wainwright, CEO

* E-Loan. Janina Pawlowski, chair

* MaMaMedia. Idit Harel, CEO

* NetCreations. Rosalind Resnick, CEO

* Della.com. Rebecca Patton, CEO; Jenny Lefcourt and Jessica DiLullo Herrin, vice presidents.

Source Working Woman

Stayin' Alive

According to a major research firm, many online vendors will be out of business by 2001.

In its report, "The Demise of Dot Corn Retailers," Forrester Research predicts that the combination of investor flight, weak financials, and competitive pressures will be the downfall. "The tide is turning against dot.coms," according to the report, "and consolidation will soon steamroll across the weak ones."

Consolidation will occur in these waves, according to Forrester:

* consolidation of early success stories (examples: books, software, and flowers) by the fall of 2000

* collapse of merchants selling similar merchandise at thin margins (examples: pet supplies, toys, and consumer electronics)

* stability of heavily branded, high-style products (examples: furniture and clothing) until 2002.

According to the report, "To survive consolidation, online retailers must anchor themselves by building sustainable assets that will attain scale, service, and speed. Leaders will need to focus on hard assets that support high sales volumes and lower costs per transaction: a large loyal, customer base; in-house fulfillment capabilities; and a rock-solid internal organization."

FYI forrester.com

Bust a Global Move

Ready to go out into the world? Eve Lindemuth Bodeux of Bodeux International offers some tips for expanding your business globally on the Web.

For starters, don't consider global expansion as an afterthought. You must approach international markets with a well-thought-out Web strategy, just as you would for your native language market.

It's also important to become familiar with international Net laws. For example, did you know that the European Union has much stricter privacy laws than the United States regarding Web-gathered information? That sending telephony traffic over IP networks is forbidden in China? Find out whether there are restrictions in areas you're targeting.