Peter Sinclair: The marriage of new monsters

Readers with attention spans slightly longer than the average midge's will recall a time three or four years back when "aggregation" was The Word.

"Portalisation" - the mindless agglomeration of a number of small, nimble concepts into one large, unwieldy one - was seen as the future of the web: an inevitable transfiguration of pioneers into bureaucrats, adventurers into time-servers.

A numb conformity crept across the net as the players, major and minor, attempted to outdo each other in useful tedium. It became quite difficult to tell NetCenter, MSN, Yahoo and AltaVista from each other at a quick glance.

"All things to all men!" was the cry of the new monsters striving to offer jaded surfers identical services in slightly different wrappers.

Despite the uniform functionality of these new giants, people didn't - and still don't - take to them very much. They suffer major rates of erosion - "churn" - as newbies, learning the rudiments of web navigation for themselves, abandon them for individual user-patterns which better answer their needs and reward their imaginations.

Audiences never much enjoy being captive.

Now, well after the event, this strategy has been revived in New Zealand, complete with all the old catchcries and the image of a radiant geek, as Xtra and MSN last week wedded themselves into XtraMSN.

The marriage might seem a dream scenario - two powerful brands with complementary strengths, each robustly successful in its field, plus a Microsoft dowry of $300 million in background investment.

But wait on. Is there a point to the manoeuvre and, if so, what is it? Is this a convergence of interests, or cannibalisation?

Given an overlap between the two sets of users and general duplication of content, early projections suggest that the sum of the parts may be somewhat less than the whole - what might be called the AOL-Time Warner Syndrome.

The only new factor between then and now is the emergence of instant messaging as a force, and it will be interesting to see whether and to what extent this forms part of a business plan for the new entity. As things stand, it would provide a unique point of difference between the conglomerate and the rest.

Whatever the merger's merits or otherwise, though, these things have a way of setting off knee-jerks among other players in the immediate vicinity. I rang around some of the remaining majors and noted a few intriguing twitches.

"We have a unique brand, but we wouldn't close any doors ... we have always had a very friendly relationship with NZoom, for example" - Mark Ottaway, New Zealand Herald.

"There's a trend here ... part of a wider convergence between platforms ... clearly we are considering our position" - David Plummer, TelstraSaturn.

Only NZoom's Simon Aimer was singing out of tune: "What have we got here? - a monopolistic, arrogant telco allying with a similar channel with an appalling record of customer service ... are these sorts of portals really rewarding for the convenience surfer?" This level of public protestation often accompanies a bit of chatting up in private.

If there is a key here, it is Telstra-Saturn, its expanding $1.1 billion cable network combined with its acquisition of internet providers NetLink and Paradise promising potentially to offset the new portal's Xtra eyeballs and MSN Hotmail.

Its marriageability is further enhanced by last month's announcement of forthcoming digital television initiatives with TVNZ.

The mating instinct being what it is, I think these will prove irresistible to somebody. I suggest laying in a bit more confetti.

BOOKMARKS

LEAST FORGETFUL: Katikati

Congratulations to Kit and Sue Wilson of Katikati's voluntary community website for erecting New Zealand's first town e-memorial to local Anzacs who served in the First World War. With the help and advice of the Katikati RSA, they have posted the service records of all 60 men enlisted from Katikati from a total population of 407, plus everything you might want to know about this friendly Bay of Plenty centre.

Advisory: includes an introduction by Jock Phillips, Chief Historian.

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* petersinclair@email.com

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