Disney launches "new" Go portal

September 2000

As some of you might know, the Walt Disney company has had some serious problems with its Go portal site. The idea was to integrate the highly respected Infoseek search engine into a new general gateway to the Net, a site that should compete with the likes of Yahoo, AOL and MSN.

No such luck! Although the portal was OK in itself, there was nothing there that made it stand out from the crowd. Hence: a lack of visitors and a lack of revenue.

Some time ago Disney announced that they will change Go into a so called "vertical" portal, that is a gateway focusing on a special topic, in this case leisure and entertainment. Disney will be using the new site to support several of its other sites, like Disney.com, ABC.com and ESPN.com.

A beta version of the site is now up and running. The site has got a new orange and more compact look, although the pages are not too cluttered.

For the Internet searcher it is good to see that the Infoseek search engine is still there, even with a small "Infoseek" logo. The Go guide directory also lives on -- sort of.

The search result pages will first give you a couple of results from the directory, and then -- in a separate box -- from Infoseek. In order to make room for more advertising, announcements, news items, horoscopes and what have you, no more than ten results are presented in a rather narrow column on the left hand side of the page. That might irritate some users.

Although the search result pages include hits from the Go directory, it is very hard to find the directory itself. You may browse the entertainment part of it from the Playfinder box on the home page, but we were unable to find a full category structure. This could be a result of the new entertainment focus, or the fact that this is a preliminary version of the site. Reducing the importance of the directory might make it difficult to recruit new Go guides, i.e. volunteers to edit the various categories.

By the way: Take a look at the Go webpage translator. It is a good alternative to Alta Vista's Babelfish.

• The new Go site - beta version
• Excite on the new site
• "A New Go in Town", Go on the new site.
• Disney's Go.com Changes Direction With Web Site (SF Gate)
• Go Translator

More search engine news...