consumer internet - the one distinguishing feature that saves the product?

Yahoo was a great portal, comparing it with excite and lycos.
Yahoo is still a very good one, but there is a new (: not new anymore) kid in the block, Google.

As long as individual users interact one-on-one with the portals, and don't care about other users, sonner or later, the portals are going ot be lost to a new kid in the block.

Who will survive for a much longer time - EBay, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn
What makes them unique
Each of them have one class of users.
These users come to the portal because of other users, rather than just for the portal.
It is an exchange - where succesful transactions happen.

If your company makes software for consumers, you can make the consumers stick by having a provision to make consumers interact with each other. Then, you are in the game !!