Boy! You just broke bank.

That's exactly what happened with Amazon.com. That's what happened with Yahoo. That's what happened with a host of success stories that has glaring effects on our minds.

Yahoo is perhaps best example to demonstrate power of filling a gap in an existing market. In marketing lingo Yahoo identified a market niche.

Everybody knows it was a basement startup. But since Yahoo sensed, anticipated, and then fulfilled a basic need of people wanting to get exposure through a workable means, it went beyond success limits.

Yahoo didn't maintain top 10 or 20 search engine positions rather it pioneered search engine directory itself. People have no choice but to submit their URLs in Yahoo directory. By way, have you heard of Yahoo? Okay! Okay! You got it. :-)

I'm certainly not saying that everybody on planet posess same mindset like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, or Tim Koogle of Yahoo. But as Jim Rohn once said… "Human beings have remarkable ability to turn nothing into something. They can turn weeds into gardens and pennies into fortunes", you can be sure not to loose hope.

In an environment where technology and markets swirl around each other like a cyclone, getting caught up in a virtuous spiral is a matter of following natural forces. Some ideas, no matter how obvious, simply won't fly until their time has come.

Take vertical portals, for example. Lately, they are being touted as one of hottest new trends for commerce on Web. Vertical portals aren't really a new concept-just an idea that's time has come.

For those who aren't familiar with term, "vertical portals" are web sites that serve as guides or directories for specific topics on Web. Sites like Yahoo! are called "portals" because they provide an entry point to wide open world of Web. The major portals provide much needed structure to Web. However, a web surfer who is interested in a specific subject -pro tennis, for example- would soon find that there are extensive resources and communities just around that subject. (See Absolute Authority on Pro Tennis. The "horizontal" or general portals like Yahoo! can't possibly keep up with every possible topic.

That's where vertical portals come in. Vertical portals are typically run by people with an interest in a particular subject. These people proactively seek out content and community around that subject, and organize it with a level of care and skill that general portals simply can't match. They are a natural element of Web. And guess what- they aren't new.