And the people say, "So what?"

So, how is the Ajax movement of the present time different than the portal movement that peaked in 2000 or so?

One major difference of today is the openess and sharing information across sites made posssible by XML and the notion of the Semantic Web. The portals of the 90's tried to be all things to all people. Todays businesses realize they can't do that and they need lots and lots of customization and integration with other sources of information. This is why you're seeing companies API's opening up inviting others to create unique applications with their data.

anelson of apocryph.org writes:

"Does anyone else think this is a minor evolution of that canonical 90’s bubble icon, the search portal?"

Read more at apocryph.org/i_dont_get_ajax_desktops

Week of the API's