Gadgetopia

Fashion Site to Try an All-Purpose Portal: I wonder if the success or failure of this site is a barometer for anything in particular.

WHEN some of Silicon Valley’s best minds pool their collective intelligence and millions of dollars to create a Web site for people who want to read about and buy everything in Lindsay Lohan’s closet, you know the Internet industry is ready to party again.

Glam.com, a fashion site scheduled to make its debut today after nearly two years in development, is of a genre not heard from since the heady days of the dot-com bubble: a so-called vertical portal offering articles, user-to-user dialogue and merchandise, all within the confines of a narrow topic.