In one of my previous incarnations, I was responsible for the MWeb portal, then the biggest website in Africa. At the time, my job title — portal manager — was sneered at by those from traditional media as futuristic jargon.

Now, of course, with the demise of the big walled-garden portals that tried to own and constrain the internet, the job of portal manager is pretty much consigned to the dustbin of media history, like other quaint jobs such as typesetter or switchboard operator...