This article investigates various approaches to portals research, beginning by offering three categories that such research might fall into: research into portal technology, research into portal implementation issues, and research into portal applications. The research approach used may well differ depending on which of these categories is being considered. As the largest number of portal research articles deal with portal applications, the remainder of the article then deals with this topic, and introduces the idea that as a portal must be adopted before it can be used. The article distinguishes between inventions and innovations and argues that there is nothing automatic about adoption of an innovation, and that this can best be investigated through the lens of innovation theory. In particular, the article looks at how innovation translation can be used in this regard and offers several examples of how this can be done.