Chapter 5 - Getting More out of the Internet - Portals

Web portals are websites that act as gateways to information contained on the internet.  Some of the better known portals are referred to as search engines although they offer extensive access to information way beyond search.   Portals are categorized as consumer, vertical, hyperlocal, industry or corporate depending upon the application.  Shown below is a simple diagram of how a consumer portal maybe structured:

This diagram shows the various content options that exist within a typical consumer portal.

Popular consumer portals are AOL, iGoogle, MSN and Yahoo!.  These web portals typically offer access to a large offering of information such as local, regional, and national news, stock quotes, research information, reference tools, search tools, sports scores, shopping as well as email services and much more.   Shown below is the Yahoo! portal: 

Yahoo! Portal -  Notice the Content Links

While there are many web portals designed for general use by consumers, there are also portals that are created for use by people with specialized interests.  These are referred to as vertical portals.  These can include interests as varied as gardening, social issues, children's issues, parenting, almost anything you can think of in which people would share a common interest.  While these portals may provide content links, the content is specific to the subject of the portal. 

  

There are also hyperlocal portals which are specific to a region or geographic location.  These provide content about a given area and are generally written by people living and working within that area who possess knowledge about the region. For example, a chamber of commerce from a region might develop a portal highlighting the unique characteristics of their city with links to hotels and entertainment venues.    Industry portals are used by individuals seeking content on a specific industry.    There are also corporate or business portals where access is only permitted to those with login credentials issued and managed by the company. Portals of this type allow employees to access corporate systems to access documents and other data. Corporate portals may also be used to enable customers to browse, search, and make purchases from the company.

There are also government portals. As with the corporate portals, authorized users must have login credentials, security clearance, and other proprietary access codes. This helps to ensure that employees can only gain access to data that is considered within their area of responsibility and  prevents the use of proprietary data by unauthorized individuals. 

The growing reliance on the Internet and consumer demand for easy access to information on the Internet will cause Web portals to continue to grow and evolve over time.