What is portal?
A portal is generally
defined as a software platform for building websites and web applications.
The main task of a
portal is to aggregate different applications into one page with a common look
and feel for the portal user.
Initially the term portal is used in a well known internet search sites
and navigation websites. Portal is the starting point to access all the
information on the World Wide Web. The original portals are search engines. The
example for portal are Yahoo!, Excite, Infoseek,
AOL, MSN, Netscape Netcenter and Lycos, represented the next phase of portal
development. simply single source for all information on a specific domain.
Compared to the original Internet search engines,
Internet portals offer a more structured, navigable interface. Browsing an organized
hierarchy of categories developed by people who scoured the Internet for
relevant and useful Websites is more effective than issuing a keyword search
against the entire Web.
Portals are often the
first page the web browser loads when users get connected to the Web or that
users tend to visit as an anchor site. They offer users a
surplus value of service based on the features of classic search engines:
What a portal does:
·
Universal login.
·
Handles both structure and unstructured data.
·
Gives messages and notifications.
·
Integration to other systems.
·
Gives multi-channel support
·
Content can be tuned based on
personalization, location, browser, etc.
Features of portals:
·
Security.
·
Publishing content.
·
Transactions.
·
Search.
·
Access different data.
·
Personal content.
Major Functions of Portals:
·
Search
and navigation.
·
Information
integration.
·
Personalization.
·
Notification.
·
Collaboration
and groupware.
·
Integration
of application and business intelligence.
·
Task
management and work flow.
·
Infrastructure
functionality.
Types
of portals:
The
portals can be differentiated on the basis of their content and intended users.
They can be categorized into:
·
Vertical
portals.
·
Horizontal
portals.
·
Enterprise
portals.
·
Knowledge
Portals.
·
Corporate
Portals.
·
Market
space Portals.