"When I am still trying to understand what a Portal is, what the heck is
this new thing called Vortal?
In olden times we just knew of a thing called Portal and now what is this
other thing ... Is it yet another net jargon added up? This internet age, I
tell you, is going to leave me all huffing-puffing trying to catch up with
it. "
So I did some snooping and found out what these things are. Iam going to
share them with you ...
Portal is defined by about.com as "a kind of Web site". Oh great! as if none
of us knew that. But as I found out, it's very much the same thing that we
use to call a "web site". Then what is this new fangled thing called vortal
and why do we need them and what's the difference. well .... let's see ...
Technically speaking, a portal site includes a start page with rich
navigation, a collection of loosely-integrated features (some of which may
be provided by partners or other third parties), and a diverse, large target
audience. The term "Portal" originated with large, well-known Internet
search engine sites that expanded their features to include email, news,
stock quotes, and an array of other functionality. The all familiar sites
like Yahoo!, Excite, and the like would fall under this category. Some
corporations even took a similar approach in implementing their intranet
sites and those went on to be termed as enterprise information or corporate
portals or even intranet portals.
But as is always happenning with this internet world, the paradigm shift
brought in a realisation that these all oh-so-familiar sites may be too
general-purpose to hold one's interest and too broad (or horizontal) to
attract targeted advertising money.
What's the solution? Vertical portals: Web sites that cater to very specific
types of people who then attract specific types of advertisers who lust
after the chance to reach a targeted audience. Chances are that, in the near
future, there will be a portal for you no matter what your special interest
is.
Now for the definition. About.com defines a vortal as a "specialized form of
portal". well... that helps! and see! it's a Portal after all. What did I
tell ya?
After the evolution of portals to corporate portals, a different form of Web
site attracted the attention of analysts - a portal geared toward a specific
niche audience with focused content. The buzzword vortal (for vertical
portal) came to be born and was applied to this category of site to
distinguish it from the others.
By targeting a very focused audience, vortals in theory can provide
easier-to-understand navigation, deeper content, and a place for people with
common interests to meet each other.
A Vortal can be said to be a hybrid - a cross between traditional Web
portals and intranet portals. Vortals focus on specialized topics in much
the same way as intranet portals do, and they also tend to support
collaboration among users. Conversely, vortals also share features in common
with Web portals such as open access policies and user interfaces produced
by third parties.
So after all, the term "vortal" is not a new term after all. These, like I
found out, are web sites you would like to link up to your personnal home
page or would like to bookmark in your browser as it might hold specific
information of your interest. On the other side Portals are where you would
want to go so that you can go find your own things or find out where you can
go.
Whatever said and done, like I said before, this internet thing is going to
leave me all huffing-puffing for breath trying to catch up with it. Now, I
better hurry up before it gets too far away from me.
Bye!
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