Web portal

Web portals are sites on the World Wide Web that typically provide personalized capabilities to their visitors. They are designed to use distributed applications, different numbers and types of middleware and hardware to provide services from a number of different sources. In addition, business portals are designed to share collaboration in workplaces. A further business-driven requirement of portals is that the content be able to work on multiple platforms such as personal computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and cell phones.

Development of Web portals

In the late 1990s, the Web portal was a hot commodity. After the proliferation of Web browsers in the mid-1990s, many companies tried to build or acquire a portal, to have a piece of the Internet market. The Web portal gained special attention because it was, for many users, the starting point of their Web browser. Netscape Netcenter became a part of America Online, the Walt Disney Company launched Go.com, and Excite became a part of AT&T during the late 1990s. Lycos was said to be a good target for other media companies such as CBS.

Many of the portals started initially as either web directories (notably Yahoo!) and/or search engines (Excite, Lycos, AltaVista, infoseek, and Hotbot among the old ones). The expansion of service provision occurred as a strategy to secure the user-base and lengthen the time a user stays on the portal. Services which require user registration such as free email, customization features, and chatrooms were considered to enhance repeat use of the portal. Game, chat, email, news, and other services also tend to make users stay longer, thereby increasing the advertisement revenue.

The portal craze, with "old media" companies racing to outbid each other for Internet properties, died down with the dot-com burst in 2000 and 2001. Disney pulled the plug on Go.com, Excite went bankrupt and its remains were sold to iWon.com. Some notable portal sites, for instance, Yahoo!, remain successful to this day. To modern dot-com businesses, the portal craze serves as a cautionary tale about the risks of rushing into a market crowded with highly-capitalized but largely undifferentiated me-too companies.

Regional Web portals

Along with the development and success of international Web portals such as Yahoo!, regional variants have also sprung up. Some regional portals contain local information such as weather forecasts, street maps and local business information. Another notable expansion over the past couple of years is the move into formerly unthinkable markets.

"Local content - global reach" portals have emerged not only from countries like India (Rediff) and China (Sina.com) but also like Italy (Webplace.it) and so on. Such portals reach out to the widespread diaspora spread across the world.

Government Web portals

At the end of the dot-com boom in the 1990s, many governments had already committed to creating portal sites for their citizens. In the United States the main portal is FirstGov.gov; in the United Kingdom the main portals are Directgov (for citizens) and businesslink.gov.uk (for businesses). A number of major international surveys are run to measure the transactional capabilities of these portals, the most notable being that run by Accenture.

Many U.S. states have their own portals which provide direct access to eCommerce applications (e.g., Hawaii Business Express and myIndianaLicense), agency and department web sites, and more specific information about living in, doing business in and getting around the state.

Many U.S. states have chosen to out-source the operation of their portals to third-party vendors. The most successful company to date for this is NICUSA which runs 18 state portals. NICUSA focuses on the self-funded model, and does not charge the state for work. Instead it is supported by transaction fees for its applications.

Mini Portals

Some localized portals are based on local interests, and edited and maintained by individuals. While they do not provide the same levels of services as major portals, they are a good place for collaboration of ideas, for commonly interested people. Some examples of Web Portals are KNET at www.silvernet.bravehost.com and xbox.net, and the Web Index.

Standards

Web Services for Remote Portlets v1
JSR 168 (Java Portlet Definition Standard)

Emerging standards

Web Services for Remote Portlets v2
JSR 286 (Java Portlet Definition Standard v2)

Other Sources

Bauer, H. H., M. Hammerschmidt, and T. Falk (2005), "Measuring the Quality of E-Banking Portals," International Journal of Bank Marketing, 23 (2), 153-175

Web portals