Portal Development: 

What are Portals

Sites like Yahoo, CNN and MSN are considered portals and are gateways into the Internet for many users. A Portal attracts a broad (horizontal) range of users, whereas Vortals appeal to a more narrowed (vertical) audience.

Vortals focus on a group of people with a specific passion or interest. They are sometimes called 'online communities' or ' vertical portals.' If you are interested in horses, for example, go to horsenet.com. Here you can chat with others interested in horses. You can also buy horse-related products and books and find information about horses.

We can build your Portal, Vortal or Community. This Portal development may include adding several features or components that are not normally found on a typical site. For example, you may need a discussion forum so that your visitors can share ideas or experiences. To get this forum working on your site requires installing a third party software (component).

Reusing Existing Components vs Building From Scratch

We can create a custom portal from the ground up or we can integrate pieces that have already been developed. The reuse of existing components or the modular approach to building a portal is faster and cost effective.

Using these components as the building blocks that form the framework of the site we then can add your content. Look at the menu of components below and decide what you want to build.

There are many other components or modules you may wish to add to your Portal.

Reusable Components: The Building Blocks of Your Site

Installation of the component is only the first step. It will then need to be integrated into the site and administered.

Portal Success or Failure?

Portals can grow and have many areas of interest for the visitor. When compared to printed publications, they can range from family newsletters to the Washington Post!

But there's more to the success of a portal than building it. Many people are surprised that a good Portal is an ongoing process. Once it is designed, developed and published, the Portal then needs visitors. This requires site promotion.

A June 2000 article in The Industry Standard suggests that large news portals are spending 50% of their budget on advertising and that many of the new online publications are losing money.

COMPONENTS OF PORTAL DEVELOPMENT

Concept, design and text development

Site development

Installation of components

Graphic and animation development

Banner ad creation

Updating/improving content

TURNKEY PORTAL

Here is a plug-and-play portal designed to get your online community up and running. It is like ordering off a menu: you describe what you want and we can create the portal. Pick any 6 of the items listed below and we will get your portal or vortal going. We will spend 50 hours building your portal including the integration of the six components that you select.

Home Page - including 3 additional pages.

Form - 1 feedback form which will be e-mailed to you each time someone fills it in.

Discussion Forum - Here your visitors can post questions and comments. This is the heart of the community.

Links - This component allows visitors to add links to your site. It is similar to Yahoo! or other search engines.

Classified Ads - Allow your visitors to publish their own ads.

Survey - Use this to get customer feedback and at the same time provide a spontaneous way to view compiled results.

Poll - Many people like to know the opinions of others.

Test Poll - Let your visitors test their knowledge.

Banner Ads - Advertise your products or receive income from others. We will create two banners ads for you.

Search - Allow your visitors to search your site for words.

Auction - Conduct an online live auction.

News - Allow your visitors to post information and news.

Site Statistics - We will set you up so that you can easily monitor the number of visitors coming to your portal.

Guest Book - Here your visitors can post their names and comments.