Chapter 5 - Portals

When using the internet people most commonly use a web portal as their home page. To make a portal your homepage all you have to do is change the settings of the browser you use. There are many different kinds of portals. They can be a horizontal portal, vertical portal, general consumer portal, or a industry portal. A horizontal portal is a consumer portal that you are able to customize to meet your specific needs and interests. An example of a horizontal portal would be My MSN or My Yahoo. A general consumer portal gives the user a wide range of content that commonly includes search tools, reference tools, current weather and news, and usually an email account to go with it. Since these portals offer such a large range of content they appeal to a very large audience. A vertical portal is usually used when someone wants to know more about a specific interest. For example if someone is interested in information about cancer they could use the National Cancer Institute portal. A industry portal is a portal that can be used as a market space. Most industry portals give the specific industries' information, links, and advertising.