Web portal - who needs one?
Every Organization with a Need to Communicate
The web has assumed the position of the most powerful communication medium in history. Seems like it happened almost overnight. And new methods to produce and consume the information flow appear almost every day.
Consuming Information
Keeping up with the flow of information is a challenge. We are drowning in information while searching for knowledge. If somebody had told you 10 years ago that internet search was going to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars, would you have believed them? Everyone searches for precisely the content that is relevant to them at their particular time and place.
The pace of innovation, the creation of entirely new ways to produce and consume information is picking up. Change is happening, and it is happening faster all the time. Keeping up with the pace is stretching IT budgets and resources.
Community simplifies the acquisition of relevant content.
Relevant content for a given community is a great way to simplify information access. Bass means one thing in a fishing group, entirely something else to a group of musicians. What does "tackle" mean to a search engine?
Thirty thousand new applications in 9 months and a billion downloads is the claim for the iPhone app store. Looking at what is available, there is a lot of overlap. Study the overlaps, and find that besides competition among app developers to produce the easiest to use wares, there is a lot of tailoring the interface for a given community.
Linkedin, twitter, myspace, facebook, community is the new gold rush on the web. Every community wants your profile and your content, and is giving away "free" space and tools. Why free? Because content has value is why. Every new face, every new bit of content means one more opportunity to attract eyeballs to the site as people search for the best ways to produce and consume relevant content within the structure of the web.
The Moving Target - Chasing the Tail
Fifteen years ago, computer databases were high technology restricted to a well trained chosen few. Database purchases came with six or more zeroes in the price tag. Then came mySQL. Basically mySQL was a database that provided none of the high end features but most of the real world usefulness of a database. Simplification in an era of feature bloat was the primary claim to fame. MySQL succeeded in bringing simplified database technology to the masses, and became a web standard.
Just a few years ago web portal technologies required deep rooted understanding of several technologies and were generally six figure purchases. Like the database, commoditization has happened as developers distill the most useful features of the technology into standardized formats to accomplish just exactly what is needed, no more, no less. Simplification has happened, again.
Technology leaders were first to notice, and began employing the web portal concept to build online communities years ago. Even a community of one, like an individual twitter stream, can become a community of many by combining together the streams. Which then spawn more new communities and the cycle continues. How much longer will we chase the tail of the latest communication fad, until finally realizing the power is in people? People, it's people that make up the community!
Twitter may be the simplest ever communications idea. What are you doing right now in 140 characters or less. The power of twitter is in the community use of simplified technology. Think how much more power there is in a full featured portal and communication system like eZ Publish than in twitter, and start wondering why you are chasing the tail instead of building your own online community and content. The promise of the web as a universal communications platform is being fulfilled, for those willing to believe in the possibility.
Public perception of database technology was slow to adapt to the realities of mySQL. Public perception of web portals is the only thing holding back eZ Publish. High powered web communications in simple standardized formats is available right now, and within reach of anyone with a little time, money, and desire. The cost can be as low as a penny or two on the dollar compared to the recent past.
Where are Portals currently being used?
- Advertising/Information Brochures
- Newspapers, magazines, periodical publications
- Online collaborative networks - intra or internet
- Document management
- Online communities
News and magazine sites were the classic use case for web portals like eZ Publish. Portals are deployed and in use by government, schools, sports teams, musical groups, corporations, charitable organizations and of course as the foundation of online community sites.
The advantage of portals versus tweets, blogs, forums, and all other communications technologies pressed into service in the rush to the web, is that portals are built for the purpose.
Like a hammer is built to drive a nail, a portal is built to produce and serve web content. Portals are built to handle content coming from a variety of sources, in a variety of formats, and then present this information in layouts tailored to the end consumers of the information streams. The historical reason to not use a portal was cost and the expertise required.
Preparing Content for Online Consumption
Just a few years back, getting content to the web, even within a portal, was a complex multi-step process.
- Write a document
- Convert the document to html
- Test publish on a local server
- Add in the css and backgrounds and logos
- Final review
- Publish within a predefined layout or create a new layout
- Do it all again next time.
With eZ Publish, you can start and end at step 1. Create the document in place, on the web, using practically any web browser. Accept the default predefined layouts and just starting adding content. No special skills required, no bottlenecks to slow the process. It just cannot be made any easier than that.
Just as mySQL changed the rules and put database technology within the reach of all, eZ Publish challenges pre-conceived notions for the entire web portal class of technology. And just because eZ has over 40 content classes like forums, blogs, polls and calendars built in, does not mean they all need to be used. You can start off just using the blog class, and know that your site has room to grow as the needs grow.
