Thursday, March 6, 2008

Portals in a Enterprise 2.0 world

Today, I came across a post at Internet Marketing Updates that gave a description of the different types of portals that are in use across the web.

The horizontal portal is the one most of us are very familiar with. It’s a portal that gives us access to the rest of the web. Examples would be Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Most of the time they provide a community, and provide us access to information that would normally take thousands of pages to sort through. These portals make their money from advertising and transaction fees.

A vertical portal provides deep content to the user. It’s a place to connect with others and learn about specific topics in depth. Examples would be WebMD and Web Flyer. These portals make their money through advertising, referral fees, and subscriptions to their content.

An affinity portal is a place where the content is community base driven. It’s a lot like the vertical portal but made for a specific segment. It’s content and community driven. It’s profit comes from the same things as the vertical portal.

So what type of portal do you find your enterprise using the most often? Do you believe there is one that is more commonly used in the enterprise setting?

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