What features do consumer web portals have?
Portals offer a wide range of customization options and functionality including: Internet search and navigation; email; customized news, weather, sports, and horoscopes; planners, calendars, and contact managers; bookmark managers to save favorite web sites; real-time chat; message boards; original content on every imaginable topic; shopping; free home pages; “clubs” which function as makeshift intranets; small business services; and much more. Increasingly, major portals are seeing to it that vital content such as news, stock prices, and messages can be accessed with wireless devices and phones. What is a Vertical Portal – A Vortal? Vertical or niche portals are what we might have called web sites in the past. Today, however, certain category-leading web sites in a given topical category, or catering to a given demographic, are such significant players that many call them portals. The list of very popular and economically significant vertical portals is growing rapidly. Examples inclu
