Is Google.com/ig a portal? If it is, is that a bad thing? |
mhi.. yes /ig is a portal. Tweaked by a user ..not by a company...thats the power of widgets/modules :)_ |
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Aportal&btnG=Google+Search
Better questoin: When is a portal a portal? And if the dev sez, it is no portal, can it be a portal? |
Portal = A website considered as an entry point to other websites, often by being or providing access to a search engine.
http://www.answers.com/portal&r=67
Like a door to the world? I thought it was a site that has a lot of services (mail, shopping, cars, health) and wants to keep the users on their site. Like Yahoo or MSN. |
"wants to keep the users on their site."
– then it becomes a bad thing.. I want options to either opt in or out.. whenever I choose... |
When /ig was first released I was afraid Google will become Yahoo!..
I'm glad they made it optional. |
In the late 90s, portal was synonymous with "trying to do everything and becoming the #1 location for most users." At the same time, it meant to not focus on anything specific in particular, and that's why a new search player yould enter the market in 1998... but now that search works rather well, Google of course tries to expand. But a true portal to me is push, not pull, in other words, you didn't *choose* to have this or that info widget appear. At least on /ig, you have the choice :) |
"a true portal to me is push, not pull," – care to clarify this Philipp ?
Most ecommerce portals /Apps are currently just a landing zone for a predfined business practice.. like ordering fulifillment, inventory control or airticket and hotel booking etc.. regardless of a push /pull method initatied..
That is the user is locked in to only one zone
Whereas with /ig, the user is not locked in and is it a pull or a push ?? I pull a widget to my desktop and then the data gets pushed out to my desktop.. its kinda a reverse paradigm in occurance.
What happens if true SaaS and SOA type of portals permit me to pull a widget that permits me to book airlines (aircanada only) or maybe air france.. and also displays current status flight timings and so on.. or just plain exchange rate info..
If companies build widgets (read as microformated data) then it becomes possible for a users to create powerfull desktop views
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Is Google not a portal anyway? Without /ig?
It's there for the links... not for the content. So it gives access to other sites...
RSS feeds and games just make it more of a traditional portal.
"search engine" is what's inside the portal. Kind of like engines in cars. Every car has to have one. Some just have better ones. |
> "a true portal to me is push, not pull," – care to clarify this Philipp ?
Pull is: clicking the remote control buttons. Push is: getting the predefined, uncostimized TV channel stream. So in relation of the two, TV is more "push" then "pull."
The Google homepage is almost complete pull. Without you entering something specific (pulling the content), you won't see much at all. Now go the Yahoo page; you'll see a lot of "push" of news bits, sports results, unrelated advertisement etc. etc. |
oh ok.. thanks for the clarifcation.
yes, I think your viewpoint on pull vs push is the same but echoed in a different manner |
As i see it, there's a good portal and a bad portal. A good portal is something like /ig, my yahoo, etc. where the user gets to pick what's shown and so the content is relevant and leads to other websites. It's "pull", it's really a "portal" to the internet. A bad portal is more like a tarpit, it aims to keep people on the same website as much as possible. example: yahoo.com |
