The Hindu Business Line : Open a window to the world of portals

The Ministry of Information Technology has decided to start a portal on e-governance. The portal will talk about e-governance projects, provide information service, and offer courses on e-procurement and e-learning.

Look around, and you'd find more portals in the news window. For instance, `Vodafone set to revamp music portal,' reports www.forbes.com. `PacificNet Acquires Chinese Mobile Internet Portal Stake,' says www.chinatechnews.com. `Oracle offers Web 2.0 integration for portal users,' informs ITBusiness.ca, Canada. `Microsoft to provide free e-Government portal software,' notes www.publictechnology.net. And `Industry Top User of New NATO Web Portal,' reads a headline on DefenseNews.com.

In a world that promises to be threateningly full of portals, like a hall of mirrors, we may have a big problem — of not knowing which portal to use. So, let us come to terms with the word, fast!

Point of entry

Portal means `a doorway, gate, or gateway, especially a large and imposing one', according to Concise Oxford English Dictionary. "Circa 1300, from Medieval Latin portale `city gate, porch,' from neuter of portalis (adjective) `of a gate,' from Latin porta `gate'," enlightens www.etymonline.com. Root word is `port' with origins also from Sanskrit parayati `carries over', Greek poros `journey, passage', and Avestan peretush `passage, ford, bridge'.

In `computing', the word means "an Internet site providing a directory of links to other sites.' As an anatomy word, portal refers "the portal vein, portal system, or the opening in the liver through which the portal vein passes," explains Encarta. The portal vein is formed by the union of the splenic and superior mesenteric veins, elaborates www.medterms.com. "It conveys venous blood to the liver for detoxification before the blood is returned to the circulation via the hepatic veins." The most common cause of `portal hypertension' is cirrhosis, which results from "scarring of a liver injury caused by hepatitis, alcohol abuse or other causes of liver damage." Portal is also `the point of entry into the body of a pathogenic micro organism,' says Stedman's Medical Dictionary.

Alarming, isn't it? So, we shall exit from the medical portal and enter the construction door, where the word means `the approach or entrance to a bridge or tunnel', as Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines. Portal is "the whole architectural composition surrounding and including the doorways and porches of a church".

A rigid frame structure, which is designed to resist longitudinal loads where diagonal bracing is not permitted, is a `portal frame', according to Glossary of Joist and Structural Terms.

Portal stones are "a pair of Megalithic orthostats, usually flanking the entrance to a chamber tomb," says Wikipedia. "In most Gothic cathedrals there were three portals in the main façade," informs ArtLex Lexicon of Visual Art Terminology.

`Portal (architecture)' gets redirected to a page on `gate'. The Ishtar Gate, the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon, constructed in about 575 BC by order of King Nebuchadrezzar, is `the oldest city gate in existence', says http://en.wikipedia.org. A `kissing gate', mostly used between fields, `allows people to cross but prevents animals from crossing.' There must be kissing portals too, but let's cross over to `Hackers, Hits and Chats: An E-Commerce and Marketing Dictionary of Terms' on www.udel.edu, where portal is defined as `the entry point webpage for a particular theme, whether it be an industry (e.g. chemical or auto) or an occasion (e.g. wedding purchases).'

One-stop-shop

Portal, a.k.a. infomediary, serves as `the one-stop-shop starting point to execute all transactions within the theme'.

Cyberstation or hub, says www.netlingo.com, as portal's synonyms. "Pioneered by Yahoo!, portals aggregate other people's content." Portals grew out of the technology inherent with the Internet and are an excellent example of how to take advantage of `user loyalty' via sticky content, explains the site.

Yahoo, founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang, continues to make news. "Combining Technorati with Yahoo's recently acquired Del.icio.us social bookmarking site could be the start of a blog portal," postulates http://internet.seekingalpha.com. "AT&T tapped Yahoo this spring to provide a portal for subscribers of its rural broadband service," reports www.buffalonews.com. Instead of giving links, portals may host their own content `such as news, sports, and weather,' says www.linktionary.com, and gives as examples AltaVista, America Online and MSN.

"A portal is a place to hang out on the Web and jump off to other locations. Portals have been called `on-ramps' to the rest of the Web."

Types of portals

Portals are of many types. "A captive portal is a Web page that the user of a public-access network is obliged to view and interact with before access is granted," says http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com."Captive portals are typically used by business centres, airports, hotel lobbies, coffee shops, and other venues that offer free Wi-Fi hot spots for Internet users."

Voice portals recognise voice commands, say, via telephone, and offer services such as weather, sport scores, or stock quotes. `Knowledge portal' is "the single means of access to corporate information and applications, which allows users to interact with one another and to connect to information with a collective understanding and experience," according to a Web definition from Google. Corporate portal, a.k.a. `enterprise portal' or `enterprise information portal' provides `a single gateway to the enterprise', which can be accessed via the Intranet, secure Extranet (used by customers, suppliers and business partners), or the Internet, as www.ies.aust.com educates. "Self-service portals allow employees, customers or suppliers to access information about themselves and to carry out certain business processes in a way that is suited to their own needs," writes Cairo Walker on www.steptwo.com.au. "Collaboration portals enable a geographically dispersed workforce to interact around projects and business-as-usual tasks through a common access or rallying point."

Horizontal portals offer a broad range of content and services, while the vertical ones have `tightly focused content geared toward a particular audience', as www.wordspy.com explains, citing Jim Lynch's article `What Makes a Great Portal,' in PC Magazine. Vertical industry portals, also called vortals, "provide news, research and statistics, discussions, newsletters, online tools, and many other services that educate users about a specific industry," says Computer, Telephony and Electronics Glossary and Dictionary on www.csgnetwork.com.

The site www.kavitanjali.com, `The Contemporary Poetry Portal', has, as the poem of the week, one on the ghastly train blasts in July, when it rained blood over Mumbai! "Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!" exclaims Hamlet, watching the exiting ghost of his father!

Exiting portals, we can acknowledge how they save time and ease navigation, like in a shopping mall. Only, they shouldn't become the point of entry of `pathogenic micro organisms' such as viruses into our machines.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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