Web Portal, Blog or Website

 

Website, blog and portal Website: - The form "website" has become the most common spelling, but "Web site"

(capitalised) and "web site" are also widely used, though declining. Some academia, some large book publishers, and some dictionaries still use "Web site", reflecting the origin of the term in the proper name World Wide Web. There has also been similar debate regarding related terms such as web page, web server, and webcam.   A website, also written as web site, or simply site, is a set of related web related  web pages1 typically served from a single web single web domain2. A website is hosted on at least one web one web server, accessible server, accessible via a network such as the Internet the  Internet or a private local private local area network through an Internet address known as a Uniform a Uniform resource locator. All locator. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World the  World Wide Web.  Web.  A webpage is a document, a document,   typically written in  in plain text interspersed with formatting instructions of Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML,XHTML) (HTML,XHTML).. A webpage may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable mark-up suitable mark-up anchors. anchors.   Webpages are accessed and transported with the Hypertext the  Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption (HTTP Secure, HTTPS) Secure, HTTPS) to provide security and privacy for the user of the webpage content. The user's application, often a web a  web browser, renders browser, renders the  page content according to its HTML mark-up instructions instructions onto aa display  display terminal.  terminal.  The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a simple Uniform Resource Locator (URL) called the  the web address.  address.  The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although hyperlinking although  hyperlinking between  between them conveys the reader's perceived site perceived site structure and guides the reader's navigation of the site which generally includes a home a  home page with most of the links to the site's web site's web content, and content, and a supplementary about, contact about, contact and link and link page.  page.  Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription websites include many business sites, parts of news websites, academic websites, academic  journal websites, gaming websites, file-sharing websites, message websites, message boards, boards,   web-based email, web-based email,   social networking websites, websites providing real-time real-time  stock market data, and websites  providing various other services (e.g., websites offering storing and/or sharing of images, files and so forth).

1

 

page is a web document that  A web page is document that is suitable for the World Wide Web and Web and the

web browser  

domain name that name that specifies its exact location in the tree hierarchy of the Domain. Name System (DNS). System  (DNS). 

2

 

 

 Static website and Dynamic website: Static Website: - A static website is one that has web pages stored on the server in the format

that is sent to a client web browser. It is primarily coded in  in  Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML);Cascading (HTML);Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used to control appearance beyond  basic HTML. Images are commonly used to effect the desired desir ed appearance and as part of the main content. Audio or video might also be considered "static" content if it plays automatically or is generally non-interactive. This type of website usually displays the same information to all visitors. Similar to handing out a printed brochure to customers or clients, a static website will generally provide consistent, standard information for an extended period of time. Although the website owner may make updates periodically, it is a manual process to edit the text, photos and other content and may require basic website design skills and software. Simple forms or marketing examples of websites, such as classic website, website, a five-page website or website or a brochure website are website are often static websites, because they present pre-defined, static information to the user. This may include information about a company and its products and services through text, photos, animations, audio/video, and navigation menus. Static web sites can be edited using four broad categories of software:



 

Text editors,  editors,  such as Notepad as Notepad or  Text Edit,  Edit,  where content and HTML markup are manipulated directly within the editor program



 

WYSIWYG offline

editors,

such

as  as Microsoft

FrontPage and Adobe and Adobe

Dreamweaver (previously Macromedia Dreamweaver), with which the site is edited using a GUI a GUI and the final HTML mark-up is generated automatically by the editor software 

 

WYSIWYG online editors which create media rich online presentation like web pages, widgets, intro, blogs, and other documents.



 

Template-based editors,  editors,  such as Rapid as Rapid Weaver and iWeb, and iWeb,   which allow users to quickly create and upload web pages to a web server without detailed HTML knowledge, as they  pick a suitable template from a palette and add pictures and text to it in a desktop  publishing fashion without direct manipulation of HTML code

Static websites may still use  use   server side includes (SSI) as an editing convenience, such as sharing a common menu bar across many pages. As the site's behaviour to the reader is is still static, this is not considered a dynamic site.

 

 

Dynamic website: - A dynamic website is one that changes or customizes itself frequently

and automatically. Server-side dynamic pages are generated "on the fly" by computer code that produces the HTML and CSS. There are a wide range of software systems, such as CGI, as CGI,  Java

Servlets and  and Java

Server

Pages (JSP),  (JSP), Active

Server

Pages and ColdFusion and ColdFusion (CFML) that are available to generate  generate dynamic web systems and dynamic sites.  sites.  Various web Various web application frameworks and web and web template systems are available for general-use programming general-use programming languages like like PHP,  PHP, Perl,  Perl, Python,  Python,   and Ruby, and Ruby,   to make it faster and easier to create complex dynamic web sites. A site can display the current state of a dialogue between users, monitor a changing situation, or provide information in some way personalized to the requirements of the individual user. For example, when the front page of a news site is requested, the code running on the web server might combine stored HTML fragments with news stores retrieved from a database a  database or another web site via RSS via RSS to produce a page that includes the latest information. Dynamic sites can be interactive by using HTML using HTML forms, storing forms, storing and reading back  browser  browser cookies, o cookies, orr  by creating a series of pages that reflect the previous history of clicks. Another example of dynamic content is when a retail website with a database of media products allows a user to input a search request, e.g. for the keyword Beatles. keyword  Beatles. In  In response, the content of the web page will spontaneously change the way it looked before, and will then display a list of Beatles  products like CDs, DVDs and books. books. Dynamic HTML uses JavaScript uses JavaScript code to instruct the web browser how to interactively modify the page contents. One way to simulate a certain type of dynamic web site while avoiding the performance loss of initiating the dynamic engine on a per-user or per-connection basis, is to periodically automatically regenerate a large series of static pages.

Types of website:-

Websites can be divided into two broad categories - static and interactive. Interactive sites are part of the Web the  Web 2.0 community of sites, and allow for interactivity between the site

 

owner and site visitors. Static sites serve or capture information but do not allow engagement with the audience directly. Some web sites are informational or produced by enthusiasts or for personal use or entertainment. Many web sites do aim to make money, using one or more business models, including:



 

Posting interesting content and selling contextual selling contextual advertising either through direct sales or through an advertising network.



 

E-commerce - products or services are purchased directly through the web site



 

Advertise products or services available at a brick a brick and mortar business



 

Freemium - basic content is available for free but premium content is paid

Some websites may be included in one or more of these categories. For example, a business website may promote the business's products, but may also host informative documents, such as  as white papers.  papers.  There are also numerous sub-categories to the ones listed above. For example, a porn a porn site is a specific type of e-commerce site or business site (that is, it is trying to sell memberships for access to its site) or have social networking capabilities. A fan A  fan site may be a dedication from the owner to a particular  celebrity.   celebrity.  Websites are constrained by architectural limits (e.g., the computing power dedicated to the website). Very large websites, such as Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google employ many servers and  and load balancing equipment such as Cisco as Cisco Content Services Switches Services Switches to distribute visitor loads over multiple computers at multiple locations. As of early 2011, Facebook utilized 9 data centres with approximately 63,000 servers. In February 2009, Net 2009, Net craft,  craft,  an an Internet  Internet monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, reported that there were 215,675,903 websites with domain names and content on them in 2009, compared to just 19,732 websites in August 1995.

Blog: - A blog (a truncation of the expression web l og  ) is a discussion or informational site

 published on the  the  World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first). Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a smal smalll group, and often covered a single subject. More recently "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited. MABs from  newspapers, other  newspapers, other

 

media outlets, universities, outlets, universities, think  think tanks, advocacy tanks, advocacy groups and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of  Twitter  Twitter and other "microblogging" systems "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into societal news teams. Blog  teams. Blog  can  can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog . The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of  web  web  publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users. (Previously, a knowledge of such technologies as HTML as  HTML and FTP and FTP had been required to publish content on the Web.) A majority are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via GUI via  GUI widgets on the blogs, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of  social   social networking service.  service.   Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs, but also build social relations with their readers and other bloggers. There are high-readership blogs which do not allow comments, such as Daring as Daring Fireball.  Fireball.  Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject; others function as more  personal  online diaries;   personal diaries;  others function more as online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web blogs,  Web  pages,   and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an  pages, interactive format is an important contribution to the popularity of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blogs) blogs),, photographs (photo blogs), blogs), videos (video blogs or "vlogs"), music (MP3 blogs), blogs), and audio (podcasts). (podcasts). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts. In education, blogs can be used as instructional resources. These blogs are referred to as edu as  edu blogs.  blogs.  On 16 February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence. On 20 February 2014, there were around 172 million Tumblr million  Tumblr and 75.8 million WordPress million WordPress blogs  blogs in existence worldwide. According to critics and other bloggers, Blogger bloggers, Blogger is the most popular blogging service used today, however Blogger does not offer public statistics. public statistics.   Technorati has 1.3 million blogs as of February 22, 2014. Types: - There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content,

 but also in the way that content is delivered or written. Personal blogs: - The personal blog is an ongoing diary or commentary written by an

individual. 

 

Microblogging:   - Microblogging is the practice of posting small pieces of digital content —  Microblogging:  — 

which could be text, pictures, links, short videos, or other media — on on the Internet. Microblogging offers a portable communication mode that feels organic and spontaneous to many and has captured the public imagination. Friends use it to keep in touch, business associates use it to coordinate meetings or share useful resources, and celebrities and  politicians (or their publicists) microblog about concert dates, lectures, book releases, or tour schedules. A wide and growing range of add-on tools enables sophisticated updates and interaction with other applications, and the resulting profusion of functionality is helping to define

new

possibilities

for

this

type

of

communication. Examples

of

these

include Twitter, include  Twitter, Facebook,  Facebook, Tumblr,  Tumblr, and  and by far the largest WeiBo. largest  WeiBo.  Corporate and organizational blogs: - A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be

for  business purposes.  business purposes. Blogs used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or

externally

for

marketing, marketing, branding  branding or  public

relations purposes relations purposes

are

called corporate called  corporate blogs.  blogs.  Similar blogs for clubs and societies are called club blogs, group  blogs, or by similar names; typical use is to inform members and other interested parties of club and member activities.  as  political blogs, health blogs, health By genre: By  genre:   - Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as   blogs,  travel blogs (also known as travel blogs),  blogs, blogs), gardening blogs, house blogs, fashion blogs, fashion  blogs,project  blogs ,project blogs,  blogs, education blogs,  blogs, niche blogs,  blogs, classical music blogs,  blogs,  quizzing blogs and  legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or  dreamlogs.  and  dreamlogs. How To/Tutorial To/Tutorial blogs  blogs are  becoming increasing popular. Two common types of genre blogs are  are  art blogs and music and music  blogs.   A blog featuring discussions especially about home  blogs. about home and family and family is not uncommonly called

a mom a 

blog and

one

made

popular

is

by  by Erica

Diamond who

created

Womenonthefence.com which is syndicated to over two million readers monthly. While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog. a  Splog.  a vlog, one  one comprising links is called By media type: - A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, a linklog,   linklog,  a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called aa sketchblog  sketchblog or one comprising  photos is called a photoblog.   photoblog.  Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. called  tumblelogs. Blogs  Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs; see typecasting see typecasting (blogging).  A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher the Gopher Protocol is known as a Phlog. a Phlog.   By device: - Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog

written by a mobile a mobile device like a mobile a mobile phone or  PDA  PDA could be called a moblog. a  moblog. One  One early

 

 blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance. as  sousveillance. Such  Such journals have been used as evidence in legal matters.  Reverse blog:  blog:  -A Reverse Blog is composed by its users rather than a single blogger. This system has the characteristics of a blog, and the writing of several authors. These can be

written by several contributing authors on a topic, or opened up for anyone to write. There is typically some limit to the number of entries to t o keep it from operating like aa Web  Web Forum. 

Personal safety: - One consequence of blogging is the possibility of attacks or threats against

the blogger, sometimes without apparent reason. Kathy Sierra, Sierra, author of the innocuous blog "Creating Passionate Users", was the target of such vicious threats and misogynistic insults that she cancelled her keynote speech at a technology conference in San Diego, fearing for her safety. While a blogger's anonymity is often tenuous, Internet trolls who trolls who would attack a  blogger with threats or insults can be emboldened by anonymity. Sierra and supporters initiated an online discussion aimed at countering abusive online behaviour and developed a blogger's code of conduct. conduct.  specially-designed Web page which brings Web Portal: - A web portal is most often one specially-designed Web information together from diverse sources in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displaying information (a  portlet);  portlet); often, the user

can

configure

which

ones

to

display.

Variants

of

portals

include mashups and intranet" include mashups and intranet"dashboards" dashboards" for executives and managers. The extent to which content is displayed in a "uniform way" may depend on the intended user and the intended  purpose, as well as the diversity of the content. Very often design emphasis is on a certain "metaphor" for configuring and customizing the presentation of the content and the chosen implementation framework and/or code libraries. In addition, the role of the user in an organization may determine which content can be added to the portal or deleted from the  portal configuration. A portal may use a search engine API to permit users to search intranet content as opposed to extranet content by restricting which domains may be searched. Apart from this common search common  search engines feature, web portals may offer other services such as e-mail, as  e-mail,   news,

 

stock quotes, information from databases and even entertainment content. Portals provide a way for enterprises and organizations to provide a consistent  consistent  look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications and databases, which otherwise would have  been different web entities at various URLs. The features available may be restricted by whether access is by an authorized and authenticated user (employee,member) or an anonymous site visitor. Examples

of

early

public

web

portals

were AOL, were  AOL, Excite,  Excite, Netvibes,  Netvibes, iGoogle, MSN, MSN, Naver, Lycos, India India times, Rediff, and Yahoo!. Yahoo!. See for example, the "My Yahoo!" feature of Yahoo! which may have inspired such features as the later Google "iGoogle" (discontinued as of November 1, 2013.) The configurable side panels of, for example, the modern Opera browser and the option of "Speed Dial" Dial " pages by most browsers continue to reflect the earlier "portal" metaphor.  or vertical . A horizontal Classification: - Web portals are sometimes classified as horizontal  or  portal is used as a platform to several companies in the same economic sector or to the same type of manufacturers or distributors. A vertical portal (also known as a "vortal") is a specialized entry point to a specific market or industry niche, subject area, or interest. Some vertical portals are known as "vertical information portals" (VIPs). VIPs provide news, editorial content, digital publications, and e-commerce capabilities. In contrast to traditional vertical portals, VIPs also provide dynamic multimedia applications including social networking, video posting, and blogging. Types of Web Portals: Personal portals

A personal portal is a web page at a web site on the World Wide Web or a local HTML home  page including JavaScript and perhaps running in a modified web browser. A personal per sonal portal typically provides personalized capabilities to its visitors or its local user, providing a  pathway to other content. It may be designed to use distributed applications, different numbers and types of middleware and hardware to provide services from a number of different sources and may run on a non-standard local web server. In addition, business  portals can be designed for sharing and collaboration in workplaces. A further businessdriven requirement of portals is that the content be presented on multiple platforms such as personal

computers, personal

digital

assistants (PDAs),

and cell

phones/mobile

 phone/mobile phones. Information, news, and updates are examples of content that would be

 

delivered through such a portal. Personal portals can be related to any specific topic such as  providing friend information on a social network or providing links to outside content that may help others beyond your reach of services. Portals are not limited to simply providing links. Outside of business intracet user, very often simpler portals become replaced with richer mashup designs. Within enterprises, early portals were often replaced by much more  powerful "dashboard" designs. Some also have relied on newer protocols such as some version of RSS aggregation and may or may not involve some degree of web harvesting. Government web portals

At the end of the dot-com boom in the 1990s, many governments had already committed to creating portal sites for their citizens. These included primary portals to the governments as well as portals developed for specific audiences. Examples of government web portals include:



 

australia.gov.au for Australia.



 

USA.gov for the United States (in English) & GobiernoUSA.gov (in Spanish).



 

www.gov.lk for Sri Lanka.



 

Disability.gov for citizens with disabilities in the United States.



 

Europa (web portal) links to all EU agencies and institutions in addition to press releases and audio visual content from press conferences.



 

gov.uk for citizens & businesslink.gov.uk for businesses in the United Kingdom.



 

Health-EU portal gathers all relevant health topics from across Europe.



 

india.gov.in for India.



   National Resource Directory links to resources for United States Service Members,

Veterans and their families. 

 

newzealand.govt.nz for New Zealand.



 

Saudi.gov.sa for Saudi Arabia.

Cultural portals

Cultural portal aggregate digitised cultural collections of galleries, libraries, archives and museums. This type of portals provides a point of access to invisible web cultural content that may not be indexed by standard search engines. Digitised collections can include books, artworks, photography, journals, newspapers, music, sound recordings, film, maps, diaries and letters, and archived websites as well as the descriptive metadata associated with each

 

type of cultural work. These portals are usually based around a specific national or regional groupings of institutions. Examples of cultural portals include:



 

DigitalNZ  –   A cultural portal led by the National Library of New Zealand focused on  New Zealand digital content.



 

Europeana –  A   A cultural portal for the European Union based in the National Library of the Netherlands and overseen by b y the Europeana Foundation.



 

Trove  –  A   A cultural portal led by the National Library of Australia focused on Australian content.



 

In development - Digital Public Library of America

Corporate web portals

Corporate intranets became common during the 1990s. As intranets grew in size and complexity, webmasters were faced with increasing increasi ng content and user management challenges. A consolidated view of company information was judged insufficient; users wanted  personalization and customization. Webmasters, if skilled enough, were able to offer some capabilities, but for the most part ended up driving users away from using the intranet. Many companies began to offer tools to help webmasters manage their data, applications and information more easily, and through personalized views. Portal solutions can also include workflow management, collaboration between work groups, and policy-managed content  publication. Most can allow internal and external access to specific corporate information using secure authentication or single sign-on. JSR168 Standards emerged around 2001. Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 standards allow the interoperability of portlets across different portal platforms. These standards allow  portal developers, administrators and consumers to integrate standards-based portals and  portlets across a variety of vendor solutions. The concept of content aggregation seems to still gain momentum and portal solution will likely continue to evolve significantly over the next few years. The Gartner Group predicts generation 8 portals to expand on the Business Mashups concept of delivering a variety of information, tools, applications and access points through a single mechanism. With the increase in user generated content, disparate data silos, and file formats, information architects and taxonomist will be required to allow users the ability to tag (classify) the data.

 

This will ultimately cause a ripple effect where users will also be generating ad hoc navigation and information flows. Corporate Portals also offer customers & employees self-service opportunities. Stock portals

Also known as stock-share portals, stock market portals or stock exchange portals are Web based applications that facilitates f acilitates the process of informing the share-holders with substantial online data such as the latest price, ask/bids, the latest News, reports and announcements. Some stock portals use online gateways through a central depository system (CDS) for the visitors (ram) to buy or sell their shares or manage their portfolio. Search portals

Search portals aggregate results from several search engines into one page. Tender portals

A tender portal is a gateway for government suppliers to bid on providing goods and services. Tender portals allow users to search, modify, submit, review and archive data in order to  provide a complete online tendering process. Using online tendering, bidders can do any of the following:



 

Receive notification of the tenders.



 

Receive tender documents online.



 

Fill out the forms online.



 

Submit proposals and documents.



 

Submit bids online.

Hosted web portals

Hosted web portals gained popularity and a number of companies began offering them as a hosted service. The hosted portal market fundamentally changed the composition of portals. In many ways they served simply as a tool for publishing information instead of the loftier goals of integrating legacy applications or presenting correlated data from distributed databases. The early hosted portal companies such as Hyperoffice.com or the now defunct InternetPortal.com focused on collaboration and scheduling in addition to the distribution of corporate data. As hosted web portals have risen in popularity their feature set has grown to include hosted databases, document management, email, discussion forums and more. Hosted

 

 portals automatically personalize the content generated from their modules to provide a  personalized experience to their users. In this regard they have remained true to the original ori ginal goals of the earlier corporate web portals. Emerging new classes of internet portals called Cloud Portals are showcasing the power of API (Application Programming Interface) rich software systems leveraging SOA (service oriented architecture, web services, and custom data exchange) to accommodate machine to machine interaction creating a more fluid user experience for connecting users spanning multiple domains during a given "session". Leading cloud portals like Nubifer Cloud Portal showcase what is possible using Enterprise Mashup and Web Service integration approaches to building cloud portals. Domain-specific portals

A number of portals have come about which are specific to the particular domain, offering access to related companies and services; a prime example of this trend would be the growth in property portals that give access to services such as estate agents, removal firm, f irm, and solicitors that offer conveyancing. Along the same lines, industry-specific news and information portals have appeared, such as the clinical trials-specific portal.

Overview: - The main concept is to present the user with a single web page that brings

together or aggregates content from a number of other systems or servers. The application server or architecture performs most of the crucial functions of the application. This application server is in turn connected to database servers, and may be part of a clustered server environment. High-capacity portal configurations may include load balancing strategies. For portals that present application functionality to the user, the portal server is in reality the front piece of a server configuration that includes some connectivity to the application server. For early web browsers permitting HTML frameset and iFrame elements, diverse information could be presented without violating the browser same-source security policy (relied upon to  prevent a variety of cross-site cross-si te security breaches.) More recent client-side technologies rely on JavaScript frameworks and libraries that rely on more recent web functionality such as WebSockets and async callbacks using XMLHttpRequests.

 

In such a design, security and concurrent user capacity can be important issues, and security designers need to ensure that only authenticated and authorized users can generate requests to the application server. If the security design and administration does not ensure adequate authentication and authorization, then the portal may inadvertently present vulnerabilities to various types of attacks.  attacks.