There are many companies nowadays who pay all their attention to improving their websites with the help of the definite system of the content management. The usage of the portal technologies is rather beneficial the portal vendors, so they try to make the integration of it with the main content. If we talk about the non-portal vendor, they tend to sell the products that are based on the traditional features of the content management. These can be creation of the pages, site management and much more.

May customers appear to be confused with the choice in web content management; the main reason of it is the total difference between the various systems. Here we will try to show the basic differences between the platforms and will show you the ways of choosing the right platform for the portal development.

Usually the systems of the portal are focused mainly on the delivery of the applications made in the integrated way. The content here is usually one single application. For example, let’s see how it goes in the intranet portal. Our main thoughts here are about how to provide the basic self-service access to the given resources and the system of the payroll. This system is created in order to allow users to run the update process with all the access to the given information in the web content management. The needed changes in the payroll can be also performed. Also the users will crave for display of the following content like the help or the policy. As we see, the main idea is to focus on the bare surface and perform the integration of those applications as well as to run some placeholders for the needed content.

The popularity of business portals is growing constantly as the people crave to expand their business to every spot on the Earth. The new information about the products is published by business owners, their prices and applications become accessible to the users and the popularity grows constantly.

The concept of B2C (business to customer) portal is rather popular today, as it can do the instant impact on the global business features, improving the effectiveness and rising the sales. More traffic is also the result of the portal existence. So let’s see what actually the B2C portal is and how do portal developers work with it?

What is so called B2C Portal?

This is the commercial platform where the e-commerce transactions among businesses take place.
Here you can easily exchange the product information and deliver them to the users, so they know where to buy or purchase your goods. This is also the place for the user to get the direct connection with the product sellers.

Here we are ready to discuss the main trends of the web portals taken by the most significant companies of the world. Most of them were mentioned on the Global Benchmarking Meeting that took place recently and gathered the great crowd of specialists in this field.

The whole branch of the local Forum was dedicated to the Intranet portals, as most of the visitors had the intimate knowledge of the up-to-date trends in this field. They were doing their best to figure out where the trends were heading and how did they affect the work of the whole organization. To play this game they had to know the rules. Before reading this, keep in mind that the Forum itself was not meant to be the consultancy, so the consultants didn’t take part in it as well as the leading technical vendors. So you can be sure the information given here is clear and free from any advertisement notes of the company representatives.

There are powerful features of the enterprise, such as blogging, podcasting, wikiing, bookmarking in the social sources etc. This is the way for the employees to gain the certain knowledge.

To tell the truth, the Enterprise 2.0 is working for considerably longer time then the Intranet 2.0. You can find quite a few of discussions around Enterprise 2.0 in the web. There are a lot of people who didn’t get in touch with this program yet; however we shall admit that the Enterprise 2.0 is really much like Intranet 2.0. The great difference is that one version is capitalized while the other is not. So you can see the other one is potentially bigger.

Intranet portal development offers the set of new abilities to the users, letting them feel freer and at ease while performing their daily actions. The life with these programs is better, and you’ll definitely feel it from the very first step.

Comparing the Enterprise and Web 2.0 we can see the same problems in both systems. Basically the content explosion was fueled by the significant new media. Our basic ability to find and create the brand new content as well as the chance to make it all organized and retrievable is the most valuable in the sea of the IT data.

Looking from the portal developer’s point of view, the user is mostly in need of the strong strategy for the effective search. The search engine shall be not the single component of the success. The users have to be skilled enough in tagging and storing the needed data, so that these actions could be performed in the proper way. The special rules and processes are present in all the stages, and this means the people should better follow them so that their actions are effective enough. If you’re talking about the intranet, the search appears to be the one part technology, both for the people and the process.

The content of this kind can easily be displayed by the WebSphere Portal. The portal obtains its own perfect system for the robust. It’s known as WCM, the content management system, an important part of the content management. However according to the surveys more then a half of all companies tend to have not only one but more systems and want all of them to be integrated in the portal. Here we offer the list of out-of-the-box solutions for the initial portal integration. With the help of them the content might get pulled from one system to another and still be displayed correctly.

Here we offer a few steps of the proper content management integration:
- Syndicated Feed Portlets. You can get the following system displayed the defined portlet. For example, the RSS or Atom feeds can be shown this way.
- Web content Integration. The items of the content get shipped in the form of data copies to the external systems of the portal. With the help of WCM you gain the perfect control over the content while the portal integration, with all the features of the formatting, personalization, workflow and much more.

Usually the users tend to come to the IT specialists with a following question of the time when they shall change the content management system into the portal. It wasn’t hard to give the appropriate answer, as the basic features of the right time to use the portal were the need to surface different applications, to login, run the personalization of the experience etc. However it’s not easy to define it nowadays and it has a little to do with the new trends available. During the web portal development the main vendors have taken enough time to move to this spot. The following example is the considerable illustration of the process.

The system of the Interwoven’s Livesite enabled the users not just to look through the given static content, as the personalization appeared to be really significant and easy-to-use. It took really long time for the Iwov, still the result was awesome with its flexibility and other available additions.

A good portal usually offers a single point to enter one or more different applications. The other feature is that they shall be linked together properly, as in other case the user will have a bad feeling of mosaic when browsing the portal. However the most important part of the framework of the chosen portal is the personalization. If the user logs in, the portal shall understand the chosen settings and offer the data according to them, so that the portal developer gets exactly what he wants.

The information of this article is neutral one; still you shall be aware that the author has the acquaintances with the JBoss as the portal and product. This article features the curious facts about portals in general manner. After reading the article throughout you will most likely decide if the portal is what you need in your architectural decision, or if it’s not. Here are several features of the portals.

Integration

When creating the portal, the portal developer shall mend it carefully into the infrastructure that already exists. All the SSO solutions along with the portal applications shall be in place from the very beginning.