By : Nidhi Gupta

1. Regional Web portals

   Along with the development and success of international Web portals such as Yahoo!, regional variants have also sprung up. Some regional portals contain local information such as weather forecasts, street maps and local business information. Another notable expansion over the past couple of years is the move into formerly unthinkable markets.

   “Local content - global reach” portals have emerged not only from countries like India (Rediff), (MswPower.Com) and China (Sina.com) but also like Italy (Webplace.it) and so on. Such portals reach out to the widespread diaspora spread across the world. [[A good Portal-www.chembur.net-Information & Business Portal Its regional portal from Mumbai-India,free for all for placing Information]]

2. 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. In the United States the main portal is FirstGov.gov; in the United Kingdom the main portals are Directgov (for citizens) and businesslink.gov.uk (for businesses).

   Many U.S. states have their own portals which provide direct access to eCommerce applications (e.g., Hawaii Business Express and myIndianaLicense), agency and department web sites, and more specific information about living in, doing business in and getting around the state.

   Many U.S. states have chosen to out-source the operation of their portals to third-party vendors. The most successful company to date for this is NICUSA which runs 18 state portals. NICUSA focuses on the self-funded model, and does not charge the state for work. Instead it is supported by transaction fees for its applications.

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By: Nidhi Gupta

Many bloggers, when first setting things up, are faced with one of the most critical decisions any blogger can make, that is, which CMS to use? There are many out there, all with their respective pros and cons. Here, we’ll be looking at several key aspects pertaining to two of today’s premier content management systems: Wordpress 2.2, and Movable Type 4.

Installation
Wordpress is famous for its “5 minute installation”, and once you’ve done it, anything slower will start feeling painful. All that’s needed is having an SQL database set up, unzipping of the Wordpress zip (less than 1MB), editing the wp-config file, uploading it all to your server and running the install.php (note: takes a lot longer than 5 mins on first try).

One of the first things to be noticed in regards Movable Type is its relatively massive file size, 4MB - Wordpress is only a quarter of the size. Relative to the file-size, it took a couple minutes to upload to the server. As for the actual installation, while it did go perfectly smoothly, there was a slight bit more technical knowledge needed.

Interface
In Wordpress, the initial window you’re presented with is called the “Dashboard”. This provides you with plenty of useful information at-a-glance. Your last 5 posts, comments, blog stats, recent Technorati links, and Akismet spam count are all displayed there. The lower part of that screen also displays posts from the Wordpress development blog, as well as “other Wordpress news” and your recent drafts.

After you’ve looked through your Dashboard, you can click on any one of the tabs at the top: Write, Manage, Comments, Blogroll, Presentation, Plugins, Users, and Options. Each one of these pages is similarly laid out, coherent, consistent, and intuitive all the way around.

Now, on to Movable Type. Much like Wordpress, you’re initially presented with a screen, also dubbed the “Dashboard”. Here, you’re presented with a more contextually oriented menu system in the top bar, which contains 5 main groups: Create, Edit, Organize, Design, and Config. This all integrates very smoothly and is a pleasure to use.

Source: Mashable.com

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By : Nidhi Gupta

Internet giant AOL has completed its acquisition of online advertising firm Quigo. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

AOL announced it was acquiring New York-based Quigo on November 7 to expand its contextual advertising prowess, which basically matches text adverts to relevant Web pages. Quigo’s two main offerings are: AdSonar, which allows advertisers to buy ads on Websites based on specific pages, sections, topics or keywords; and FeedPoint, a search engine marketing business that helps retail advertisers manage their marketing relationships with search and comparison shopping engines.

AOL said it will use Quigo’s technology for its own Web pages as well as third-parties. Founded in 2000 and employing over 100 staff Quigo will now become a wholly-owned subsidiary of AOL’s Platform-A division, which was set up in September to consolidate and manage network sales operations for AOL’s contextual and behavioral technology and service offerings to brand advertisers.

AOL, which is a majority owned subsidiary of Time Warner, also inherits over 500 Quigo online publishing partners, including a recently cemented deal with Time that boasts a network of around 3,000 advertisers.

Source: Computerwire.com
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