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Question: What is a portal?

Answer: A portal is a starting point that offers quick links to other places on the internet.

Portal is a fairly new term for the World Wide Web. Portals are intended to be a starting point for people when they are using the Web. Most of the time a portal will have a collection of web site and a search engine. Yahoo is a great starting point for many people. Yahoo started with two guys taking lots of bookmarks and organized them into different major categories and even subcategories. The newer portals take this a step further and offer e-mail and other services directly from a page that you can personalize to be your personal portal.

This newer style of the personalized portal has gained much attention and use from the typical internet user. Personally I use Excite as a portal (pictured on the right). They were among the first to offered users this ability to create a personalized site. They allow customization of:

  • news
  • sports
  • weather information
  • e-mail
  • favorite links
  • stock quotes (personalized even)
  • quick links to specific search utilities
  • local TV listings
  • chat
  • horoscope
  • lots of other stuff
It even allows you to turn on or off different categories and arrange the display.

Question:What is the benefit of a portal over my bookmarks on my computer?

    Answer: Bookmarks are stored on your computer. Your portal is not a part of your computer but is a service that you sign-on to. Portals store information on their server and therefore it is available anytime and anywhere you can access the internet.
Question: If I sign-up for a portal and also get an e-mail account what does that do to my other e-mail account(s)?

    Answer: You have two (or more) e-mail accounts. Just remember to check them as needed. Many of the portals also have a way to check your other e-mail from their e-mail service. This is a great service to some people that have trouble gaining access to their e-mail while away from the office.
Question: If it is accessible anywhere, how secure is it?

    Answer: You have to enter your user name and password. Probably as secure as any e-mail system. Don't read too much between the lines - but if it's national security you're probably not sending it by e-mail anyway.
Question: Where can I find a portal?

    Answer: There are many different portal services that are available.
    • Excite offers a personalized portal at www.excite.com
    • Yahoo offers a personalized portal at my.yahoo.com
    • Netscape offers a personalized portal at my.netscape.com
    • Microsoft offers a personalized portal at home.microsoft.com
    • and I'm sure there are many more ;)

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